For several years, contemporary African art has been in the spotlight in Paris, proof of which is the amount of public exhibitions and dedicated fairs. The announcement by the President Macro of the AFRICA 2020 season, under the leadership of the curator Ngone Fall, augurs a desire to engage the entire territory in a renewed partnership with Africa, "multiple, strong and plural continent where part of our common future is played out".
With this ninth auction, PIASA presents again the works of artists from the Continent or from the Diaspora who also, according to the terms of the AFRICA 2020 make:
"An invitation to look and understand the world from an African point of view." This sale offers the opportunity to highlight some recurring themes in their proposals. At the time of the debate on the restitutions, one notices the importance given to tribal art in contemporary works. In the masks of Calixte Dakpogan and Julien Vignikin, in the early works of Aboudia, the papers of Steve Bandoma, the glamorous woman of Wole Lagunju, or the selfies of Henri Mzili, the traditional African statuary, which has acquired different successive statuses since the colonization, continues its roaming in the collective imagination to be part of the contemporaneity.
Lot 47 - Chéri Samba (born in 1956, Democratic Republic of Congo)
Prix Nobel de l'Amour, 2004
Oil on canvas
Signed and dated lower right
Titled at the bottom left
115 x 145 cm
Estimate 30 000 - 50 000 €
International context requires, we note the many tributes to nature. In Uganda, in the work of Sanaa Gateja, the king of paper beads that makes hangings featuring huge trees, and Joseph Ntensibé’s kaleidoscopic depictions of an ideal paradise on earth or of an ancient forest with its inhabitants. We will notice the importance and the influence of Chéri Samba which several major works are proposed. He is not only the father of popular painters, but also the forerunner of figurative expressionist and narrative painting followed by a full generation of artists.
Finally, in the proliferation of the African scene, which is today a most flourishing market, emerges the ability of artists to propose a new historiography of the history of art. The mythological scenes of Mederic Turay and the biblical characters of Marc Padeux are adorned with African attributes and have dark skin. The cardinal of Arim Andrew has the head of the king of the animals, the Pharaoh of Richard Onyango is resolutely African. Tsham's African masks seem to draw their volumes out of cubism, not the other way around!
Christophe Person
