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Próximo Futuro

Próximo Futuro

13
Abr12

"Signe des temps : Le trans-africanisme, moteur de la photographie africaine"

Próximo Futuro

 

 

 

De Bamako à Lagos, de Johannesburg à Khartoum les initiatives se multiplient et dynamisent la scène photographique africaine. Photographes, collectifs et structures informelles, forts de leur succès récent et enhardis par la conviction que l'artiste africain a son mot à dire, s'appuient moins sur les institutions locales (toujours faibles) ou internationales (toujours lointaines) que sur leur propre volonté de s'exprimer et de faire avancer leur art. C'est l'heure du trans-africanisme, qui par ses efforts de briser les frontières et encourager les échanges culturels, promeut une photographie d'origine contrôlée. Une photographie africaine par les Africains.

 

 

 

 

Continuar a ler em Photographie.com.

09
Abr12

"El mundo gozoso y sesentero de Malick"

Próximo Futuro

 

 

 

Se diría que lo suyo es puro swing. Se diría que están felices. Son jóvenes. Bailan. Tienen todo el tiempo del mundo. Disfrutan juntos, sin más. Amorosos. Así son muchas de las fotos de Malick Sidibé (Malí, 1936): libres, relajadas, despreocupadas... Una parte de África desconocida y gozosa. Algunas de ellas se pueden ver ahora, hasta el 23 de abril, en la galería Trinta arte contemporánea, de Santiago de Compostela.

 

Y ahora que está de actualidad por noticias político-militares, que son siempre las peores para un país, no queda más remedio que pensar en lo mucho que Malí representa para la fotografía africana y más allá. Como ya contamos en otra entrada, la Bienal de Bamako es referencia imprescindible para describir lo que se cuece en el continente (y en la diáspora); un punto de encuentro internacional de profesionales y amantes de la imagen, y uno de los eventos que muestran lo abierto al mundo que suele ser Malí, tan distinto a esas fronteras cerradas de hoy mismo, tras el reciente golpe de Estado y los disturbios del Norte.

 

Quizá por eso viene bien recordar a Sidibé (1936), un hombre que retrató con maestría el África social de esos años de aire nuevo y esperanza, los cincuenta y sesenta, y que ha sido, entre otros, premio de la Bienal de Venecia en 2007 (era la primera vez que un africano recibía tal distinción); premio PhotoEspaña Baume et Mercier en 2009 y World Press Photo en 2010. Desde que fue descubierto en uno de los primeros Rencontres Africaines de la Photographie en Bamako allá por 1994, Sidibé es de un modo u otro protagonista de todo evento fotográfico en y sobre África. En la última edición de los Rencontres lo fue al hilo de su obra clasificada y archivada en el Museo Nacional de Malí, que produjo hace tiempo un corto sobre él (realizado por Susan Vögel, ver comentario) junto a dos de sus paisanos: Abdourahmane Sakaly y Soungalo Malé.

 

 

 

 

Continuar a ler no El País.

05
Abr12

“Contes africains d’après Shakespeare”, le théâtre comme introspection

Próximo Futuro

 

 

 

Cut up de textes classiques et contemporains, la dernière création de Krzysztof Warlikowski réunit l’Afrique et Shakespeare pour dénoncer une humanité où les femmes font toujours figure de victimes expiatoires.

 

Salon d’apparat ouvert à tous les vents dans le palais abandonné d’un despote déchu, parquet de bal où une révolution peut se jouer à pile ou face lors d’une soirée de gala, le plateau sur lequel s’inscrit le théâtre du metteur en scène polonais Krzysztof Warlikowski rend compte des soubresauts de l’histoire en écho des bouleversements du monde contemporain. D’un lounge bar aux allures de club anglais à une chambre d’hôpital, d’un étal de boucher à une salle de billard et un gymnase, cet espace caméléon donne le change en toutes circonstances sans jamais se revendiquer du réalisme.

 

 

 

 

Continuar a ler na Les Inrockuptibles.

05
Abr12

"Les manuscrits trouvés à Tombouctou"

Próximo Futuro

 

 

 

A l’orée du Sahara et à quelques encablures du fleuve Niger, Tombouctou, au Mali, a longtemps été une cité fermée aux Européens. Carrefour commercial à l’époque des caravanes, elle fut aussi le siège d’une intense vie intellectuelle. Au cours de cet âge d’or, des milliers de livres ont été écrits à la main puis abandonnés à la poussière du désert. On commence à les exhumer. De la nuit de l’oubli émerge ainsi une passionnante histoire de l’Afrique jusqu’à présent ignorée.

A Tombouctou, la progressive découverte de vieux manuscrits, dont certains remontent au XIIIe siècle, est en passe de devenir un enjeu historique pour toute l’Afrique. Plus de 15 000 documents ont déjà été exhumés et répertoriés sous l’égide de l’Organisation des Nations unies pour l’éducation, la science et la culture (Unesco) ; 80 000 autres dorment encore quelque part dans des malles ou au fond des greniers de la ville mythique (1). Ces précieux écrits qui firent la gloire de la vallée du fleuve Niger entre le XIIIe et le XIXe siècle (2), sont menacés de décomposition et de pillage par des trafiquants.

 

 

 

 

Continuar a ler no Le Monde Diplomatique.

21
Mar12

"Against Monuments"

Próximo Futuro

 

 

 

As an exhibition, the New Museum Triennial is still so young that it seems almost premature to call it a New York institution. Yet in just its second iteration, “The Ungovernables,” which runs through April 22, the show has already established the very thing that even veteran surveys of contemporary art would envy: a clear identity, and one that doesn’t seem redundant with either the concurrently running Whitney Biennial –the sprawling, uptown event whose intense emphasis this year on time-based media such as film, music, and performance makes it the antithesis of the compact New Museum exhibition—or the various other museum-sponsored roundups like PS 1/MoMA’s “Greater New York.” Focusing especially on work made by very young artists––the first Triennial went by the asinine name of “Younger than Jesus”––many of whom are based outside the US and Europe, the exhibition brings a surprisingly underrepresented perspective on recent art, no easy achievement in a city with a gamut of commercial galleries and museums. The current show also tries to make a case for reading the work on view amid the political upheaval and messy, unfinished pursuit of democracy that has marked much of the developing world, but the artists don’t fit into this frame as snugly as the curators want to suggest.

 

The exhibition includes work by thirty-four artists or collectives, few of whom have previously been seen in New York. A large majority hail from countries other than the United States, with a preponderance of Latin American, Middle Eastern, and Asian artists. Curator Eungie Joo has emphasized the fact that many come from countries whose post-1970s existence—a span during which most of these artists were born—was marked by economic and political uncertainty: they were ungovernable in the pejorative, failed-state sense. But she also wants to underline the creative resistance and flexibility of young artists, in which she hears spiritual echoes of the ANC’s embrace of “ungovernability” as a political strategy against apartheid (the term was coined with the Soweto riots and the call to make South Africa positively ungovernable). In the catalog accompanying the show, Joo links the idea to continuing democracy movements across the globe, from the Arab Spring to the Occupy demonstrations.

 

 

 

Continuar a ler na The New York Review of Books.

20
Mar12

"Fashion week in Lagos: Putting African designers on the map"

Próximo Futuro

 

 

 

If New York, London, Paris and Milan have been the traditional compass points of world fashion, Lagos has typically not even figured on the map.

But according to Penny McDonald, organizer of the Arise Magazine Fashion Week held in Nigeria's largest city last week, that is unlikely to be the case for much longer.

She said the event, which drew 77 designers and big names including supermodel Alek Wek, British couturier Ozwald Boateng and up-and-coming model Dudley O'Shaughnessy, had gone a long way to establishing Lagos as Africa's fashion capital, a city with international style credentials.

"It's raised the bar," said McDonald, international managing director for Arise, a title which describes itself as Africa's global style and culture magazine. "Everyone knows it's New York, London, Paris and Milan -- and we see this as the fifth destination now. We're hoping to make Lagos a fashion destination, part of the fashion season."

 

 

 

Continuar a ler na CNN.

06
Mar12

"South African ballet dancer confounds racial stereotypes"

Próximo Futuro

 

 

 

Andile Ndlovu is one of South Africa's most prominent young ballet dancers, an international performer and award winner both at home and overseas.

But for Ndlovu to be accepted into the rarefied world of classical dance -- which in South Africa is traditionally seen as an elitist and a predominantly white preserve -- the boy from the rough Soweto townships says he had to overcome outdated stereotypes.

"I used to be picked upon for the way I walk and the way I act or carry myself," he says of his time at school, where he became disparagingly known as "the dude who did ballet."

 

 

 

Continuar a ler na CNN.



05
Mar12

"A fall to cheer"

Próximo Futuro

 

 

 

The past four years have seen the worst economic crisis since the 1930s and the biggest food-price increases since the 1970s. That must surely have swollen the ranks of the poor.

Wrong. The best estimates for global poverty come from the World Bank’s Development Research Group, which has just updated from 2005 its figures for those living in absolute poverty (not be confused with the relative measure commonly used in rich countries). The new estimates show that in 2008, the first year of the finance-and-food crisis, both the number and share of the population living on less than $1.25 a day (at 2005 prices, the most commonly accepted poverty line) was falling in every part of the world. This was the first instance of declines across the board since the bank started collecting the figures in 1981 (see chart).

 

 

 

 

Continuar a ler no The Economist. 

20
Fev12

"En Ouganda, les rois, l’Etat, la terre"

Próximo Futuro

Un conflit vieux comme l’indépendance.

 

Confronté au mécontentement populaire, le président ougandais Yoweri Museveni adopte la manière forte : répression policière, surveillance des médias, intimidation des opposants. En effet, l’augmentation du coût de la vie et les scandales de corruption fragilisent le régime, en place depuis vingt-cinq ans. La crise ravive aussi les tensions avec les monarchies traditionnelles, notamment le royaume du Buganda, qui revendique des droits sur les terres.

 

« Les terres qui nous appartenaient prennent de plus en plus de valeur. Nous aimerions les récupérer afin de pouvoir nous-mêmes les vendre ou les louer, mais le gouvernement ne veut rien savoir : il agit comme s’il était Dieu », dénonce M. Charles Peter Mayiga, porte-parole du Buganda, le plus important des royaumes traditionnels que compte l’Ouganda. Ils seraient six millions de Bagandas, disséminés entre les rives du lac Victoria, Kampala, la capitale, et le centre d’un pays de trente-deux millions d’habitants (voir la carte). Ces populations « ont l’impression que leurs territoires sont inexorablement accaparés par d’autres, explique l’historien Phares Mutibwa, ce qui suscite un profond ressentiment. La tension monte (...). Les expulseurs d’aujourd’hui pourraient bien être les expulsés de demain».

 

 

 

Para ler o artigo completo no Le Monde Diplomatique, clicar aqui.

06
Fev12

"How to change your view of Africa"

Próximo Futuro

 

 

Chimurenga, a pan-African English-language journal, depicts the continent’s horrors, sometimes from very close...

 

I once had coffee in Cape Town with a Cameroonian named Ntone Edjabe. He ran an English-language journal called Chimurenga, but what I remembered from our chat were his vignettes of Lagos (where he’d studied) and Johannesburg (where he went next). In Lagos, he said, you’d be driving down the highway and suddenly see a guy selling cars on the highway. Lagos was crazy, and yet it felt entirely safe. Whereas Johannesburg seemed sane, but never felt safe.

I sent Edjabe some articles, but otherwise forgot about Chimurenga until a recent issue arrived in the mail. (Declaration of interest: I’m proud to say I have an article in it.) I read it and was staggered. I’d always thought the zenith of journalism was The New Yorker, but in parts, Chimurenga is better.

It’s also more surprising: I love well-off media types from New York or London, but by now we do tend to know how they think. By contrast, reading Chimurenga you keep thinking, “Who knew?” Who knew that (as one article recounts) Bloemfontein has a literary scene of authors and critics writing for no money, guided by a Nigerian immigrant, and headquartered in an Afrikaans literature museum? Chimurenga changes your view of Africa, and of journalism.

 

Para ler o artigo completo de Simon Kuper, basta clicar aqui.

 

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