Media Flaws

It was a pseudo-sunny Thursday in Cape Town, with a cold breeze blowing when I bumped into Simon Njami. Needless to say his wryly crude sense of humour led him into making snide remarks about my beer belly. “Well at least I’m not on the brink of looking like an Africa-hunger ambassador, like you!” I thought.

Njami, he of Africa Remix (2004 – 2007) and much more, was at Michaelis to give an impromptu lunchtime lecture on the discourse of contemporary art production in an African context. Suffice to say he veered off topic and kept his talk quite short – 32 minutes to be exact. And no one could blame him for that. I mean how can one attempt to re-breech this hard laboured cliché of ‘African Art this’ or even ‘African Art that’? Even Mario Pissarro eventually gave up on this subject - and it was his life cause at some stage; or so it seemed).

Anyway, back to Njami. He started off with a few anecdotes on perceptions of Africa and how everybody has an Africa of their own through living, studying or working on African subjects. The main problem being how every Joe Soap tends to define what African art is and should be – from heritage items to Jackson Hlungwani-like sculptures. However the problem in this, is that there is no problem, because as far as concern should be concerned these are merely all opinions. Nothing more. And to which Njami quoted Clint Eastwood's "Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one." I, personally, am of the inclination that each artist – African or not – should dictate the direction of their art and be free to define it as they please. Would that be too idealistic?

“Africa for me is a construction,” opinionated Njami, as he made an example of how in his curatorial positions he has often been confronted on the authenticity or true African-ness of some of the artists he has selected in past shows. “A thread that I found is that what makes Africa Africa is Europe. 99% of the African countries were colonised, so that’s what makes it Africa.” Referring to Achille Mbembe’s text on post colonialism he said “people are always trying to define Africa, according to history, according to blah blah blah. Why not define Africa or African countries from within? Not from a historical perspective but from the reality and try to understand what it is?” I’ll take this further by saying why not let the art producers define their own work? Or are they so spineless and uncertain about their products that they need Western reaffirmations to say “Ah son! This is art!”

The only instance where so called African Art meets the West – with the exception of biennales and/or exhibitions - would be on academic turfs. Suffice to say that most art history texts or art literature largely circumnavigates around art of the West, the Americas and so forth. There are minimal accounts of so called African art written by so called African artists and scholars. So as it stands, art students have to accept what is taught – but be open minded enough to realise that – by being taught on art (contemporary or backdated) of the West and so forth, they are being given a vocabulary which they can then apply to expand on African art literature. “Art is a language and we are attempting to say something, unambiguous; trying to tell stories that have never been told. No story is unique but context is,” added Njami as he explained how context will always distinguish the newness and lack of repetition of work. “The only way to build an original history is to talk from a point of view and attempt to avoid preconceptions.”

Not one to mince his words, but sure to mumble them in his ‘I am about to say je t'adore’ accent, he then proceeded to field questions from the honoured audience. Questions ranged from how to retell African stories without being repetitive? how Africa helps define other countries? and even what is the meaning of art? and many more...

Njami is currently in the country to open the Us exhibition in Johannesburg. An exhibition which he describes as an attempt to remove the usual suspects of South Africa Art, his friends (the Kentridges, etc), in a bid to “see what is coming next, if there is anything coming next.”