Unseen Art Scene (mirror)

August 7, 2007 Timbuktu Hopes Ancient Texts Spark a Revival By LYDIA POLGREEN Correction Appended *N.B. See and listen to Lydia Polgreen talking about Timbuktu. http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/world/20070807_MALI_FEATURE/index.html TIMBUKTU, Mali — Ismaël Diadié Haïdara held a treasure in his slender fingers that has somehow endured through 11 generations — a square of battered leather enclosing a history of the two branches of his family, one side reaching back to the Visigoths in Spain and the other to the ancient origins of the Songhai emperors who ruled this city at its zenith. “This is our family’s story,” he said, carefully leafing through the unbound pages. “It was written in 1519.” The musty collection of fragile, crumbling pages, written in the florid Arabic script of the sixteenth century, is also this once forgotten outpost’s future. A surge of interest in ancient books, hidden for centuries in houses along Timbuktu’s dusty streets and in leather trunks in nomad camps, ...

AMÂNCIO D’ALPOIM (PANCHO) GUEDES a biographical essay - Cedric Green Source:http://www.guedes.info/abcontfram.htm This essay was published in "LISBOSCOPIO" the catalogue of the official Portuguese representation at the 10th International Architecture Exhibition - 2006 Venice Biennale - where Pancho Guedes was chosen, together with Ricardo Jacinto to represent Portugal.. The Catalogue was produced and edited by the Portuguese Institute of Arts. In September 1952, a young Portuguese architect from Mozambique stepped off a Lloyd Triestino passenger ship at Venice, to visit the Biennale at the start of a long and eventful journey through Europe. In his luggage he had designs and photographs of buildings he had already done in Lourenço Marques (now Maputo). He was coming to Europe for the first time since he was 7 years old, when his family moved from Lisbon to Mozambique in 1932. This journey was a kind of pilgrimage to see the originals of the cities, buildings and art that he ...

I do hope that the Dak'Art 2008 Festival makes a huge song and dance over Iba N'Diaye this year. Personally, I wanted to write about the importance of this artist, now in his 80th year. Iba N'Diaye is a National hero in Senegal and a vital part of contemporary African art internationally. I would like to present those interested in contemporary Africa art with the works of this wonderful artist, Iba N'Diaye - the theme of this work is Jazz and Blues.... Here is his biography for all to read. Iba N'Diaye (b.1928) Senegal/France Iba N'Diaye was born in 1928 in Saint Louis, Senegal, which, like all port towns, is a place where many races and cultures meet. At the age of fifteen, when he was a student at the Lycée Faidherbe, he painted film posters for the town's two cinemas. This early familiarity with cinematographic images would eventually influence his painting techniques. By 1949 he was living in Paris, where he studied architecture at the Ecole des Beaux ...

Photo by Chester Higgins Jr. Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/18/books/18cesaire.html?ref=arts April 18, 2008 Aimé Césaire, Martinique Poet and Politician, Dies at 94 By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FORT-DE-FRANCE, Martinique (AP) — Aimé Césaire, an anticolonialist poet and politician who was honored throughout the French-speaking world and who was an early proponent of black pride, died here on Thursday. He was 94. A government spokeswoman, Marie Michèle Darsières, said he died at a hospital where he was being treated for heart problems and other ailments. Mr. Césaire was one of the Caribbean’s most celebrated cultural figures. He was especially revered in his native Martinique, which sent him to the French parliament for nearly half a century and where he was repeatedly elected mayor of Fort-de-France, the capital city. In Paris in the 1930s he helped found the journal Black Student, which gave birth to the idea of “negritude,” a call to blacks to cultivate pride in their heritage. His...

George Hughes | Ghana/USA Originally from Ghana, George is one of the leading Ghanaian artists in the world and lives in Buffalo with his wife and daughter and works as an art lecturer at New York State University. Recently he produced a book of his new works entitled Gatherings. This is a short slide show of artwork by George Hughes | Ghana/USA Here is a message I received this week by email from the artist: Hello friends, My new catalogue containing a selection of recent paintings is available at Blurb! Entitled: Gatherings Please preview and place your order if you're so inclined... It's a book release, and you're invited -- come check out my new book at Blurb: http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/invited/147926/08fec376ea1bd648e4309263d711ff87 Regards, George

Lothar Böttcher | September 2006 Lothar Böttcher, Ignus Gerber & Justice Mokoena “The lighter side” In Lothar Böttcher’s sculptures glass becomes the focal point. Through glass the artist aims to manipulate and in a sense capture light. He attempts to make the viewer aware of the surroundings within the glass. Creating lenses, he offers a point of view (abstractly), changing perspective and observation of the contiguous space. Böttcher asks whether we really observe or understand our role in the world around us due to filters like beliefs and personal experiences. Everybody has a unique point of view. The variables are infinite. “Without light there is no subject. Without subject (particles and waves) there will be no light. Call it the “Ubuntu” of the Universe. There’s a funny side to existence if one thinks of everything as black and therefore invisible, until there’s light! Until it happens…” – Ignus Gerber “Sound is capable to create various environments transporting the liste...

Artist Etona on Exhibit at the Altharetta Yeargin Museum The work of Antonio Tomas Ana, better known as Etona, was featured in an exhibit held November 4 - 12 at the Altharetta Yeargin Art Museum in Houston, Texas in celebration of the 30th anniversary of Angola`s independence. The artist who was present at the opening is well known within his native Angola and has made a name for himself in the international world of art as well. His work has been exhibited in varied venues including the Park of the National Museum and Gallery in England, and the Museum of Africa in Cuba. He has been honored by having his work selected for the Best of African Painters Collection and was awarded The International Prize of Fine Arts by the Aznar Association in Spain in 2005. The work on display at the Altharetta Yeargin Art Museum was made up of the two major media in which he chooses to work, sculpture and painting. His sculpture is primarily in wood with a few smaller pieces in stone while his choice...