via Artnet News, Feb. 13, 2007 : {links courtesy of RGL}
STORR'S AFRICAN INTITIATIVE
What exactly has 52nd Venice Biennale artistic director Robert Storr been up to with those multiple curatorial sojourns to Africa? It turns out that "Check List," an exhibition of African contemporary art, is anchoring the Biennale's focus on Africa in the festival's Arsenale space. According to the Biennale press office, works are being selected from the Sindika Dokolo African Collection of Contemporary Art, an institution based in Luanda, Angola, that encompasses some 500 works by 140 artists from 28 different African nations.
Storr has selected an ace team of experts to pick the most representative artworks for the African affair: Ethiopian curator Meskerem Assegued, Ghanaian journalist Ekow Eshun, American-born artist Lyle Ashton Harris, Yale prof Kellie Jones and Nigerian curator Bisi Silva. "Check List" is curated by Camaroonian art critic Simon Njami, along with Angolan artist -- and Sindika Dokolo Collection co-founder -- Fernando Alvim.
...After searching for more info on Storr's "multiple curatorial sojourns to Africa" I came across this letter on ASAI; (is this about a curatorial/cultural power struggle or what?):
[This letter was initially written {by Olu Oguibe, October 2006} in response to a letter from Salah Hassan and Okwui Enwezor to Robert Storr, Artistic Director of the Venice Biennale. It was copied by the writer to interested parties and is reproduced here with his permission.]
To Dr. Salah Hassan
Forum for African ArtsSeptember 19, 2006
Dear Salah,
Thanks for your email of September 1 regarding the response from yourself and Okwui Enwezor to artistic director Robert Storr's open call for proposals for the African Pavilion at the 2007 Venice Biennale (letter attached below). I had hoped that you would call to discuss this on the phone as your promised, failing which I felt that I should send you my thoughts on the matter as well as share those thoughts with other concerned parties.
I would like to say that I do not share the views that you and Enwezor have expressed in your letter to Robert Storr regarding the issue at hand. I do not share the view that it is wrong for Mr. Storr or the Venice Biennale Foundation to make an open call for proposals that allows other parties in Africa or elsewhere the opportunity to put forward their ideas and visions for an African exhibition in Venice. On the contrary, I happen to think that Mr. Storr's decision to establish an African pavilion as an official part of the Biennale is, at least in the interim, a very positive and commendable development. And as a firm and consistent believer in open processes, I also think that Storr and the Venice Biennale Foundation have done the right thing by making the proposal process an open one that anyone with a good idea and the resources should be able to participate in. I do not accept or share your view or Enwezor's that under no circumstance should the process be opened to wider participation or that the Forum for African Arts should exercise a perpetual monopoly over African participation in the Venice Biennale outside the main exhibition.
As I understand it, what you and I have struggled for all these years is that more Africans should have the opportunity to present their work and ideas to the contemporary art world, be they artists, curators, historians or critics. That is why we established the Forum for African Arts. I believe that Robert Storr's idea of an open call fits this ideal while the present call by you and Enwezor to close the process and preserve it for a privileged few runs contrary to it. [read on...]
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