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Meschac Gaba's anti-museum shows the strength of modern African art Meschac Gaba's anti-museum shows the strength of modern African art
(3 months later)
It was in the Marriage Room that Meschac Gaba's vision tore through my expectations of what art is and how it relates to our ordinary, irreplaceable lives. This room in the Beninese artist's Museum of Contemporary African Art is full of wedding souvenirs, from photographs to gifts, that record his marriage to a Dutch curator in a ceremony at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.It was in the Marriage Room that Meschac Gaba's vision tore through my expectations of what art is and how it relates to our ordinary, irreplaceable lives. This room in the Beninese artist's Museum of Contemporary African Art is full of wedding souvenirs, from photographs to gifts, that record his marriage to a Dutch curator in a ceremony at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.
Art or life? It was both. And today, that joyous conflation of reality with the cool precincts of a museum is commemorated in a soppy wedding video and love tokens displayed as museum artefacts in London's Tate Modern. It got me hooked on the strange and wonderful nature of Gaba's enterprise.Art or life? It was both. And today, that joyous conflation of reality with the cool precincts of a museum is commemorated in a soppy wedding video and love tokens displayed as museum artefacts in London's Tate Modern. It got me hooked on the strange and wonderful nature of Gaba's enterprise.
At the Museum of Contemporary African Art you can sit on sofas and read books, play a piano, see Ghanaian money with Picasso's face on it, or visit a Swiss bank that looks like an African street market. Through an epic assembly of often poignant stuff runs a confessional thread, as the artist narrates his journey through the world of modern art, between Africa and Europe and back again.At the Museum of Contemporary African Art you can sit on sofas and read books, play a piano, see Ghanaian money with Picasso's face on it, or visit a Swiss bank that looks like an African street market. Through an epic assembly of often poignant stuff runs a confessional thread, as the artist narrates his journey through the world of modern art, between Africa and Europe and back again.
In the Library, where books on a vast range of modern art are available to consult, you can hear about Gaba's childhood, how he drew all over his reading books. His passion for art eventually led him to study at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. Personal information is not extraneous to this exhibition – it's an unavoidable part of it.In the Library, where books on a vast range of modern art are available to consult, you can hear about Gaba's childhood, how he drew all over his reading books. His passion for art eventually led him to study at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. Personal information is not extraneous to this exhibition – it's an unavoidable part of it.
Museums can be autobiographies, or novels. The Museum of Contemporary African Art is a bit of both. But it is also a protest. Where is the African art of today in European and American museums? The Art and Religion Room juxtaposes reproductions of "classic" African religious sculpture with tacky Christian and Buddhist artefacts. The stress that museums place on African ceremonial art of the past, this implies, is a bit like judging modern European art by kitsch replicas of Raphael Madonnas.Museums can be autobiographies, or novels. The Museum of Contemporary African Art is a bit of both. But it is also a protest. Where is the African art of today in European and American museums? The Art and Religion Room juxtaposes reproductions of "classic" African religious sculpture with tacky Christian and Buddhist artefacts. The stress that museums place on African ceremonial art of the past, this implies, is a bit like judging modern European art by kitsch replicas of Raphael Madonnas.
Where, he asks, is the contemporary voice of Africa in our museums?Where, he asks, is the contemporary voice of Africa in our museums?
It's here, in this powerful surrealistic anti-museum. The homemade quality of everything in the Museum of Contemporary African Art gives it a raw atmosphere of living cities. The excitement and complexity of our sprawling century seems to press at the doors. Traditionally, museums put art in a quiet world of its own. This one opens the window and lets in the noise.It's here, in this powerful surrealistic anti-museum. The homemade quality of everything in the Museum of Contemporary African Art gives it a raw atmosphere of living cities. The excitement and complexity of our sprawling century seems to press at the doors. Traditionally, museums put art in a quiet world of its own. This one opens the window and lets in the noise.
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