The Laboratory of Living Arts + "With Title" v.s ARCO Madrid / 2004 |
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The theme for ARCO 2004 was African Art, so with the collaboration of the artist "With Title" from Ghana, I decided to enter the exhibition and distribute, amongst other things, his pamphlet "Preaching to the unconverted".
Unfortunately out of hundreds and hundreds of Galleries only 3 where actually African Galleries. Africa was used as a theme to conduct art business having very little to do with African art itself. In the meantime, many non-African galleries exhibited exotic-erotic photographs of nameless black people, in the long tradition of the Occidental vision of other cultures. |
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The artist "With Title" and I had the chance to spend some time with the Director of the Gallery "Chab" from Bamako, Mali, which had on show the work of African photographers. He talked about his experience of the African Art scene and discussed the problems of events such as ARCO with enthusiasm and yes, quite a bit of frustration. He described the experience as embarrassing on one hand but as a foot in the door for future changes as well. Hoping for a proper representation of African Art, away from the clichés expected by the general public, as well as carried by Art History and the Art market. |
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All images © The Laboratory of Living Arts / Laurie Legrand, 2008. All rights reserved.