From WallStreetJournal. Story by By Kelly Crow.
Works by Africa’s best-known living artists typically sell for less than $150,000 — the ballpark asking price at auction for works by much younger, less time-tested artists like New York art star Dan Colen, says Bonhams expert Giles Peppiatt.
Politically charged portraits by Congolese painter Cheri Samba, the first contemporary African artist to have a show at the Louvre, still sell for around $30,000.
Gallery works by William Kentridge, a major South African artist whose animated drawings are owned by museums like the Tate, hover between $150,000 and $600,000, according to Goodman Gallery. That’s a fraction of the millions paid lately for artists who found fame after him like China’s Zeng Fanzhi or Brazil’s Beatriz Milhazes.
Africa’s economy is still roiling from volatile oil prices, but prices appear to be holding steady or rising for many of the continent’s heavy hitters in the art world. Three months ago, a shimmering tapestry made from folded scraps of colorful aluminum by Ghana’s El Anatsui—arguably the best-known living African artist—sold for $1.2 million to a U.S. collector at Bonhams in London, the artist’s third-highest auction price. The 2006 piece, “Peju’s Robe,” was only expected to sell for up to $795,000.
All this recent activity has won the attention of international fair organizers who have recently jumped on the Africa bandwagon. At New York’s Armory Show in March, organizers set aside an area for 14 galleries who show African artists, several of whom had never shown in the U.S. before. Last week, 6,500 people attended 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair during its second show in New York after debuting three years ago. Nairobi gallery ARTLabAfrica drew in crowds with Kenyan painter Beatrice Wanjiku’s haunting portraits of faceless people wearing straitjackets. Crowds also packed into the booth of Johannesburg’s David Krut Projects to see Ethiopian photographer Aida Muluneh’s vividly colorful self-portraits in which she explores ideas about rules of social engagement in her homeland.
In November, Paris will get its own niche fair, called Also Known as Africa (AKAA), and a month after that, Ghana will debut a new fair, Art Accra, in a hotel on Labadi Beach.
Collectors say they’re taking a closer look at contemporary African art now because the continent’s whole scene is making a seismic break with tradition.
Little of it borrows from Africa’s traditional visual tropes: 19th century carved wooden figures, raffia costumes and woven baskets once deemed “primitive” yet famously collected by modern artists like Picasso. The current generation of contemporary African artists is well traveled and up-to-date on artistic developments in New York and London while simultaneously tuned into issues at home.
China’s entry into Africa, as investor and importer-exporter, is a hot-button topic of work throughout the continent. Migration is another prevalent theme. Other African artists are exploring ideas surrounding space exploration, drag culture, DJs, barbershops and corrupt power structures.
International collectors seeking Africa’s rising stars will have to play catch up with wealthy, local art lovers who have—until now—largely fueled the continent’s small art hubs. Major collectors include Theo Danjuma, the son of a Nigerian general, who has amassed a collection of at least 400 artworks. Among them: Zimbabwean artist Kudzunai Chiurai’s theatrically staged photos of people wielding guns.
Salim Currimjee, an architect living on the tiny island of Mauritius east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean, had never seen contemporary African art until he took a business trip to Cape Town a few years ago. He started buying pieces by young African artists from across the continent including Johannesburg’s Nicholas Hlobo, who uses colorful ribbons to stitch cryptic, fantastical paintings and bulbous, rubbery sculptures. Within a year, Mr. Currimjee said was asked to lend one of Mr. Hlobo’s ribbon paintings to London’s Tate Modern. “I was surprised,” he added. “Finally the Western world is waking up and looking beyond its normal boundaries.”
In South Africa, at least four collectors are planning or building contemporary art museums. Former Puma chairman Jochen Zeitz is converting a 1920s grain silo along Cape Town’s harbor to be a nine-story museum to exhibit his vast holdings of African artists like conceptual photographer Edson Chagas as well as international stars like Glenn Ligon. His Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art opens next February.
Piet Viljoen, an asset manager in Cape Town, opened a space in a former Victorian home four years ago named for the street where it’s located, the New Church Museum.
Samit Gehlot, a collector in Nairobi whose family owns safari lodges, health clinics and a construction business, said he started going to pop-up shows and auctions of contemporary African art —and then Mr. Gehlot started buying, a lot.
Only a handful of African state museums even collect contemporary art, and state colleges remain uneven, with some overseeing highly developed art schools that produce tons of talent (Zimbabwe) and others only offering a few courses on art (Kenya). Paris-based Simon Njami said showing art in parts of Africa can prove daunting, logistically and otherwise. Whereas curators typically get a couple of years to organize major biennials in Europe or the U.S., Mr. Njami said he was given four months to organize Dakar’s biennial, Dak’Art, which opens May 3.
Mr. Njami said he can’t access the biggest new art space in Dakar, the Museum of African Civilizations. The Chinese government recently built the round $2.5 million museum as a diplomatic gesture to Senegal’s former president, but there’s no collection earmarked for it yet. Currently, it’s locked and empty.
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