Because it is not obvious from a logistical, political and economic point of view, the presence of twelve African countries at the sixtieth edition of the Venice Biennale is loaded with symbolic power. Because, even for the best, nothing is acquired and the hardest part is to last. Angola, which won the Golden Lion, the highest distinction, in 2013, has disappeared from the lagoon. Just like Madagascar, after the success of Joël Andrianomearisoa, in 2019, a rare Malagasy artist able to raise funds, or even Ghana, which, for its first participation the same year, pulled out all the stops.
This year, the most interesting performances come from countries which see the Biennale as an element of a broader, long-term influence strategy. Nigeria thus returns after ten years of absence, with increased ambition. The inauguration of palazzorented near Ca’Rezzonico, began on Wednesday April 17 with a national anthem sung a cappella, in the presence of a minister of culture in full pomp. “This exhibition is a way of thinking about what a nation is. It’s a thinking machine”, comments the young curator of the exhibition, Aindrea Emelife, also curator at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of West Africa (Mowaa). At the entrance to the pavilion, the model of the future museum, which is due to open this winter, announces, to the art world, that Benin City, the former capital three hours’ drive from Lagos, will soon be a major cultural destination.
The ghosts of the colonial past haunt the eight artists exhibited. Starting with Yinka Shonibare, a reference on the Nigerian scene, internationally celebrated, who reconstituted in clay one hundred and fifty bronzes from Benin seized by British troops during a punitive raid in 1897. The accumulation is dizzying and the extent of the pillage led by Harry Rawson, whose bust appears in the window, painted with green batik patterns.
Onyeka Igwe, born in 1996 and raised in London, offers an exploration of the sound archives left by the British, as a heady reminder of a past to be overcome. Because it is the future that the Nigerian pavilion looks to with optimism. “It might seem frivolous to be in Venice, while we are in the middle of our construction site, but what we want to show is our commitment to offering artists not a temporary event, but a platform -perennial form »insisted Phillip Ihenacho, directeur du Mowaa.
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