KASSEL.- Fundação Sindika Dokolo is pleased to announce a partnership with documenta 14 in supporting the production of works by artists of African descent being exhibited in the fourteenth edition of the international art exhibition taking place in both Kassel, Germany its traditional home, and Athens, Greece from 8 April to 17 September 2017.

This key cultural collaboration supports 16 artists showing in documenta 14 to realise their artistic commissions underlining the foundation’s ongoing commitment to nurturing and promoting contemporary art from Africa.

Following the artists’ participation and the conclusion of documenta 14, Adam Szymczyk, the Artistic Director and Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, Curator at Large will initiate a new exhibition bringing together the artists; this will travel to Luanda, Angola, one of the most dynamic cities on the continent. The show will feature works presented in documenta 14 re-shaped within the local framework of the city, as well as, those of multiple new visual practitioners from Africa and the diaspora.

The objective of this partnership for both documenta 14 and Fundação Sindika Dokolo, is to create a unique multidisciplinary arts platform between Kassel, Athens and Luanda which will act as a creative cultural exchange within the international and local artistic communities. To facilitate this, documenta 14 and Fundação Sindika Dokolo will hold a conference over the duration of the exhibition organising a forum of ideas and discussion of politics, philosophy, identity and contemporary art in Africa to encourage greater understanding and collaboration with artists and scholars.

Artists include: Akinbode Akinbiyi (Nigeria), Sammy Baloji (DR Congo), Bili Bidjocka (Cameroon), Manthia Diawara (Mali), Theo Eshetu (Ethiopia), Aboubakar Fofana (Mali), Pélagie Gbaguidi (Benin), iQhiya (South Africa), Bouchra Khalili (Morocco), Ibrahim Mahama (Ghana), Narimane Mari (Algeria), Otobong Nkanga (Nigeria), Emeka Ogboh (Nigeria), Olu Oguibe (Nigeria), Tracey Rose (South Africa) and El Hadji Sy (Senegal).

documenta 14 and Fundação Sindika Dokolo will announce detailed plans of the exhibition and conference in the coming months.

Sindika Dokolo, Founder, Fundação Sindika Dokolo commented, “The last decade or so has seen the increased prominence of artists from Africa exhibiting across the contemporary artistic platform in the West. I am delighted to help in initiating this opportunity of showing the African artists being exhibited in documenta 14 for the first time on the continent. This unique exhibition comes at a timely moment in which we can showcase and celebrate a collection of immerse and diverse African talent. It is a critical concern of mine that the people of Angola — and of Africa — have access to contemporary cultural discourse, as well as being able to see and discover the artistic production of multiple voices from the continent and diaspora.”