MESCHAC GABA: MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY AFRICAN ART

Transcrição

Meschac Gaba - Museum of Contemporary African Art
Room Descriptions
The Museum of Contemporary African Art 1997–2002 is an immersive installation, which
questions the nature of the museum and challenges preconceptions of African art. It is
temporary and mutable, a conceptual space more than a physical one, a provocation to the
Western art establishment not only to acknowledge contemporary African art but to ask why
such cultural boundaries exist. It is also an incitement to other artists not to accept the status
quo. As Gaba rationalises: ‘You don’t need four walls to define your place, to decide who you
are.’
Over five years twelve rooms would appear, in exhibitions and museums internationally, of
which seven are displayed here. Some rooms, such as the Library, Museum Restaurant and
Museum Shop, are a familiar element of any major public institution. However, Gaba places
these traditionally subsidiary activities at the centre of his Museum of Contemporary African Art,
calling into question the nature and function of the museum and our relationship to it. By
supplementing these sections with others such as the Draft Room, Architecture Room, Art and
Religion and Humanist Space, which go well beyond the conventional idea of the museum,
Gaba creates a space not only for the contemplation of objects, but for sociability, study and
play in which the boundaries between everyday life and art, and observation and participation
are blurred.
Meschac Gaba was born in 1961 in Cotonou, Benin. He lives and works between Cotonou and
Rotterdam.
Deutsche Bank KunstHalle presents from 20. September 20 through 16. November 2014 seven
of the twelve room of the Museum of Contemporary African Art.
Vorsitzender des Aufsichtsrats: Paul Achleitner
Vorstand: Jürgen Fitschen (Co-Vorsitzender), Anshuman Jain (Co-Vorsitzender), Stefan Krause, Stephan Leithner, Stuart Lewis, Rainer Neske, Henry Ritchotte
Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft mit Sitz in Frankfurt am Main, HRB Nr. 30 000, Amtsgericht Frankfurt am Main, Umsatzsteuer ID Nr. DE114103379
Deutsche Bank Gruppe im Internet: www.deutsche-bank.de
Draft Room
The Draft Room was the earliest completed section of the Museum of Contemporary African
Art, introducing the aesthetic approach and many of the conceptual concerns of the following
rooms. It was created in 1996-7 during Gaba’s residency at the Rijksakademie in
Amsterdam.
For Gaba, food embodied all that was new and foreign about the Netherlands, and it
features prominently in this room. A fridge/freezer is filled with whole ceramic chickens;
round ceramic breads glazed gold are displayed on a white shelving unit; and red ceramic
fruit and vegetables lie heaped on the floor. In capitalist economies, production frequently
outweighs consumption, and food is regularly frozen, discounted or left to rot.
While Gaba’s preoccupation with food stemmed from having to adapt to a different cultural
context, he had long been concerned with systems of value as symbolised by money. Many
of his early works produced in Benin were made from decommissioned banknotes. In the
Draft Room plastic bags filled with dots cut from banknotes and cylinders of compressed
shredded money are carefully arranged on pieces of fabric on the floor. Gilded pebbles are
displayed together with piles of banknotes weighed down with small stones on a rough
wooden table. Gaba uses money because he wishes to confront society with devaluation, to
question the underlying structures that mediate our relationships with each other and with
the environment in which we live.
Architecture Room
After testing his ideas for the Museum of Contemporary African Art in the Draft Room,
Gaba’s next logical step was to consider the architecture. In this room visitors are
encouraged to propose their own architectural structures using the wooden building blocks
on the blue carpet. The models are constantly in flux, being adapted, demolished,
redesigned and rebuilt.
Gaba’s Museum does not have a permanent building; rather it has temporarily occupied
many institutions around the world, from Milwaukee to Accra and São Paulo to Paris. The
ladder in the Architecture Room, which was empty when this room was first exhibited, has
acted as a barometer of the project’s success. The Plexiglas treads were added one at a
time, each inscribed with the name of the curator and organisation that hosted the project
until 2002 when the Museum of Contemporary African Art was officially completed and the
ladder was full.
The Artist’s Bank, a wooden desk with a glass top, contains banknotes designed with
symbols of art and architecture. In the same room, fabricated banknotes with portraits of
European artists who were inspired by African art hang from the branches of the Money
Tree. Amongst others, Picasso is presented in the guise of the president of Ghana and
Brancusi as a general with a white beard. This work acknowledges the importance of African
art in the development of the Western canon, but also affirms the right of artists, irrespective
of their origin, to draw inspiration from anywhere.
Art and Religion Room
In this room Gaba responds to the West’s fascination with African belief systems and the
tendency of Western museums to collect and exhibit objects created for ritual purposes
while frequently ignoring contemporary art from Africa. Symbols of Christianity, Buddhism,
Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and traditional African faiths are arranged on the shelves of a
cross-shaped wooden structure. In amongst a statue of Buddha, Jewish prayer shawl,
wooden crosses and depictions of Ganesha there are ordinary objects like a padlock, plastic
doll, diamante brooch and rear-view mirror. Through this arrangement Gaba seeks to
challenge hierarchies between the world’s religions and show that even everyday items can
have spiritual significance.
Christianity reached Benin in the seventeenth century. Today it is estimated that almost half
the Beninese population consider themselves to be Christian, although most also practice
Animism. The coexistence of many faiths and the reality of syncreticism in Benin are clearly
referenced in this installation with the arrangement of the objects emphasising the
similarities between people rather than the differences. A narrow approach to religion is
further destabilised by the occasional presence of a tarot card reader at the centre of the
cross-shaped structure. Although most often associated with Christianity, the cross is a
sacred symbol that dates back to the earliest stages of human development.
Art has long played an important role in the teaching and propagation of religion. Less
frequently discussed is the relationship between religion and business. The arrangement of
the objects in the Art and Religion Room deliberately recalls that of a market stall.
A tarot card reader will be present Thursdays and Sundays from 3-7 p.m.. Free readings will
last 20 minutes each on a first-come first-served basis. Aged 18
Library
The Library includes more than 1600 art-related publications and children’s books displayed
on a range of simple shelves. These books are all stamped with the Museum of
Contemporary African Art logo and replace the original books which now form the basis of
an art library in Cotonou where Gaba has established an artist’s residency space.
The overall aesthetic of the Library recalls that of a West African market, with palettes of
books, reading tables made from truck tyres and plywood tops and roughly constructed Aframe bookshelves. The Library inventory can be searched on computers attached to the
front of two black bicycles, a playful take on the portable computer and reference to the
interrelationship between technology and knowledge. A large table covered with banknote
dots and a selection of books dubbed the ‘curators’ table’ occupies much of this room. The
books were all written or edited by curators Gaba has worked with in the past. Two
chandeliers, made of burnt books and wrought iron, hang above the curators’ table, recalling
the African proverb ‘when an old person dies, it is like when a library burns down.’
In the corner of the room a coffin contains an audio recording recounting the story of Gaba’s
life. The text was written by Gaba and imagines what his father would have said about him
from the grave.
Museum Shop at the Deutsche Bank KunstHalle
Museum shops have long played an important, albeit ancillary, role in the museum,
generating revenue for core activity, extending the educational experience and providing
visitors with souvenirs.
The Museum Shop created an opportunity for Gaba to involve other artists in his project. His
contemporaries from the Rijksakademie and elsewhere contributed sculptures and limited
edition objects. Gaba’s Museum Shop closely resembled a West African market with
inexpensive and high value items presented side-by-side in a seemingly informal yet
deliberate manner. The Museum Shop was not secondary, it was crucial.
Here in Berlin, the existing shop area has been transformed to include elements inspired by
Gaba´s Museum Shop, with items displayed on wooden pallets on the floor, on large
wooden stalls and in vitrines on trestle table legs. As the older items are no longer available
for sale, new artworks and products by artists and designers have been made or sourced
specially in collaboration with Muse. This includes items by: Arthur Analts / Rudolph Strelis,
Atelier m.c., Vukile Batyi, Saskia Breitenreicher, Olafur Eliasson, Elternhaus, Ute Essig,
Oliver Fabel, Martin J. Fiedler and Atypyk, Laura de Monchy, Wangechi Mutu, Claudia
Rannow, Bea Seggering, Emmanuel Shuga Kasongo, and Clemens von Wedemeyer. The
Museum Shop also contains dozens of T-shirts, all especially produced by the institutions
that have presented this room in the past.
Museum Restaurant
Like the Library and Museum Shop, the Museum Restaurant plays an important role in the
visitor’s experience of the art museum, even if these departments are frequently seen as
peripheral to the core activity of collecting and displaying art. By creating a Museum
Restaurant in one of the twelve rooms of his Museum of Contemporary African Art Gaba
presents social interaction and sharing as an essential element of his vision.
When it was first presented at W139 in Amsterdam in 1999, Gaba invited fellow artists to
each prepare and host a dinner in his Museum Restaurant. On seven occasions during a
two-week period visitors were able to book for dinner prepared by a different artist-chef. The
artists each offered hearty family meals prepared on site in Gaba’s Museum Restaurant and
some of them intervened in the space. On the final night, Dutch artist Rudy Luijters cooked a
chicken he and Gaba had slaughtered earlier in the day. His intervention, Menu Broodthaers
1999, a video of a live chicken with an audio recording of a conversation between the two
artists, is the only work that has remained a permanent part of the Museum Restaurant.
The Museum Restaurant continues to be activated in this way with emerging artists being
invited to participate. When not in use, the public are welcome to occupy the space complete
with lanterns and plastic tablecloths on the trestle tables.
On the following evenings invited artists will prepare and host dinners in Meschac Gaba’s
Museum Restaurant
18.10, 6.30 p.m.
A Set Menu for Fresh Sounds and Precise Food
Hosted by Daniela Fromberg and Stefan Roigk, sound artists
10.11., 6.30 p.m.
The Land of Bread and Hontey
Hosted by Theo Eshetu, video artist - in co-operation with daad
€ 40 per person (including dinner, beverages, and tour through the exhibition). Booking
essential. For more details about each event visit www.deutsche-bank-kunsthalle.com
Humanist Space
The Humanist Space is the final section of the Museum of Contemporary African Art. When
presented during Documenta XI in 2002, one hundred golden bicycles were available to hire
during the hundred days of the exhibition, with the intention of generating revenue for
humanitarian causes in Africa. The bicycles are branded with the Museum of Contemporary
African Art logo, the title of the project and the name of the venue.
Eight of the bicycles are available for hire. On different tours of the city, the exhibition is
extended to public space.

MESCHAC GABA: MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY AFRICAN ART

Transcrição

Documentos relacionados

Nota biográfica de Emmanuelle Delmas-‐Glass - ICOM

Felícia Leirner Museum and Claudio Santoro Audito

Colégio Nomelini LISTA Nº 11 – 8º ANO

The EGYPTIAN COLLECTION

Conference Programme 2015

MUSEUM MEDIATORS EU - PROFESSIONAL GUIDELINES FOR

The Vienna Arsenal – from Hall of Fame of the Austrian army to

Recent trajectory In the set of my recent works, I can - Exhibit-e

ENM

Calendrier des activités - adultes et juniors

Paas,Songs of The Great War

TEN DEUTSCHE WERKSTaT TEN DEUTSCHE WERKSTaT

Fault Lines - How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy

(HFS) of Nucleus Accumbens (NAc)