QUEENS, NEW YORK.- The Museum for African Art presents “Looking Both Ways: Art of the Contemporary African Diaspora,” on view through March 1, 2004. Curator: Laurie Ann Farrell. Looking Both Ways: Art of the Contemporary African Diaspora is a major exhibition of works by artists from Africa who live and work in Western countries, including Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Many artists from Africa are in the forefront of discussions of globalism and cultural hybridity, terms currently circulating in the international art world. 

Looking Both Ways examines the relationships among shifting physical contexts, emotional geographies, ambition, and freedom of expression while focusing on the increasing globalization of the African Diaspora. The exhibition will be on view in New York during the Fall 2003 season, and then will travel to five domestic and two international venues.

In organizing Looking Both Ways, Ms. Farrell made many research trips to the different countries of the African Diaspora, meeting artists and scholars and visiting major exhibitions. She made her curatorial selection after meeting with hundreds of artists and conducting many studio visits in different parts of the world. She has also consulted with curators and other art-world professionals and has reviewed many publications on contemporary art. Looking Both Ways, then, provides insight into the Diaspora from an international perspective, revealing it through the art and stories of the artists themselves.
 
In the past, curators have often described and framed the work of African artists within pre-established theoretical and political contexts, emphasizing history, politics, and multiculturalism. Looking Both Ways departs from these practices by creating a forum in which the artists and their artworks can tell stories of migration, assimilation, or exclusion, and can identify their place in the global Diaspora themselves.

Looking Both Ways is not a survey exhibition. It offers a more intimate experience, focusing on twelve artists, each of whom will show either a single major installation or several artworks. The result will be an array of styles and media, ranging from video through painting, photography, sculpture, installation art, collage, and performance art to works on paper. The works will be both newly commissioned and recently produced, and will focus on the interplay between the artists’ African backgrounds and their new environments. The exhibition both introduces a new generation of emerging artists and highlights artists who are established within the African art community, although they may not be known to a broader public.

Additional theoretical issues and commentary will appear in essays by and interviews with the scholars who have been invited to contribute to the 192-page publication that will accompany the exhibition. Along with an extensive public programming, the Museum for African Art plans to convene an international symposium featuring the artists and catalogue essayists and other scholars, who together will explore how the current discussions of global identities in contemporary art influence our perception of African art. The symposium will be open to the general public.

The exhibition is the curatorial debut of Laurie Ann Farrell, Curator at the Museum for African Art. Ms. Farrell has worked in other roles on numerous exhibitions at the Museum, including Liberated Voices: Contemporary Art from South Africa (1999). She publishes regularly on the subject of contemporary African art and has written and presented scholarly papers at juried conferences.

The list of participating artists includes: Fernando Alvim. Born in Angola, lives in Brussels. New commissions; Ghada Amer. Born in Egypt, lives in New York City. New commissions; Oladélé Bamgboyé. Born in Nigeria, lives in London. New commission; Allan deSouza. Born in Kenya, lives in Los Angeles. New and existing works; Kendell Geers. Born in South Africa, lives in Brussels. New installation commission; Moshekwa Langa. Born in South Africa, lives in Amsterdam. New commissions; Hassan Musa. Born in Sudan, lives in Domessargues, France. New and recent works; N’Dilo Mutima. Born in Angola, lives in Lisbon, Portugal. Existing works; Wangechi Mutu. Born in Kenya, lives in New York City. New commissions; Ingrid Mwangi. Born in Kenya, lives in Ludwigshafen, Germany. New commissions; Zineb Sedira. Born in Paris, lives in London. New and existing work; Yinka Shonibare. Born in London, raised in Nigeria, lives in London. New installation commission.