THREE QUESTIONS FOR KENDELL GEERS
Tribal Art Magazine: This exhibition was the
result of an comment you made to Sindika
Dokolo about his collections of classical and
contemporary art to the effect that, in your
opinion, they deserved to be seen as a single
collection. Would you develop this idea for our
readers?
Kendell Geers: The exhibition is the fruit
of a friendship between Sindika and me, an
artist and a collector working together, with a
spiritual experience of art rooted in a common
sensibility. Many of the exhibited artists, and
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FIG. 9 (above):
Baga nimba yoke from
Guinea contemplating
Kudzanai Chiurai’s sculpture
State of the Nation, 2011.
those represented in the collection, are also
friends because we have all found our humanity
and our community through our faith in art.
Sindika’s collection seems unique to me. I
think it is, in many respects, a model to follow
insofar as it is not only rooted in the history
of classical African art but also respects and
acknowledges the fact that traditions grow,
evolve, and change.
Moreover, both urban and rural African
artists, whether on the continent or part of the
diaspora, whether from the digital world or
that of the masquerade, create their art because
they have a spiritual need to make themselves
heard. Their motivating spirits could be as real
as the demons and guardians incarnated in an
nkisi or in the political manifestations of the
Black Panther movement. Representation is
not an economic privilege for an African artist,
any more than art can be just a hobby, because
representation is a testimony to the struggle of
embodying spirits that is more powerful than
experience.
T. A. M.: The unusual way in which the works
in the IncarNations exhibition are arranged and
presented, in the center of the space and with
evocative associations, suggests the show could
be seen as a work of art in itself. What is its
essential concept?
FIGs. 8a-b (right and below
right): View of the space
devoted to Project Dundo,
initiated by Sindika Dokolo
in 2014 with the goal of
locating artworks that
disappeared from the Dundo
Museum during the Angolan
civil war (1975–2002) and
returning them to their
country of origin.
Thirteen objects have
already been returned to
Angola, and the fl ywhisk at
the center of the image at
right will soon join them.
ART ON VIEW