Tate Modern opens doors to African visionaries Salahi and Gaba
Exhibitions of works by artists from Sudan and Benin reflects a step change towards Tate’s more globalised view of modern art
Mark Brown, arts correspondent
The Guardian, Monday 1 July 2013 18.20 BST
Sudanese artist Ibrahim El Salahi
Tate Modern welcoms Sudanese artist Ibrahim El Salahi, pictured here in his Oxford studio. Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian
Meschac Gaba was so bewildered by the lack of opportunities for African artists in Europe that he spent five years constructing his own fictional museum, even adding, for extra authenticity, a shop and a restaurant. This week it takes its place at the heart of the British art establishment when it goes on display as one of Tate Modern’s newest acquisitions – the biggest work it has ever bought.
The opening coincides with major retrospectives for the Sudanese artist Ibrahim El-Salahi, 82, and the Lebanese artist Saloua Raouda Choucair, 97. Both could be described as overlooked pioneers, and the shows reflect Tate Modern’s move towards a more globalised view of art. “These are all exhibitions that 20 or 30 years ago were quite impossible,” said the Tate Modern director, Chris Dercon. “At some point it will be absolutely normal and absolutely necessary to have all these kinds of work, all these artists, together in one museum.”
A grand piano filled with chocolate coins by Meschac Gaba at Tate Modern A grand piano filled with chocolate coins by Gaba. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA
The acquisition of Gaba’s enormous 12-room Museum of Contemporary African Art has been several years in the planning. “I’m very happy to have my work here,” said Benin-born Gaba. “Tate is a dream place, all artists would like to be here.”
He recalled being a student at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam and looking for somewhere to exhibit his work. The only place he found was the ethnographic museum, but it did not show contemporary art. So between 1997 and 2002 he created a museum.
Gaba has filled his museum with things he wants. There is a games room where people can create African flags with sliding puzzle tables. On a few days during the work’s display there will be a Tarot reader. There is also a music room, a humanist space and a marriage room where Gaba displays photos from his wedding in 2000 to curator Alexandra van Dongen.
The installation has been part-acquired and part-gifted to Tate Modern – as in bought for an undisclosed discount. It opens free of charge on 3 July, next door to the El-Salahi display, which costs £10 for entry and is the first major UK exhibition of his work. African artists had for too long been excluded from the narrative of art history, the curator, Salah M Hassan, said.
An installation by Benin artist Meschac Gaba at Tate Modern An installation by Benin artist Meschac Gaba. Photograph: Barcroft Media
El-Salahi, widely regarded as the father of African modernism, had a landmark show at the ICA in 1963 and then “suddenly in the 70s and 80s there was a decline in interest in African artists. The importance of this show is to fill gaps in the narrative and globalise the narrative.”
The show traces his artistic and personal life from studying in Khartoum to the Slade School of Fine Art in London, and his jailing in 1975, when he was wrongly accused of anti-government activities in Sudan and his subsequent exile to Oxford in 1998. “I miss Sudan all the time but I also don’t miss it because it is uppermost in my mind,” he said. “I am settled now, I’ve put down roots. I have children, I have grandchildren, I have great-grandchildren in England.”
Installations At The Tate Modern El-Salahi next to his painting Reborn Sounds of Childhood Dreams. Photograph: Barcroft Media
He said it was wonderful that his work was finally being shown in a major British institution. “It has taken a long time,” he said. “I don’t know if it was ignorance or prejudice, but I kept working. I hope what I do and the message I have in my work will get to the people at large, whether in Sudan, Europe or America.”
Ibrahim El-Salahi: Visionary Modernist, and Meschac Gaba: Museum of Contemporary African Art will be at Tate Modern from 3 July-22 September
Print this
.
What’s this?More from the Guardian