A Short Century of Freedom

By Esther Iverem
SeeingBlack.com Editor

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"The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa, 1945-1994" is a rare, large-scale, modern art show that we can explore as insiders and not outsiders. People of Africa, and of the African diaspora, are at the center here. We are not standing at the margins, as usual, looking at art that announces our erasure, non-existence or irrelevance. By marching the challenging terrain of colonialism and post-colonialism as subjects for art, "The Short Century" does not pretend that all of art is not built on history and politics.

More than 400 works, including painting, sculpture, video, film, photography and architecture are installed over three vast floors of P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in the Queens section of New York City, all devoted to chronicling, through a modern aesthetic, the upheavals of Africa's liberation movements. Each floor constitutes quite a show in itself. More than one person has spent hours on one level, watching one film, reading text by Africa's important liberation theorists or surveying architectural drawings, only to learn that there was much more to explore. This is definitely a day trip, and even then, you may need to return to see all the full-length films.

As awesome and important as this show is, there are problems, of course. Curator Okwui Enwezor, a Nigerian-born man and current "chosen one" of the modern art world (he curates Documenta XI in Germany this year), seems more at home with work that is conceptual, shies away from hard-hitting documentary photography and film, greatly minimizes the role of African music and, of course, does not make this one show truly reflective of the entire continent of Africa. (As long as these "all-Africa" shows keep coming, there will always be holes in them.) So, of course, there are some African artists and entire schools of art, either missing entirely or only hinted at, while there are a conspicuous number of White folks.

Enwezor and his team mix it up quite a bit but devote a great deal of attention to South Africa. "Ubu Tells the Truth," a compelling, black-and-white, animated short film by South African William Kentridge, opens the show on the first floor and tells the story about the brutality of apartheid and the ability of media to record that brutality.

From there, subtlely drawn yet sexually frank paintings of a nude woman by Egyptian Ghada Amer are ajacent to Jane Alexander's "Butcher Boys," a ghastly life-sized sculpture of three seated South African police officers, who appear part human and part beast. In the next room, there is an untitled work, a fax of a South African death register, by Willem Boshof, along with Gavin Jantjes's "South African Colouring Book," which uses an innocent format to comment sarcastically on the pathology of apartheid. There are comparisons between South African leaders and Hitler, as well as ridicule of Blacks who tried to assimilate as "honorary Whites."

Outside the realm of South Africa, Enwezor's selects works for the first floor that do not make as pointed a statement about independence and liberation movements. Rather, they explore colonial and post-colonial identity and place. Particularly compelling is Santu Mofokeng's "The Black Photo Album," a slide show of rare photographs of Blacks in South Africa from the turn of the 20th Century.

On the second floor, we go from famine to feast. The limitation of Enwezor's focus is glaringly apparent in the teenie-weenie, too-quiet room devoted to music. If any art of Africa has said it loud during this short century, it certainly has been music. Yet, this exhibit suffices with a wall of interesting black-and-white photographs of some important artists like Fela Ransom Kuti, a small display of album covers and other memorabilia. You may not notice it but in the nearby hallway, there is a documentary on Fela playing on a television monitor.

On the other hand, this floor has films, including "October," by Abderrahmane Sissako; "Les Maitre Fous," by Jean Rouch and "In Search of Africa," by Manthia Diawara, for your viewing. A segment on architecture ranges from architectural drawings to photographs by Marion Kaplan of European monuments built in Africa, to photographs by David Goldblatt of the disparity in South African housing. (Unrelated, in a nearby art section, "Township Wall" by Antonio Ole, is constructed of various painted wooden doors, slats and corrugated metal.)

On the third floor section, "Toward African Independence," is where you'll see much of what you might be looking for in a show focusing on liberation and independence movements. Vintage black-and-white news coverage of the struggles of leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana play in darkened rooms. A side gallery holds a series of posters from liberation movements in Southern Africa, including the famous red, black, green and yellow poster: "Free Nelson Mandela And All Political Prisoners" and one bearing the mantra, "A Luta Continua."

Several sculptures and paintings round out the show on this floor. Lucas Sithole's striking untitled work in concrete shows a man and woman moving on, as if down life's road. The wide eyes and serene demeanor of the young man in Gazbia's Sirry's oil painting, "The Martyr," offer no clue of the forces that drive Africans, and struggling people all over the globe, to die for a cause.

Esther Iverem's reviews also appear on BET.com. "The Short Century" is on exhibit though May 5. PS1 is located at 22-25 Jackson Avenue, at the intersection of 46th Avenue in the Long Island City section of Queens. Hours are noon to 6 p.m., Wednesday though Sunday. Phone: (718)784-2084. Web site: http://www.ps1.org.

-- April 25, 2002

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