the show goes on

Aimé’s chalkboard is now almost completely obscured and surrounded by playing cards that visitors have decided not to deposit in the box marked fulu gawa (trash here). The artwork has taken on a life of its own and soon it will have to come down. I find myself busy now with efforts to raise funds to acquire some of the art works. They belong in a museum and it will break my heart to see them leave.

At the same time, I find myself preoccupied with efforts toward future projects. In particular, the next exhibition which will go in the space – the mid-career retrospective of works by Yinka Shonibare MBE. It will go on view on November 10th, 2009, so stay tuned as we will probably be launching a blog about the many trials and travails behind the scenes in getting that great show on view. Another project looks at African earthworks – so, lots going on!

The Living Exhibition

Tomorrow marks the two-month anniversary of the opening of “Artists in Dialogue.” The artists have returned to their respective homes and are hard at work on their next projects. This exhibition, however, lives on – literally. The fears Aimé asked visitors to write on cards, drop in a vendor box, and transcribe to a chalk board on the wall have multiplied. One-quarter of a way through the exhibition and the board is almost completely obscured beneath the layers of words, pictures, fears. In his hopes that we confront that which scares us, we can learn of a far range of concerns: many are scared of snakes, others the dark, or something particular – like a woman named Jillian – and still others the terrors held close to the heart, like strokes or failure. For those of you who can not make it to Washington DC to visit this exhibition, we invite you to submit your concerns to this blog. They can remain anonymous, but in making them public you – and all of us – can confront and, hopefully, overcome our fears.

Aimé has spoken repeatedly of how there are no “psy” in Congo – no psychiatrists, no psychologists, just dialogue. Only through dialogue is it possible to solve our problems.

Before I sign off, I have questions to ask of you, the quiet public who visit this exhibition and blog. We’d love to hear from you:

- Are there two artists you would like to see in dialogue in a future exhibition?

- What do you think of the format of this exhibition -- with it’s combination of extant and new work? Would you prefer just site-specific installations?

- What are some programs we should try to improve the museum’s dialogue with the public? Twitter? Facebook? Other?

- Anything else?


For those of you who are visiting the exhibition, please know that you can treat this blog as a comment book. We look forward to hearing from you. And we will write back. This is a dialogue, after all.

Open to the public!

After the press preview yesterday, the artists and I had a follow-up interview with Smithsonian magazine. Then, a reporter from Voice of America showed up unexpectedly, so we chatted with him, too. It’s amazing how an entire day can just evaporate like that. After all the talking, António was able to go to lunch with a friend from the Portuguese embassy, while Aimé and I grabbed a bite before he went to see some exhibitions at other museums on the mall. They decided to have an early night because first thing this morning they were heading to University of Maryland to meet with Dr. Shannen Hill’s Intro to African Art class. If any of the students should read this blog – please write in and tell us about the experience!

Tonight, the artists and I will meet with museum docents. Docents are volunteers who give their time to learn about the art and exhibitions at the museum and then to provide tours to school groups and visitors. They are, quite literally, the “front line,” helping visitors interpret and understand what they see. We have a diverse and dynamic group of docents and this will be my first time working with them as a curator here at the museum. I am looking forward to it, however, as it is always fun to talk with an interested audience!

Oh, the other big news! We are open to the public today! how could I forget... after all this behind the scenes activity, we finally get to see people just wander in of their own volition!

Success!

The opening was a huge success, if I do say so myself. I am guessing around 250 people came. The ambassadors of Angola and DRC both spoke, which was really quite moving, as did Rosalind Kainyah of De Beers, Inc. Her support has made so much of this exhibition possible.

So, we had Congolese performers, food, wine, and lots of people. I think both artists were happy, which was best of all. This morning, we had the press preview and that also seemed to go well – especially considering it was snowing outside. We weren’t sure how many people would show in these weather conditions. But, they came and more importantly, they stayed. Stay tuned until the weekend to see what people have to say… One of the nice comments was a reporter said we “nailed it” with the entry wall. Others seemed really interested to learn more about the relationship that has developed between Aimé and António.

We’d (me, the artists, museum, etc) also be interested in hearing more from readers about what folks think goes into opening or press previews, the launching of an exhibition in general… It is a team effort of course: designing the invites, sending them out, maintaining the lists, staffing the doors, providing security… I haven't got any pictures yet, but will share when I can...

Opening night!

Believe it or not, the exhibition opens tonight. I have been gone since Wednesday, due to a death in my family. It’s a bit of a surreal transition coming back at this celebratory moment.

While I have been away, António’s artworks have been re-hung, including “On Taking the Pill” which we retrieved from a paper conservator at the very last moment. This work of art is 40 years old and shows the marks of its journeys through time. The entry wall to the exhibition also was completed during my absence. Now, it bears the profiles of each artist – Aimé and António chose a rich sienna color for their silhouettes, and above this, quotes by both artists, each speaking about the work of the other.

The gallery is also clean now. The work carts and drop cloths have been removed. The 3 ficus trees António included in his installation, “Allegory of Construction I” shed leaves, but these have even been removed. When I was standing next to the trees, Aimé walked over to me to say that he loved seeing the trees, his solid figure “Nude” and “Congo, Shadow of a Shadow” all in a row. Each was made of wood – trees, a solid figure, and the matchsticks. It was an unexpected, and interesting, dialogue of form and material to emerge from the exhibition.

Aime also had a busy weekend. He made a whirlwind trip to New York to install artworks at the Skoto Gallery in Chelsea, where he has an exhibition opening on February 12. I’ve tried to get him to go to the hotel and rest a little before the festivities tonight but he insists he thrives on adrenaline. António’s weekend was a little more restful. He was able to get to some exhibitions over the weekend, and has been raving about “Strange Bodies” over at the Hirshhorn.

I have to say that I am excited about the opening tonight, the press tomorrow, and working with museum docents (volunteers who give informed tours to the public) on Wednesday, but I am also feeling sad that the artists will be leaving us soon! I’ve been joking that they will have to join the staff, as we have all grown so accustomed to having them around.

Artworks in Dialogue

We are quickly getting the artworks up and in place, but we’ve had a bit of a glitch with António’s. His 6 black and white photographs, the “Untitled” series and the triptych, “Disintegrations” have all been hung but I think a little too low. I would like them all raised 2 inches, so that the base of “Disintegrations” is not obscured by the boat, and so that the photo portraits appear to be closer to standing height. Establishing the height at which to hang an artwork is not a science and people have different views. We’d welcome your feed back as I am quite certain not everyone agrees with me. It’s hard to gage one’s audience – how many children or people in wheelchairs will be visiting? How does an artwork look in relation to the floor? The ceiling? The unfortunate issue today is that the works have already been hung, and I am loathe to add to people’s work by asking them to re-hang the artworks. This dilemma does bring up an issue that is open to input, however, and that is the relationship between artworks.

Up until now, my writing has focused mostly on the actions of the artists, but of course, the designer Alan Knezevich and I have also been around all along. As the curator, I had the most say in what works of art would be included, as well as where they would be placed in the gallery. In terms of the placement, I really have been seeking to create visual dialogues between works of art. I wanted António’s “Untitled” series in a face-off (pun intended) with “Ici on crève.” I also wanted the black and white of the “Untitled” series next to the black and white canvases of “Disintegrations” in a dialogue of forms across media. And, I want to position António’s early pop art influenced work on paper, “On Taking the Pill,” in proximity to Aimé’s “Rail, Massina 3” in which we can see the rich traditions of Congolese popular arts – about which Johannes Fabian, Bogumil Jewsiewicki and others have written so well. So, the dialogues are between the artists, between and amongst their artworks, between genres, between them and me, and hopefully, will include you – audiences around the world.

Monday, Monday...

It’s Monday and we hope to have the objects pretty much hung or in place today. We’ve been working on António’s “On the Margins of the Borderlands.” It’s amazing that he first exhibited this work – which includes a boat broken into two pieces and welded from iron, taxidermied (a.k.a. “stuffed”) crows, TV sets, bricks, bundled papers, and a fish net –in Luanda in 1996, I believe. Since then, it has traveled to the first South African Biennale in Johannesburg (where David Bowie wrote a review of it) and then on to Portugal, London, Jerusalem, and Rio de Janeiro… I am thrilled that we will be the first North American venue ever to exhibit the work, but it is a real challenge. First, we had to get it here and it is BIG, and heavy. I wrote in an earlier entry of the challenges regarding getting the pied crows through customs – we had to prove they were not endangered species – and building the enormous crate, but in addition to that we had to: 1) find the bricks. This required a series of digital images and emails back and forth between António and me as to just how many bricks he wanted, in what condition, color, and so on. Then, Doug Johnston -- whose job I don’t even know how to describe as it includes everything from overseeing construction contracts at the museum to helping me buy bricks -- found a place where we could by used bricks. Again, this was not as easy as it may seem. As a federal institution, we can not pay cash and we can only buy through licensed vendors. In the end, this gentleman Doug knew agreed to part with 200 bricks for the duration of the exhibition, free of charge. He only asked that we return the bricks to him if we do not still need them at the end of the exhibition. Acquiring the net and TVs took a little longer. António had only ever installed “On the Margins of the Borderlands” with matching, black, tube TVs. Finding 2 tube TVs in the age of flat screen is no mean feet, and Doug was not able to find two that matched. He came up with a few options, however. As for the net, António no longer had his original. He thinks a fisherman in need appropriated it. So, I then went on the hunt for fishnets and found they can be found in bright white, blue, green – an impressive range of colors – but all very new and distracting looking. There was also a question of gage. How big should the the string be? the holes? In the end, I was able to find an “authentic” (used) fish net from a decorative web site. António laughed when he saw it because it was so small (9 feet was the largest size they sold). Nevertheless, he said he could use it. António also decided that he wanted to include DC newspapers in the installation, to draw connections between the Angolan papers and the current venue, so I had been gathering up newspapers from various staff members for months. To meet safety codes, we had to fire proof all the papers.

So, we got all the miscellaneous bits in the gallery and started to position the work paying special attention to the location of electrical outlets in the floor, as we would need to plug in the TVs and the DVD players that would play António’s video of light reflecting on the surface of the ocean. Getting the boat out of the crate turned out to be more of a challenge than positioning it. We all agreed on a location fairly quickly. The equipment itself, however, was very challenging. Although we had, in the end, found TVs that António liked, they could not receive the signal from the DVD player – they were too old. And we only learned this after a day of trial and error – different monitors, different converters… the image would go to grey, or worse, skip and all one could see was a series of undulating lines. In the end, we had to go with computer monitors. They caught the warm, silvery quality of the liquid that António was after and played the DVD without any trouble. Since they were smaller than the TVs, however, the Installation guys had to build wood frames. Thanks to Doug for coming up with the creative solution and getting the timing of the two DVDs in sync. We also discovered that our 200 bricks were not enough, so António supplemented with some cinder-blocks concealed under the bricks and monitors. But, I have to say, I love seeing the boat look as though it is moving across the floor toward the new installation. António created “on the Margins of the Borderlands” at a time of real political and economic crisis in Angola. It speaks to memories and opportunities lost, and now it moves in a new direction – facing his latest work, a “fresco” which celebrates the hope he now feels in the Angola of today, a place where democracy and new structures age being built.

Aimé continues to work on painting his playing cards. And, he’s begun to position his installation piece, “Congo, Shadow of the Shadow.” This extraordinary piece consists of a life-size standing figure made of approximately 4, 652 matchsticks – there may be more now, as he has added some new ones to the feet. The figure stands over a grave marked “Congo… 1885” -- 1885 is the year Europe carved Africa into various colonies and Congo became the personal possession of Belgium’s King Leopold II. The grave is supposed to include two wooden legs that bridge between the feet of the figure, and the grave marker itself. Unfortunately, the legs were misplaced during the packing of a previous installation. After several days thinking they were lost for good, we learned today that the gallery has located the legs and will be fed-exing them to us. In the meanwhile, however, Aimé has decided that he wants to craft new legs – ones that are longer and he feels are better suited to the larger space we have provided for the work. So, he will add shellac and position these new legs later today. We’ve just finished positioning the flat silhouettes of a pregnant woman and child, which are also part of the installation.

Tomorrow, we want to have everything in place, as the artists will be going to University of Maryland first thing Wednesday morning to begin outreach activities with students. Thursday, they meet with students from Gallaudet, and Friday, Howard University. So, we can be working on lighting and cleaning the gallery while they are so occupied.