ONCENA BIENAL DE LA HABANA - PRÁCTICAS ARTÍSTICAS E IMAGINARIOS SOCIALES - DEL 11 DE MAYO AL 11 DE JUNIO, 2012 CDCN - Les Hivernales Quais du Polar The Branson Biennale for Morocco Vanessa Branson stands, hands on hips, her loosely hanging skirt tails give her the figure of a Western women making modest concessions to the predictable inquisitive gaze of an Arabic polis. Her trainers are burnished gold — a playful note — and what you wouldn’t be forgiven for calling “ethnic jewellery” is slung around her neck. She has just organized the 4th Marrakech Biennale and looks proud of this achievement. Next to her, one of the young curators, Carson Chan, is dressed entirely in black, wearing statement glasses, with folded arms submitting mournfully to the publicity shot, any visible reluctance counterbalanced by a quiet confidence. It’s quite clear who has the money, and who already suspects he knows how this image will be read. There have been internet rumblings around the biennale — called Surrender — which opened two weeks ago. This biennale, it seems, is Vanessa Branson’s answer for Morocco’s — indeed the wider Arabic world’s — problems. Chan is ying to Samman’s yang.
ArtRio | O Rio é arte. O tempo todo. Em toda parte. News - Bienal de Dakar, microcosmos del arte contemporáneo africano La V edición de la bienal, que se ha inaugurado el 10 de mayo y tendrá un mes de duración, se considera como la edición más ambiciosa de la bienal celebrada hasta el momento. Un total de trece países se ven representados en los salones de la bienal durante este mes, hasta su clausura el próximo 10 de junio: Argelia, Benín, Burkina Faso, Camerún, Costa de Marfil, Egipto, Etiopía, Madagascar, Marruecos, Nigeria, Senegal, Sudáfrica y Túnez. Senegal, el país anfitrión de la muestra es, evidentemente, el que cuenta con una mayor representación de sus jóvenes artistas, con un total de 12: Mansour Ciss, Soly Cissé, Félicité Codjo, Ndary Mbathoï Lo, Gabriel Kenzo Malou, Djibril Ndiaye, Ousmane Ndiaye Dago, Ibrahima Niang, Adam's O'Connor, Moussa Sakho, Mamady Seydi y Amadou Kane Sy. En total, sólo 13 de los 44 países que conforman el continente africano exponen sus tendencias en la bienal de Dakar, que según sus organizadores, tiene la intención de mostrar al mundo puramente arte africano.
Accueil Accueil - Fête des lumières Boldly Bringing New Art to Old Morocco In a former branch of the Banque du Maroc earlier this autumn, sound from a dozen video installations met the cacophony of the historic Djemaa el-Fna square, where food vendors peddled their fare to tourists, snake charmers lined up their cobras and monkeys were paraded on leashes. At dusk, a call to prayer sounded from the Koutoubia Mosque’s landmark minaret. “It’s a symbolic act to be here,” Hicham Daoudi, founder of the Marrakesh Art Fair, said as he looked out at the teeming agora where 16 people were killed in a terrorist bombing in April. The exhibition “Images Affranchies,” showing video art and photography from important young Moroccan and Middle Eastern artists, was part of the fair’s desire to reach out to Marrakesh residents who have little experience with contemporary art and may have been put off by a visit to the fair’s white-walled booths at the luxurious Es Saadi Palace, where the well-heeled sipped Champagne and nibbled hors d’oeuvres on a rambunctious opening night.