For use by louiseg@nationalpositions.com only. Distribution prohibited.

AFRICAN ART
IN THE HEART OF
NEW YORK
From food, fashion and art to prized
museum collections and bold new cultural
centres, the beat of Africa is being heard
loudly and clearly in New York City, writes
Bridget Hilton-Barber

WHILE ITS SNOWING

OUTSIDE RIGHT NOW, THE
CENTRES FULL OF THE PROMISE
OF AN INSPIRING AFRICAN
CULTURAL SPRING.

For use by louiseg@nationalpositions.com only. Distribution prohibited.

new york
THIS WILL BE THE
PLACE TO HAVE
THE CONTINENTAL
CONVERSATION,
says Michelle D Gavin, MD of The
Africa Center. Its at the northern end
of Fifth Avenues famous Museum
Mile, opposite Central Park and
overlooking a giant statue of jazz
musician Duke Ellington and his
piano. While its snowing outside right
now, the centres full of the promise of
an inspiring African cultural spring.
Building on its history as the
Museum for African Art, the Africa
Center is set to open soon as a
multimedia hub promoting the arts,
dialogue and business networking
between the worlds hippest city and
oldest continent. Formerly a mobile
centre doing travelling exhibitions (it
organised over 150 in Europe and the
USA in its time), the new centre has
now found a home at this prestigious
New York address and buildings in
full progress.
It will showcase art, photography,
   $ 
more. Culture can change peoples
minds, says Gavin, a former American
ambassador to Botswana, who speaks

of Africa with passion and clarity.

Therell be a contemporary bias,
she says. We want young Africans to
speak for themselves.
Designed by Tanzanian-born
architect David Adjaye, whos
based in the UK and has been
awarded the Order of the British
Empire for his work, the centre also
has clout on its board in the form of
Chelsea Clinton and Hadeel Ibrahim,
daughter of Dr Mohamed Mo
Ibrahim, a Sudanese-British mobile
communications entrepreneur and
billionaire philanthropist.
There are three spokes to the
Africa Center, explains Gavin.
Firstly, it will showcase culture;
secondly, it will be a platform for
critical thinking and thirdly, it will
be a place where people can do
business networking. There are
three themes that interest the centre
urbanisation, managing diversity
and empowering youth. We want to
create more understanding and tap
into the rich array of partnerships
on the continent, she says.
We arent a government entity
and we arent an NGO; were a centre
that wants to change the national
conversation. I think people are

BELOW:
The soul of Africa rises
in snowy New York.
OPPOSITE:
The Brooklyn
Museum houses a
fascinating African
art collection.

ready to manage some complexity

around African issues. We want to
create dialogue and try to change the
national outlook.
While the Africa Center is set to
be a powerful continental presence
at an already well frequented address
in Manhattan, across the Brooklyn
Bridge, the African spirit warms the
coldest winter on record. Brooklyn is
traditionally the home of the African
Diaspora you can buy Kenyan
fabric, listen to Ghanaian drummers
in Prospect Park and shop at West

  % $ 
creative expression in the Soul of
Brooklyn Week, which is held during
summer in August.
The Soul of Brooklyn festival is a
borough-wide celebration of the
diverse arts and cultures of Brooklyns
African Diaspora. It promotes
African arts and culture, while
supporting partnerships between
local arts organisations and black
businesses. The festival includes
over 20 performances, street fairs,
educational events, workshops,
 
$ 
 

opportunities. Its designed to get
locals and tourists to support the
cultural economy of Brooklyn.

May 2015 Sawubona 49

new york

Not even the bitter cold can keep

the crowds away from the Brooklyn
Museum, which is famed for its
Egyptian collection, said to be one of
the best in the world. The museum
also currently has a powerful African
exhibition which will run until the end
of next year. Its called Double Take:
African Innovations. You may
sense the hand of Eshu,
er,
the Yoruba trickster,
ads,
god of the crossroads,
nd
in the relocation and
$ 

our African art
collection, says
the museum,
which is in the
ng
process of reworking
and re-housing its entire
African collection. While
haos and
Eshu may bring chaos
" 

 " 
the traveller the possibility
$
    %
that spirit, amid the disruption of
Brooklyns African art galleries, Double
Take: African Innovations is an
experimental, temporary installation
 "  
 
African art.
The exhibition takes a fresh
approach: pairing or grouping
artworks on the basis of themes,
50 Sawubona May 2015

solutions and techniques that

recur in African art across time and
space. Featuring an amazing display
of objects from hair ornaments,
ceremonial masks and three-legged

"0  
$   

 
 
surprising connections between
  
" 

and places for example,
an ancient Chokwe
ch
chiefs chair alongside
a metal throne forged
from old AK47s made
by contemporary
Mozambican artist
Gonalo Mabunda.
Mabundas made a
powe
powerful name for himself
intern
internationally with his
pione
pioneering sculptures from
decom
decommissioned weapons
salvage from the civil war.
salvaged
His work is in galleries in
Berlin, Paris, Palm Beach, London
and Cape Town, and its his thrones
like the one in the Brooklyn
Museum that have generated most
international attention as a nonetoo-subtle comment on Africas postcolonial rulers.
From art to fashion and food,
spirited South Africans are also


 
  

ABOVE:
Faces and Phases by
Zanele Muholi.
LEFT:
Created by an
unidentied artist,
this Gela mask
comprises animal
horns and teeth,
plant bres, soil
and ceramic.

worlds hippest city. In just one

week the coldest February
on record South African jazz
trumpeter Hugh Masekela was
performing in the city with guitarist
and singer Vusi Mahlasela, South
African fashion designer David Tlale
was turning the heads of warmlydressed fashionistas with his wow
collection at the Mercedes-Benz
Fashion Week and the touristy
icon, Madibas Restaurant, was
continuing to serve hip homemade
fare to cold, hungry visitors.
Madibas slogan is, appropriately, a
place of love since 1999 the year it
was opened by South Africans Grant
Henegan and his wife, Jenny. The
restaurant started out in Fort Green
in Brooklyn. It then expanded and
moved to Dekalb Avenue and also
generated a sister in Harlem the
+ 
 8 =
" 

 " 

vibes la Nelson Mandela himself.
Madibas is decorated in friendly
shebeen chic and serves traditional
fare like vetkoek, lamb sosaties,
boerewors rolls, frikkadels with
chakalaka and gentle humour.
You can have a Salad for All or a
Bushmans Breakfast. The restaurant
pays homage to SAs revered former
President and it was here that

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many South Africans living in

Brooklyn gathered when he passed
away in December 2013.
Its based on the concept of a
shebeen the quintessential beer
and social halls of township life in
SA, says Henegan. These gathering
places are where South Africans
leave the workday behind to embrace
joy, laughter, community and a
little beer, to boot.
At Madibas I meet up with another
happening South African artist:
Vanessa Solomon. Her sculptures
have been exhibited in the USA and
Europe, most notably at the United
Nations headquarters and in the
permanent collection of the South
African Embassy in London. They
address universal female themes and
are imbued with her own African
heritage and a childhood in Tzaneen,
Limpopo. She came to New York after
graduating from the University of
Cape Town and worked as an intern
at the Tallix Sculpture Foundry
Beacon at the time, one of the
biggest foundries in the world.
Solomons since worked with top
American and international artists,
including Frank Stella and Frank
Gaylord, developing new sculpture
materials, making large-scale
prototypes and doing public works.

&  

'"
one of the USAs most celebrated
  
 


 $


reproductions of banal everyday
!
Balloon
Dog (Orange) at Christies in 2013
for US$58,4 million: the most
expensive work by a living artist ever
sold at an auction.
Solomon has now turned her
hand to art education. She runs
a sculpting course for children
during summer in New York at three

"   
 

 

52 Sawubona May 2015

needs of the artistic community in


" 
 
Many New York families encourage
their kids to be engaged in art, says
Solomon. I like the fact that the
programmes small and informal and
encourages kids to be openly creative,

 $

 0# 
kids to do a lot of messy work and
experiment things parents usually
dont want their kids doing at home.
Last year Solomon started a non $  
 
 
whose aim is to take art boxes into
  
X 

/ 
& 
programme for children up the age
of six. Encouraging creativity and
the arts in formative childhood is
unded education,
essential for a well-rounded
for bolstering better problemishing a new
solving and for establishing
oader world
generation, with a broader
view, says Solomon.
rogramme
Its an ambitious programme
ed the
and Solomons enlisted
help of fellow South


 '



 
'"
and herself a painter
and graduate from
the University of
#
   
Solomons
also obtained
the support
of Museum of
Modern Art
board member
Lawrence Benens.

ABOVE:
Mural in Williamsburg,
Brooklyn
LEFT:
Kalkys sh
parcel from
Madibas restaurant.
BELOW:
Vanessa Solomon.

I believe every person is inherently

creative, says Solomon, and art is
a very powerful tool in developing
childrens minds. Shes created what
she calls a Choice Time Art Box.
Choice time refers to the hours
during the day when children work
independently and the box contains art
supplies and techno tools to stimulate
kids imagination and skills.
From South African artists spreading
soul to the children of New York, to
the Africa Centers rising powerful
presence on Fifth Avenue, theres a
sense here that the rich cultural legacy
and history of Africa is mixing with
the inimitable cultural beat of New
York itself. Perhaps, as musician and
philanthropist Bono says, this is the
African century: Theres a sort of
static electricity around Africa at the
moment thats exciting. New Yorks
always been the global crossroads and
 $ 
 &  
signpost saying: Africa this way. Its
fun, educational and imaginative.

CONTACTS
City Sculpting:
www.citysculpting.com
The Africa Centre:
www.africacenter.org
Soul of Brooklyn: www.
    
Brooklyn Museum:
www.brooklynmuseum.org
Madibas Restaurant:
www.madibasrestaurant.com
Vanessa Solomon:
www.arterykids.org

PHOTOGRAPHERS: BRIDGET HILTON-BARBER, ANDERS SUNE BERG, JONATHAN DORADO, BROOKLYN MUSEUM.

new york