It's been to Germany, France, England, Sweden and Japan, and now the greatest art exhibition in Africa is coming home. Africa Remix will be on at the Johannesburg Art Gallery from 24 June.

HOLD on to your knobkerries for probably the greatest art exhibition in Africa – the Africa Remix exhibition hits Joburg on 24 June and remains in the city for three wonderful months.

Featuring 137 artworks and more than 85 artists from 25 countries on the African continent and in the diaspora, the Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG) is going to come alive with painting, sculpture, installation, video, drawing, photography and design, produced by the artists over the past 10 years.

”Never before in the history of the continent has an exhibition of such magnitude focusing exclusively on Africa been shown to African audiences,” says a JAG statement. The announcement was made at a press conference at the gallery this week.

Africa Remix explores the themes of city and land, urban and rural life; identity and history, tradition and modernity and the relationship of the individual to the community; and body and soul, encompassing religion, spirituality, emotion and sexuality.

It was first exhibited at the Museum Kunst Palast, in Dusseldorf in Germany, in 2004, and was considered to be the largest exhibition of contemporary African art ever seen in Europe. From there it toured to the Hayward Gallery in London, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo and the Moderna Museet in Stockholm.

Yinka Shonibare; Victorian Philanthropist's Parlour, 19996-7, Mixed Media

Curator and writer Simon Njami is the curator of Africa Remix. He described the exhibition as “a dream coming true”, saying he had curated 20 shows but very few in Africa.

”I have never seen African contemporary art – I don’t know what African contemporary art is,” he added.

This was one of the many reasons he wanted the show to come to Africa – “the need to address what is Africa today, what are Africans today”.

A number of the artists come from the diaspora, living in cities as scattered as New York, Paris, London and Los Angeles. Fifteen South African artists feature in the exhibition, including Jane Alexander, Willie Bester, Wim Botha, Andries Botha, Tracey Derrick, Marlene Dumas, David Goldblatt, Jackson Hlungwani, William Kentridge, Moshekwa Langa, Zwelethu Mthethwa, Santu Mofokeng, Tracey Rose and Guy Tillim.

Epic in size
Curator of the JAG, Clive Kellner, says the exhibition will be “epic in size, diverse in size”. There will be a full-colour South African edition of the catalogue, available at major bookstores; a CD-rom, featuring interviews with the curator and 24 artists in Joburg; an education supplement; and five panel discussions, seminars, and guided tours.

The exhibition explores the enormously diverse place that Africa is, and the effects of globalisation on the continent, Kellner explains. The result is a “very positive image”.

He estimates the cost of bringing the exhibition to South Africa to be about R5-million; through its Arts Alive programme, the City is one of the sponsors.

Another sponsor, the Gauteng provincial department of sport, arts, culture and recreation, was represented by MEC Barbara Creecy at the press conference to announce the event. She said that the province’s support of the exhibition recognised an attempt to “address the historical imbalances and inaccurate portrayals of the image of Africa that have been so prevalent in the past”.

Her department’s support of the exhibition was in line with attempts to expand the creative industries in Gauteng, making the province the preferred host of major cultural events. It adopted the Creative Industries Development Framework in 2005.

“Through our various initiatives we hope to build and develop the contemporary visual arts and craft sector in Gauteng, bursting with vitality and built upon the multiple talents, imagination and commitment of independent artists and craft practitioners,” she said.

The French Embassy is also a sponsor. Denis Pietton, the French ambassador, said there were four reasons the embassy was supporting the exhibition.

Unique
It was unique, he said, with 85 artists, 137 artworks and an African curator. “It has been seen by thousands in Europe; it would be an outrage if it were not seen here.”

Jane Alexander; African Adventure; 1999-2002, Mixed media and bushsand

Secondly, France could help to bring Africa to South Africa, and South Africa to the rest of Africa.

Thirdly, France believed strongly in cultural diversity. And lastly, “we love the Johannesburg Art Gallery, we’re very impressed by the beauty of the place, the quality of the pieces”.

He added that he would be pleased if this exhibition could help in the regeneration process of downtown Johannesburg. In addition, the French Institute was now in Newtown, “the right place to be”.

Other sponsors include the Prince Claus Fund for Culture and Development, the Goethe-Institut, the Southern African-German Cultural Fund, the Mondriaan Foundation, IFAS Institut Francais d’Afrique du Sud, Alliance Francaise, Internationale de la Francophone, the National Arts Council, the Ford Foundation, Business and Arts South Africa and the Gordon Schachat Collection.

Partners include the University of the Witwatersrand’s School of Arts, the Wits Institute of Social and Economic Research and Trinity Session. Media partners are 702 Talk Radio and the Sunday Times newspaper.

It’s unlikely the exhibition will tour to other South African cities or to anywhere else in Africa, Kellner says. But clearly thrilled that the exhibition is coming to the JAG, he adds, “It is going to be explosive.”

And there’s no doubt about that.

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