Art, News, Travel / 17 Dec 2021

Lesley Lokko Becomes First Black Curator to Organise Venice Architecture Biennale

The Venice Architecture Biennale in Italy has picked Lesley Lokko to curate its 2023 edition, making her the first person of African descent to helm the world’s top architecture biennial. Dezeen reported that she is also the first Black architect to organize the biennial, as well as one of the few women ever to curate it. Lokko’s biennial is set to open on May 20, 2023. Like its sister biennial devoted to art, the Venice Architecture Biennale has been largely curated by white architects based in Europe. The move could suggest a long-overdue willingness to diversify the biennial’s upper ranks. Born in Dundee, Scotland, and raised in Ghana, Lokko has been influential within the world of academia, where she has advocated for the notion that architecture is inseparable from race. In 2000, she wrote White Papers, Black Marks: Race, Space and Architecture, and she has since penned several novels. She has also launched two architecture schools in Africa: a postgraduate program at the University of Johannesburg and the African Futures Institute in Accra, where she is currently based. She also founded FOLIO: Journal of Contemporary African Architecture. Lokko made headlines last year when she resigned from the Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture at the City College of New York, where she began as director in 2019. Speaking to the Architectural Record, she said her resignation came after a lack of support. “The lack of respect and empathy for Black people, especially Black women, caught me off guard, although it’s by no means unique to Spitzer,” she added. “I suppose I’d say in the end that my resignation was a profound act of self-preservation.” In a statement about her Venice Architecture Biennale appointment, Lokko hinted that her edition would in some way address the substantial changes that have impacted the world over the…

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Art, Culture, Culture & Travel, News, Travel / 04 Jun 2021

Belgian Experts Frustrated At ‘Lack of Initiative from Museums and Government’ Call For Restitution of Colonial-Era Acquisitions

An independent panel of scholars and experts has called on Belgian museums to restitute artefacts acquired in a colonial context and urged the government to create a neutral commission to evaluate restitution requests, an independent institute for provenance research, and a new law to facilitate returns. Their proposals are similar to guidelines put forward in Germany and the Netherlands. But there is one big difference—in those countries, the guidelines were commissioned and adopted by the authorities. In Belgium, no official proposals on decolonising museums and restituting objects looted in the colonial era have so far been presented. The report published on 2 June was “born out of a frustration at the lack of initiative on the part of the museums and government,” says Sarah Van Beurden, an associate professor of history and African studies at the Ohio State University and one of the authors. “We wanted to say—’look, this is legitimate, it’s important.’ It is not an attempt to monopolise the discussion, but hopefully, it will help to contribute to debate among a broader cast of actors.” Belgium controlled an immense territory in central Africa—around 80 times the size of the country—until 1960. Explorers, missionaries, soldiers, representatives of King Leopold II, explorers and merchants brought home items they had stolen, bought, or otherwise acquired. The biggest repository of objects acquired in a colonial context is the Royal Museum of Central Africa at Tervuren. “By definition objects that belong to colonial collections were gathered in a context of deep structural inequality,” the authors say in their report. “In order to work towards decolonisation, heritage institutions must be willing to relinquish the gains they made owing to these unequal relationships.” The Tervuren museum acknowledges in a statement on its website that “it is not normal for such a large part of African…

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Art, News, Travel / 16 Apr 2021

The Obama Portraits Tour

From June 2021 to May 2022, The Obama Portraits Tour, organised by the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, will travel to five cities across the U.S. to reach millions of people who might not otherwise have an opportunity to view these remarkable paintings. In addition to the artworks themselves, The tour will feature audio-visual elements, educational workshops and curatorial presentations. A richly illustrated book titled The Obama Portraits (2020), co-published by the National Portrait Gallery and Princeton University Press. Select merchandise will also be available. This special presentation will include conversations surrounding the power of portraiture and its potential to engage communities. From the moment of their unveiling at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in February 2018, the museum’s official portraits of President Barack Obama by Kehinde Wiley and Mrs Michelle Obama by Amy Sherald have become iconic. The tour locations include The Art Institute of Chicago (18 June to 15 August 2021); Brooklyn Museum, New York (27 August to 24 October 2021); Los Angeles County Museum of Art (5 November 2021 to 2 January 2022); High Museum of Art, Atlanta (14 January to 13 March 2022); The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (27 March to May 30, 2022). The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery recognises the lead donors to the Obama portraits: Kate Capshaw and Steven Spielberg; Judith Kern and Kent Whealy; Tommie L. Pegues and Donald A. Capoccia; Clarence, DeLoise and Brenda Gaines; The Stoneridge Fund of Amy and Marc Meadows; Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker; Catherine and Michael Podell. Support for the national tour has been generously provided by Bank of America. https://npg.si.edu/obamaportaitstour Read The Dirty South: Contemporary Art, Material Culture, and the Sonic Impulse