LAGOS.- African Artists’ Foundation announced Shout Plenty, its largest group exhibition. The exhibition, curated by Princess Ayoola and Jana Terblanche, will be hosted at two locations. It opens at 1:00 p.m. at Alliance Française, 9 Osborne Rd, Ikoyi, Lagos State and at 4:00p.m at the African Artists’ Foundation, 3b Isiola Oyekan Close, off Adeleke Adedoyin, off Kofo Abayomi Street, Victoria Island, Lagos, on Saturday, August 13th, 2022.
Our histories never unfold in isolation. We cannot truly tell what we consider to be our own histories without knowing the other stories. And often we discover that those other stories are actually our own stories. ---Angela Davis
Shout Plenty assembles the polyrhythmic voices of a diverse, yet interlaced, continent and its diaspora. Shout Plenty gathers 31 artists from Cameroon, Congo, Ghana, Nigeria, Portugal, Senegal, South Africa, Togo, Uganda, USA and Zimbabwe. This visual symposium takes its name from Fela Kuti’s 1986 LP “I Go Shout Plenty”. First recorded in 1977 in Nigeria, this Afrobeat composition challenged rampant greed and corruption taking hold in the wake of independence. Through musical expression, Kuti laid bare the ambitions of his generation and their urgent desire for liberation. In this way, artistic expression ignites abstract ideas without deafening rhetoric or over-simplification. Whilst Kuti’s oeuvre can be viewed through the lens of politics, it is the means by which he tells his story that keeps the audience engaged. Shout Plenty approaches artistic invention as a framework to problem-solve and imagine unlimited futures.
This exhibition centres on limitless forms of artmaking acting as a transmitter for social change. In bell hook’s 1995 collection of essays titled Art on the Mind she writes, “To transgress I must move past boundaries, I must push against to go forward. Nothing changes in the world if no one is willing to make this movement.” Artists practice the ultimate transgression where “visionary insights can be revealed within the context of the everyday, the familiar, the mundane.” The artworks presented capture contemporary visual culture articulated through fashion, media, sound, and music. This includes, but is not limited to, painterly expression, photography, textile work, assemblage and relief sculpture.
Shout Plenty gives voice to the interior lives of a diverse school of artists and by extension their communities. Dialogue between individual experience and collective memory is uncovered. Examining memory and reflections produces a unique understanding of socio-political experiences. Storytelling unites these artists and is beneficial in bridging cultural and ideological divides. In this way, artistic practice allows for play and human conception to wander outside the confines of perceived reality. The curators have assembled artists working across mediums and deliver their intended message with varying degrees of representation and abstraction. Imaginative practice as a site of freedom reveals that a murmur that slowly spreads can, too, be a powerful means of protest.
Shout Plenty highlights works of 31 artists across the African Continent:
Blackson Afonso(Portugal) | Sarfo Emmanuel Annor (Ghana) | Kingsley Ayogu (Nigeria) | Nola Ayoola (Nigeria) | Samson Bakare (Nigeria) | Patrick Bongoy (Congo/South Africa) | Audrey D’Erneville (Senegal/USA) | Olatoye David (Nigeria) | Dodji Efoui (Togo) | Matthew Eguaveon (Nigeria) | Ugochukwu Emebiriodo (Nigeria) | Wasiu Eshinlokun (Nigeria) | Dan Halter (Zimbabwe) | Chisom Ikeorah "Chi Fada" (Nigeria) | Isshaq Ismail (Ghana) | Matt Kayem (Uganda) | Lindokuhle Khumalo (South Africa) | Zemba Luzamba (Congo/South Africa) | John Madu (Nigeria) | Cinthia Sifa Mulanga (Congo/South Africa) | Nkemka Chinaza (Nigeria) | Jean David Nkot (Cameroon) | Johnson Ocheja (Nigeria) | Emma Odumade (Nigeria) | Adaeze Okaro (Nigeria) | Precious Opara (Nigeria/UK) | Esther Onwukamuche (Nigeria) | Sandra Seghir (Senegal) | Pierre Segoh (Togo) | Kenechukwu Victor (Nigeria) | Adesola Yusuf (Nigeria).
