PROFILE: Okwui Enwezor / Under the Influence / Fall -Winter 2012

Okwui Enwezor photographed by Lydia Gorges via undertheinfluencemagazine.tumblr.com

Renowned curator explains why he's under the influence of contemporary African Art

Interview by Alice Pfeiffer

Photography by Lydia Gorges

Excerpt:

In the early nineties, a Nigerian-born political science graduate, Okwui Enwezor, created the Nka Journal of Contemporary African Art from his Brooklyn apartment. It was dedicated to promoting vibrant artists from his continent of origin -- which at the time played a diminishing role in the western contemporary art scene. Today, Enwezor is considered one the the world's leading experts on the topic of contemporary African art. The director of Munich's Haus der Kunst, he recently curated Paris' Trienniale, and has art-directed art projects ranging form Documenta 11, to Johannesburg's and Gawngju's biennials, as well as shows for the Guggenheim, MoMA and the Tate Modern, to name a few. Interested in ideas of exile, identity and processes of truth formation, he continues to teach worldwide and publish extensively. Under the Influence and Enwezor discussed problems surrounding the notion of nationality, the dialectic between a physical and intangible sense of self -- and why Beyoncé can keep dancing however she pleases.

You've been nicknamed 'Mr. African Art' by journalists, is that an 'unofficial' title you're pleased with, or do you hope people will see beyond that?

No, I don't want people to see beyond that. I am very proud to be associated with such a nickname, even though I believe it is misapplied. But I have to ask the obverse question: Why is it that people always want to see being attached to Africa as a limitation? It's a very big continent; from Nigeria to South Africa is a nine-hour flight. We need, however, to be very careful in the way we pose the question. Thought I was born and raised in Nigeria, and setting aside for the moment my personal identity as an African -- from a purely professional view contemporary African art is one of my areas of specialisation, from an intellectual and disciplinary standpoint. I'm immensely proud to be an expert in this field, which is where I've invested 25 years of research, writing, curating, publishing, and teaching, so I do think it's important. I'm not however, 'Mister Africa' in the sense in which I suspect that the frame is applied. I do want my work and ideas to be understood in a specific professional context as taking Africa as a point of departure into other artistic and cultural worlds that define contemporary art today. I hope this issue of the magazine also comes with a self-interrogation of why Africa is suddenly in vogue. I'm fascinated by the recent rise of Africa and afrophilia in European magazines, such as L'Uomo Vogue (Africa issue May 2012 'Rebranding Africa'), and especially with the fact that Ban-Ki Moon was on the cover.

What is the golden thread between your curatorial and academic projects?

My beginning was militant, I was not ready to accept the fact that working on Africa was inherently a lack. The point was to confound the idea of Africa as a limit. When I founded the magazine Nka nearly 20 years ago, which I still publish, contemporary African art didn't even exist in the New York-American context as part of serious discourse. Maintaining that disciplinary insurgency was very important to me, and has remained in the way I think of that relationship between contemporary art and the global state of the world at large. The disciplinary insurgency is important because the institutional practice oftentimes is unable to make room for numerous thoughts that are just as relevant and can be tested against the prevailing judgment.

One has to make that happen. There are artists working in Mumbai, in China, in Africa that deserve consideration even if their critical language might not be transparently obvious to the settled grammar of the west.

But you have to do that with good faith, on a sense of inquiry and of discovery, not simply as an ideological exploitation of that relationship in response to western cultural arrogance, what could be called the ethnocentrism of superiority. Being a museum director in Europe, I cannot absolutely say that sense of disciplinary insurgency, the way it was when I started, still remains -- but it's still part of the backdrop of my thinking, in order that I do not become too settled in what I call dead certainties.

To read complete interview, pick up a copy of Under the Influence magazine's Africa Issue on newsstands or order online here.

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