A different view of Africa with the exhibition ‘In brilliant light’ in the Wereldmuseum

Art from Africa has long been considered primitive art. But such an approach shows a one-sided, Western view. “Artists from the African continent have a lot to say,” says Azu Nwagbogu.

Nwagbogu has been appointed as a guest curator by the Wereldmuseum Leiden and has curated the exhibition In brilliant light composed. He has many contacts in the African art world. In 2007, he founded the African Artists Foundation, an organization in Nigeria that promotes African art and artists. He is also the founder and director of the Lagos Photo Festival.

Top pieces

With his extensive cultural baggage and his knowledge of Africa, he started browsing the collection of the Wereldmuseum. He sometimes encountered surprises. “I have selected a number of masterpieces for the exhibition and supplemented them with recent work by other contemporary artists,” Nwagbogu explains.

First, the visitor to the exhibition encounters an image that appears to have been made according to classical Western standards. You find them in Paris, in Rome, in Athens. However, if you look for three seconds longer, you will see that this image is really different. Instead of a sculpted woman’s face, an African mask can be seen. The artwork sets the tone and calls on the visitor to look beyond their own Western culture.

Dialogue

The exhibition contains a lot of photography, but also paintings, textiles, sculptures and objects. Nwagbogu tries to allow different works of art to enter into a dialogue with each other. For example, he has placed shields from the Wereldmuseum collection next to photos of Jon Henry.

The American photographer explained in his series Stranger fruits Detains African-American men who have been victims of police brutality. American police have a questionable record when dealing with black men. “They actually need to be protected from police brutality,” says Nwagbogu. “The shields from Congo are intended to protect one’s own family against attacks from outside.”

Comic strip

Another interesting work of art is that of Thsibumba Kanda-Matulu, which takes up almost an entire wall of the museum. In thirty paintings he tells Congolese history from before colonialism to the mid-1970s. It almost reads like a comic strip.

“The artwork consists of a total of 101 paintings,” says Annette Schmidt, curator of Africa at the Wereldmuseum. “But we couldn’t get rid of them all. The interesting thing is that the artist has worked in the style of one street artist . His paintings are clearly intended for the local population. History is usually described from the perspective of those in power. He gives his own view. After all, history is not only a matter of facts, but also an interpretation of memories and political reality.”

Coins

In brilliant light covers several rooms of the Leiden museum. In addition to the pieces from the museum’s own collection, 45 works of art are on loan from the artists themselves.

The work, for example, is impressive Black Wall Street by the Ghanaian artist Yaw Owusu. The work is made up of coins, such as pesewas from Ghana and pennies from the United States. With his work he wants to point out the central role that black people have played in building the wealth of Europe and America. This particular piece of art pays tribute to the hundreds of African Americans who were murdered in the city of Tulsa in 1921. Envious of the prosperity of the black residents, white rioters looted and burned the black, vibrant business district.

There are also lighter works of art. A little further on there is a coffin in the shape of a coke bottle. Very popular in Ghana.