Contemporary Art and Design Fair, centered around Africa and its Diasporas
November 9-11, 2019
First contemporary art and design fair dedicated to Africa in France, AKAA is the Parisian rendez-vous for visitors who are passionate or curious about the vibrant creativity of the African continent, and its artistic influence throughout the world.
For its fourth edition, AKAA returns to the Carreau du Temple, with an rigorous selection of art galleries showing artists whose work reveals a link to Africa– defined by their place of birth or origin, their cultural or family heritage, aesthetics, travel, residency, new encounters or collaborations.
With over 45 exhibitors and a 100 artists each year from all over the world, AKAA is now established as a primary event for contemporary art lovers, collectors and professionnals. AKAA is also renown for its welcoming atmosphere and open space, where many commercial, cultural, artistic, philosophical or intellectual encounters are happening.
Les Rencontres AKAA, the fair’s cultural platform welcomes artists, curators, thinkers, art professionals and visitors invited to express themselves and debate publicly. With a strong conferences, concerts, film screenings, performances and reading program, Les Rencontres AKAA is an invitation to reflect on questions relating to the current artistic life and the art market in Africa. This year, the theme will be urban space as a place for creation, where the cities of tomorrow are invented, in Africa and the world.
INVENTING THE CITY
Les Rencontres AKAA will host events relating to art and creativity in the City, inviting artists and speakers from various disciplinary fields to share their experiences and visions of urbanity, in Africa and the world. The demographic explosion of cities and their environmental impact ; urbanism and architecture; questions of justice in the city, survival and violence; the intimate experience of individualism and communities; the future of cities; or the urban sensory landscape, all question and nourish the intellectual and artistic work of city dwellers, from Lagos to Dubai, Cairo to New Delhi, Johannesburg to Sao Paulo and Dakar to New York. With a program of conferences, performances, concerts and film screenings, Les Rencontres AKAA invite the public to learn from different urban experiences, and to invent new ways of thinking, imagining and creating the City.
©Vukile Batyi /BOTHO PROJECT SPACE
CARTE BLANCHE 2019:
Carte blanche Francisco Vidal
CONTEMPORARY LANDSCAPES x BEYOND THE LINE
By Francisco Vidal Francisco
Vidal, one of the most exceptional voices from Angola, will take over the walls and floors of AKAA UNDERGROUND. Vidal is well known for his paintings and drawings with bold colors and patterns. The artist’s work playfully blends various aesthetic influences, including Cubism, African wax-print textiles, and 1980s hip-hop culture, as well as contemporary graffiti and street art. Born in Portugal to Angolan and Cape Verdean parents, the artist deals with ideas which are closely tied to the diaspora experience, examining narratives and identities which arise from a hybrid of cross-cultural upbringing.
“The choice of machetes refers to both tools used in agriculture and weapons symbolizing African liberation movements. Through painting, the machete yields to poetry, depicting portraits and flowers.“
Namalimba Coelho, Project Curator
CARTE BLANCHE SEDBON
CARTE BLANCHE TO LARA SEDBON By Lara Sedbon is a platform promoting French artists with a strong exhibition program in evolving Parisian places. Associate director at Art Plural Gallery, Singapore and director at Galerie Templon, Paris, Lara Sedbon now proposes her own selection. In the AKAA VIP lounge, Lara Sedbon presents a solo show of new works on canvas, paper and passports by young French artist Leonard Combier.
MONUMENTAL INSTALLATION 2019
The congolese artist Houston Maludi represented by MAGNIN-A gallery, will invest the central aisle of the Carreau du Temple, to immerse the public into a unique artistic experience.
“I seek the truth in form because matter is an obstacle to the sight; I pierce it to discover the infinite universe. This is my approach and my philosophy.”
Inspired by the cubist painters Georges Braques and Pablo Picasso, and after years of experimentation and aesthetic research, he developed in 2008 a personal cubism, the “Monochromic Quantum Symbiotic Cubism” that he obtained through a “Symbiosis of forms.” Maludi mainly uses black and white (or other contrasted duotone) and a sinuous continuous line that defines all levels of reading of the work. He seeks to achieve “a perfect and discreet unity of the elements.” The same curve can trace the shoulder of a character in the foreground and the edge of a crowded road at another reading level. Everything is in everything.
The line expresses life in its dynamism. It seems infinite and fills the canvas in a kind of Horror Vacui that can evoke both the reality of a congested city like Kinshasa, and the absence of emptiness in the universe. The limited colour palette used by the artist accentuates the graphic quality of his work. From a distance, his works can evoke fuzzy monochromes, before revealing vibrant urban landscapes. “In symbiotics there is no such thing as an error; if you know how to use it, it becomes a new line, which you integrate into the composition”
For Maludi, art is a quest. He seeks to discover the truth in the infinite universe. His name, Maludi, means Freedom. He does not believe he creates his paintings, but rather that his works shape him and leave an imprint on him. He learns from each piece he completes. He progresses and matures with his artistic production.
AKAA UNDERGROUND
A laboratory for artistic dialogue and practice, is a space dedicated tonew encounters conversation open to all. Audacious and innovative brands, from design to literature. Each year, AKAA UNDERGROUND gives Carte Blanche to an artist to take over the space.
The design of ASbyAS
The design of ASbyAS (Authentic Scent by Anne-Sophie) is inspired by the African symbol of fusion. Here between South African culture and French culture, ASbyAS is a boutique in the 10th arrondissement of Paris where design and cosmetics become one.
Authentic Scent by Anne-Sophie
30 rue du Château d’Eau
75010 Paris
asbyas@asbyas.fr
Atelier Meraki
Atelier Meraki is a multidisciplinary incubator in the creative field. The studio will exhibit the work of Agathe Derycke, a fashion designer who will present her project made in Senegal “Retour de pêche”, and the illustrations of graphic designer Alice Bourgeois, alias ToubabSignare.
In 1995, Valérie Schlumberger founded the CSAO (Association of Senegal and West Africa) in order to make known West African craft and African artists in France and all around the world. She supports the transmission of traditions as much as creativity.
The CSAO
The CSAO, located in the heart of the Marais, 9 rue Elzévir, offers a large range of products, decorative items, furniture, embroidery, carpets and basketry, which ensures a suitable remuneration to local producers, while enabling the widest distribution of their work.
Baay Xaaly Sene, known as BXS (1960-2004), first succeeded his father by taking over the professional and technical training workshop (CFMPT) that he had founded in Rufisque (Senegal) in 1955. Admired by his students as he trains iron, BXS designs furniture from the recovery of barrels of gasoline. Made with an 8 kg hammer, it “bends” the metal with extraordinary force. In 1996, he exhibited for the first time at the Biennale des Arts in Dakar. Then in 1998, he exhibited in Paris and participatedin 2000 at the Biennale St Etienne where his work impressed. In 2002, he is the first artist of African origin to join the metal workshop of the Beaux-arts de Paris. He will then go back and forth between Dakar and Paris, faithful to his dear CFMPT. In 2004, Milan decided to dedicate a big exhibition to him which will be a success, but he died in October, one month before. CSAOrepresents Bxs in exclusivity and sells a lot of his work !
CSAO will present pieces of the artist and designer Baay Xaaly Sene, also known as BXS, in the VIP area of the fair.
www.csao.fr
Contact : csao@csao.fr
KNA
Created between Paris and Agadir, KNA invites you to discover its collections of authentic objects from Moroccan craftsmanship. Each piece is handmade in the respect of the traditions, and reflects the energy, the inventiveness, the know-how and the art of living that emanate from Morocco and its artisans.
The brand with Mediterranean influences wants to be a highlight of this unique cultural richness. KNA is committed to the promotion of artistic know-how of women and access to education in rural villages with the OneBagForSchool programme.
More informations:
Contact : info@kna-paris.com
Bookstore Présence Africaine
The bookstore Présence Africaine was created in the early sixties and is part of the dynamic heritage of Alioune Diop. It presents and gives acces to the works edited by the publishing house, as well as the many publications showcasing the myriad of thought on the continent and in the diasporas: literature and critic, linguistics, history, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, theology, politics, current affairs, children’s literature, journals, DVDs …
Présence Africaine will celebrate its 70th birthday at AKAA this year!
25 bis rue des écoles
75005 Paris
Ehibitors
42 international galleries
18 countries
Various mediums
Non-exhaustive lis
AKAA – ALSO KNOWN AS AFRICA 2018
November 9-11, 2019
