Ford Foundation grant to Africana supports contemporary artists

By Franklin Crawford

The Ford Foundation has awarded $300,000 to Cornell's Africana Studies and Research Center to help strengthen and sustain the presence of contemporary African and African diaspora artists on a global scale. The Ford grant supports the second phase of the Cornell-affiliated projects -- Africa in Venice and Forum for African Arts -- under the direction of Salah Hassan, and includes participation of several pan-African artists in the 49th Venice Biennale this June. The Ford Foundation contributed to the project's initial phase in 1999.

Hassan, Cornell associate professor of African and diaspora art history and visual culture at the Africana Studies and Research Center, is co-curator for the upcoming show with Olu Oguibe, a prominent New York-based Nigerian art historian and art critic. The exhibition, titled "Authentic/Ex-centric: Africa In and Out of Africa," will be premiered at the Venice Biennale. In addition to the exhibit, a scholarly companion book titled Authentic/Ex-centric: African Conceptualism in Global Contexts will be published in collaboration with two major European and African publishers.

Hassan serves as a member of the Forum for African Arts, an international nonprofit group of distinguished artists, curators, scholars and critics concerned with the advancement of African arts. Forum members include: Okwui Enwezor, the prominent New York-based Nigerian curator, art critic and current artistic director of Documenta XI; Gilane Tawadros, director of the London-based Institute of International Visual Arts; and Marylin Martin, director of the South African National Gallery in Cape Town, among others. The grant assists the forum in its mission to help document, research and promote contemporary African visual arts and culture and to help African artists achieve a sustained global presence, said Hassan. The Venice Biennale is a prestigious international exhibition, and this show is an unprecedented display of modern and postmodern African works, he said. It is the first African art exhibit of its kind, conceived and curated by two prominent African curators, to appear at the Biennale. It also is a quantum departure from the stereotypical notions of African art as primarily exotic craftworks of woodcarvings and colorful textiles or, at best, products of naïve and self-taught artists.

Artist María Magdalena Campos-Pons is Afro-Cuban. The Yoruba traditions and practices of her African ancestors figure strongly in her work. The work shown here, which appeared on the cover of Third Text, is from her When I Am Not Here/Estoy Alla series in which she refers to the protective presence of her ancestors.

"These are not stereotypical African artworks but works that involve cutting-edge technology, multimedia installations, film, video and completely new areas of production," said Hassan of the works to be exhibited in Venice. "A large part of this effort is to write the history of contemporary African art and establish a global presence of African and African diaspora artists -- to show Africa, not just as a geographical entity, but as a historical presence. The Ford grant is helping us to gain that recognition and visibility."

Hassan said there is promising discussion about bringing some of the show to Cornell, eventually. The spectacular success of the "Blackness in Color" exhibition, co-curated by Hassan at Cornell's Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art last fall, demonstrates a strong interest in works by African-American and African Diaspora artists whose works were previously neglected by mainstream art institutions and critics, he said.

The Ford grant also will help deepen Cornell's academic presence in the world of African art and allow the university to continue making significant contributions to the field. Cornell Library's digital collections will expand its database of more than 800 contemporary African artists, whose images will soon be available to the public via the Internet and in CD-ROM format. NKA: Journal of Contemporary African Art, based in Cornell's Einaudi Center for International Studies and published through the Africana Center and Cornell, also will publish materials related to the event. Hassan said other academic works will come out of the forum, including a series of monographs on African artists, and the work of the Forum for African Arts will generate future projects in which Cornell will play an important role.

For more information, contact Salah Hassan at 255-0528.