CCA, Lagos: Art-iculate Lectures Series, Spring 2011

In my inbox this morning …

Art-iculate Lectures Series, Spring 2011

In 2008, Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos began the Art-iculate Lecture Series to increase dialogue, encourage debate and stimulate exchange in visual art and culture in Nigeria. By prioritising the provision of an independent discursive platform through our public programmes, we actively encourage the development of critical perspectives as well as engage with topical issues that affect our society specifically as well as the world at large. To much acclaim, Art-iculate has featured lectures and presentations by Slyvester Ogbechie (U.C, Santa Barbara), Didier Schaub (Doual'Art, Cameroon), Solange Farkas (Videobrasil, Sao Paulo), Yacouba Konate (University of Abidjan), Monna Mokoena (MOMO Gallery, Johannesburg), Shahidul Alam (Drik Agency, Dhaka) and Chika Okeke-Agulu (Princeton University), amongst others.

Date: Wednesday, April 20, 2011, 4:00 p.m.

Venue: Terra Kulture, 1376 Tiamiyu Savage Street, Victoria Island

CURATOR TALK

Kristina Van Dyke

Kristina Van Dyke is Curator for Collections and Research at the Menil Collection in Houston, Texas, where she co-manages the curatorial department and oversees the museum's archives, library, and exhibitions department. She received her M.A. from Williams College and her Ph.D. from Harvard University, writing her dissertation on the nature of representation in the oral cultures of Mali. Since arriving at the Menil in 2005, she has curated Insistent Objects: David Levinthal's Blackface, Chance Encounters: the Formation of the de Menils' African Collection, and Body in Fragments. In 2008, she reinstalled the African galleries and published African Art from the Menil Collection.

Kristina Van Dyke will provide an illustrated overview of The Menil Collection's history and discuss its unique curatorial philosophy. She is currently developing three research projects: a study of Malian antiquities and cultural heritage issues; an exhibition exploring skull imagery in sculpture from Nigeria, Cameroon, and Gabon; and an exhibition on the theme of love and Africa.

ARTIST TALK

Yinka Shonibare, MBE

Internationally acclaimed Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare MBE will discuss his artistic trajectory over the past two decades, presenting key themes from his vast and diverse artistic practice.

Yinka Shonibare, MBE was born in London and moved to Lagos, Nigeria at the age of three. He returned to London to study Fine Art first at Byam Shaw College of Art (now Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design) and later at Goldsmiths College, where he received his MFA-graduating as part of the ‘Young British Artists' generation. Shonibare has become well known for his exploration of colonial and post-colonial themes. His work explores these issues through the media of painting, sculpture, photography and, more recently, film and performance. With this wide range of media, Shonibare examines in particular the construction of identity and the tangled interrelationship between Africa and Europe. Having described himself as a ‘post-colonial' hybrid, Shonibare questions the meaning of cultural and national definitions. In 2004 Shonibare was shortlisted for the Turner Prize and in 2009 he won a commission for the Fourth Plinth in London's Trafalgar Square, for which he unveiled in 2010 a scale model of Nelson's ship HMS Victory in a bottle. He has exhibited at the Venice Biennial and internationally at leading museums worldwide.

This edition of Art-iculate is supported by Shonibare Studio, The Menil Collection and Terra Kulture.

Shonibare's visit is supported by The Menil Collection, Houston and is part of the preliminary research for work to be presented in the forthcoming exhibition Love and Africa (2012–13) taking place in Houston and Lagos in collaboration with CCA, Lagos.

For inquiries, please contact info@ccalagos.org, or visit www.ccalagos.org.

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