Seydou Keïta was a Malian photographer known for his portraits of people and families he took at his portrait photography studio in Mali's capital, Bamako, in the 1950s. His photographs are widely acknowledged not only as a record of Malian society but also as pieces of art.
Malick Sidibé was a Malian photographer noted for his black-and-white studies of popular culture in the 1960s in Bamako. Sidibé had a long and fruitful career as a photographer in Bamako, Mali, and was a well-known figure in his community. In 1994 he had his first exhibition outside of Mali and received much critical praise for his carefully composed portraits. Sidibé's work has since become well known and renowned on a global scale. His work was the subject of a number of publications and exhibited throughout Europe and the United States. In 2007, he received a Golden Lion Award for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Biennale, becoming both the first photographer and the first African so recognized. Other awards he has received include a Hasselblad Award for photography, an International Center of Photography Infinity Award for Lifetime Achievement, and a World Press Photo award.
George Lilanga was a Tanzanian artist. He was of the Makonde people and lived in Dar es Salaam. His work was exhibited in international expositions of African contemporaries including Africa Remix in Düsseldorf, Paris, London and Tokyo. He worked in the Makonde artistic tradition of carving wood and later began painting, he would largely be known for his stylistic figural figures.
Chéri Samba or Samba wa Mbimba N’zingo Nuni Masi Ndo Mbasi is a painter from the Democratic Republic of Congo. He is one of the best known contemporary African artists, with his works being included in the collections of the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. A large number of his paintings are also found in The Contemporary African Art Collection (CAAC) of Jean Pigozzi. He has been invited to participate in the 2007 Venice Biennale. His paintings almost always include text in French and Lingala, commenting on life in Africa and the modern world. Samba lives in Kinshasa and Paris.
Georges Adéagbo is a Beninese sculptor known for his work with found objects.
Camille-Pierre Pambu Bodo, known as Bodo, was a painter from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Frédéric Bruly Bouabré, also known as Cheik Nadro, was an Ivorian artist.
Seni Awa Camara is a Senegalese sculptor from the Diola ethnic group. She was born in Bignona, where she still lives and works. She creates her sculptures in clay in her front yard, then fires them in an open-hearth kiln before displaying them around her house. The pieces, ranging in size from 12 inches tall to 8 feet tall, represent personal symbols. She has authorized the use of bronze castings of her work since the terracottas are too delicate to travel.
Gedewon Makonnen, called Gedewon (1939–1995), was an Ethiopian artist.
Romuald Hazoumè is a Yoruba artist from the Republic of Bénin, best known for his work La Bouche du Roi, a reworking of the 1789 image of the slave ship Brookes. La Bouche du Roi was widely exhibited in the United Kingdom as part of the centenary remembrance of the Slave Trade Act 1807 by Parliament. He only uses recycled materials to create his works.
Jean "Johnny" Pigozzi, heir to the CEO of the automobile brand Simca, is an art collector, photographer, fashion designer and. He lives in Geneva.
Haim Steinbach is an Israeli-American artist, who lives in New York City. Many of his works consist of arrangements of mass-produced objects, displayed on shelves of his own design.
Contemporary African art is commonly understood to be art made by artists in Africa and the African diaspora in the post-independence era. However, there are about as many understandings of contemporary African art as there are curators, scholars and artists working in that field. All three terms of this "wide-reaching non-category [sic]" are problematic in themselves: What exactly is "contemporary", what makes art "African", and when are we talking about art and not any other kind of creative expression? Western scholars and curators have made numerous attempts at defining contemporary African art in the 1990s and early 2000s and proposed a range of categories and genres. They triggered heated debates and controversies especially on the foundations of postcolonial critique. Recent trends indicate a far more relaxed engagement with definitions and identity ascriptions. The global presence and entanglement of Africa and its contemporary artists have become a widely acknowledged fact that still requires and provokes critical reflection, but finds itself beyond the pressure of self-justification.
Founded in 1989, the Galerie Patrick Seguin is an art gallery and exhibition space located in Paris's La Bastille district. Its current space has been designed by Ateliers Jean Nouvel. The gallery distributes the creations of designers and architects Jean Prouvé, Charlotte Perriand, Pierre Jeanneret, Le Corbusier, Jean Royere.In this capacity the gallery is urged by museums to contribute to exhibitions, especially:the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, MoMA in New York, the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein, the Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris, the Museum of Fine Arts in Nancy, the Venice Architecture Biennale.
The Contemporary African Art Collection (CAAC) is a private collection created in 1990 by Italian business man, Jean Pigozzi after his encounter with French independent curator, André Magnin. Magnin specializes in art from non-Western cultures, and especially sub-Saharan art. The CAAC came into being at a time when non-Western contemporary art was largely ignored on the international scene. It was founded shortly after the seminal exhibition The Magicians of the Earth at the Pompidou Center in Paris, curated by Jean-Huber Martin. It was the first truly international exhibition where contemporary works from all over the world were shown on an equal footing.
Cyprien Tokoudagba was a sculptor from Abomey, Benin.
Johnson Donatus Aihumekeokhai Ojeikere, known as J.D. 'Okhai Ojeikere, was a Nigerian photographer known for his work with unique hairstyles found in Nigeria.
Vodun art is associated with the West African Vodun religion of Nigeria, Benin, Togo and Ghana. The term is sometimes used more generally for art associated with related religions of West and Central Africa and of the African diaspora in Brazil, the Caribbean and the United States. Art forms include bocio, carved wooden statues that represent supernatural beings and may be activated through various ritual steps, and Asen, metal objects that attract spirits of the dead or other spirits and give them a temporary resting place. Vodun is assimilative, and has absorbed concepts and images from other parts of Africa, India, Europe and the Americas. Chromolithographs representing Indian deities have become identified with traditional Vodun deities and used as the basis for murals in Vodun temples. The Ouidah '92 festival, held in Benin in 1993, celebrated the removal of restrictions on Vodun in that country and began a revival of Vodun art.
The International Festival of Vodun Arts and Cultures, also known as the Ouidah Festival, was first held in Ouidah, Benin in February 1993, sponsored by UNESCO and the government of Benin. It celebrated the transatlantic Vodun religion, and was attended by priest and priestesses from Haiti, Cuba, Trinidad and Tobago, Brazil and the United States, as well as by government officials and tourists from Europe and the Americas. The festival was sponsored by the newly elected president of Benin, Nicéphore Soglo, who wanted to rebuild the connection with the Americas and celebrate the restoration of freedom of religion with the return to democracy. Artists from Benin, Haiti, Brazil and Cuba were given commissions to make sculptures and paintings related to Vodun and its variants in Africa and the African diaspora.
Moké, was a Congolese painter, born in Ibe, Bandundu Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1950. He died on September 26, 2001 in Kinshasa, a city from which he drew inspiration.
