With the level of insight, perspective and creativity that curators put into their work, they serve as a link between the artists and their audiences by presenting the artist’s work such that it resonates with the audience. There are curators of African descent across Europe doing the work of representing African artists living in Africa and in the Diaspora on a global art stage. These curators are in museums, biennials, galleries, and independent exhibition spaces, and their curatorial practices and vision for African art can not be ignored.
Meet some of the curators influencing the art scene in different art houses in Western Europe:
Simon Njami
Born to Cameroonian parents, Simon Njami is a Paris-based independent curator and art critic. He has served as artistic director and curator of the first Johannesburg art fair in 2008, the Bamako photography biennale for ten years and the Dak’art Biennale (2016-2018). He was a visual-arts consultant for Cultures France, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ cultural branch. Njami is also co-founder and editor-in-chief of the Paris-based cultural magazine Revue Noire, a journal of contemporary African and extra-occidental art. He has contributed essays to the catalogue for the Sydney Biennial and other exhibitions. Njami has curated numerous exhibitions of African art and photography, including Afriques Capitales (Paris, Lille 2017), African Metropolis (Maxxi 2018), The Studio (Kampala Biennale 2019), This space between us (Las Palmas 2020), Materia Prima (San Giminiano 2021), amongst others. In 1998, he created the Pan African master classes in photography, with the Goethe Institut and directed it for over 12 years, and set up the collection of contemporary art for the Memorial Acte museum in Guadeloupe. He published and edited numerous books among which the latest Stories Histories, the story of Revue Noire (2020).
You can follow more of his work here.
Osei Bonsu
Osei Bonsu is a British-Ghanaian curator, critic and art historian based in London and Paris. He is currently a curator of International Art at Tate Modern, where he is in charge of organizing exhibitions, developing the museum’s collection, and expanding the representation of African and African diaspora artists in Tate’s collection and public programme. He has developed projects focused on transnational histories of art, collaborating with museums, galleries and private collections internationally. In 2017, he curated the 10th edition of Satellites, an exhibition co-commissioned by Jeu de Paume and CAPC: Centre for Contemporary Art, Bordeaux. As a leading curator of contemporary art, he has advised museums, art fairs and private collections internationally and mentored emerging artists through his digital platform, Creative Africa Network. He has developed projects focused on transnational histories of art, collaborating with museums, galleries and private collections internationally. Bonsu has worked as a contributing editor for Frieze magazine and has contributed to a number of exhibition catalogues and arts publications including ArtReview, Numero Art and Vogue. His most recent show, ‘A World in common contemporary African photography’ which will be on view till January 2023, will address how photography, film, audio, and more have been used to reimagine Africa’s diverse cultures and historical narratives.
You can follow more of his work here.
Elvira Dyangani Ose
Born in Cordoba, Spain to Equato-Guinean parents, Elvira Dyangani Ose is a well-known curator and scholar in the field of African art. In 2021, The Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona (MACBA) announced that Ose will be its next director for a five-year term. Ose is the first Black person and the first woman to lead MACBA since its establishment in 1987. Before MACBA, she was the director and chief curator of The Showroom, a non-profit art gallery in London, which presents site-specific work by emerging artists. She held the position from 2018 to 2021. She is also a member of The Thought Council at the Prada Foundation. She has been a senior curator at Creative Time, New York, curator of the 8th edition of the Gothenburg International Biennial (2015), curator for international art at Tate Modern (2011-2014) and artistic director of the Rencontres Picha – Biennale de Lubumbashi in the Democratic Republic of Congo (2013). Elvira Dyangani Ose has written and lectured on modern and contemporary African art and contributed to journals such as Nka and Atlántica. She is also a lecturer on visual cultures at the Department of Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths University in London.
You can follow more of her work here.
