Has African Art arrived yet?

From international art auction houses like Sotheby’s, Bonhams and Strauss & Co to some of the leading Art fairs for Africa Contemporary art  like 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair and AKAA Fair, African Art is making global headlines in sales and prices.

ART | DOMINIC MUWANGUZI | Finally, African art has arrived! This is a statement that you will hear among many artists, gallerists, curators and art critics on the continent. They may be quite right given the amount of spotlight now that is directed on the African Contemporary Art landscape by international art auction houses, museums and art fairs. There’s also an unprecedented number of international art residences and grants for artists from Africa as a means of facilitating their creative practice. On the continent, the past decade has witnessed a surge in art institutions in form of artists’ collectives and residences for emerging artists. In Uganda alone, there’re more than five artists’ residences working with young artists to mold them into artists who can capture global attention. The conversation about the presence of Ugandan artists on the global art stage has never reached such a high pitch in the history of the Uganda visual arts industry.

With a craze for Art from Africa and the innumerable workshops, grants and art prizes for both mid career and emerging artist, does this really reflect the “renaissance” of African art on the global art scene? Probably, it does. Many centuries ago, African art provided inspiration to several art movements in Europe like Cubism, Expressionism and Fauvism. Great art masters like Picasso integrated some of its elements like the African Mask into his cubist style of painting. Still, particular aspects of African art like abstraction and bold use of colour have continuously been traced in some European and American artists’ works which reverberates its ability to influence and inspire artists across the world. In spite its revered impact, African art has until recently been sidelined as not worth enough to elicit global attention. Suffice to say, comments like, ‘Africans don’t make art,’ where rife among many western art collectors who perceived African art as substandard or worthless to invest in.

Such perception is something of the past as African art now takes the front seat in many international art auctions. According to a recent report by London-based art market research firm ArtTactic the three leading auction houses in London namely Christie’s, Sotheby and Phillips have maintained relatively high sales in their departments of Modern and Contemporary African art, despite an ongoing global decline in sales of art from the continent. For example, Sotheby’s registered sales of $ 3 million dollars from its department of Modern and Contemporary African art in 2023. This was a 60.3% decline from the previous year 2022 where it registered a total $ 7.3 million dollars in sales. On the contrary, Bonham recorded an impressive sale of $10.3 million in 2023. Conversely, other reports on the sale of African art like Art Basel report 2023 reveal that South Africa based auction house Strauss & Co amassed sales of $20.6 million in 2022. The report further suggest the biggest sales come from works of artists from South Africa and Nigeria which obviously have better art infrastructure and a highly developed art ecosystem that facilitate the creative practice of artists.

The underdeveloped art terrain in most African countries can spell doom to the artists and their work despite the boom in the art market. Uganda is a classic example here with its struggling art ecosystem. Though there’re a number of art galleries now which offer opportunities to young artists to showcase their art they’re less professionally run. From a critical view point, several of these spaces have no curators for the shows they organize and this means the quality of art displayed is often compromised. Equally, the tendency of gallerists to interfere in the conceptual development of their artists’ art making has contributed to the production of the ‘trending art’ with the hope it will capture the attention of the collectors. This has subsequently led to artists’ lukewarm reception at some of the major exhibitions on the continent and globally. The situation is not salvaged with an absence of a critical voice on art that can push the artists beyond the boundaries of their creativity. Nonetheless, there’s a significant improvement in the presence and prices for Uganda Contemporary Art at art fairs like FNB Joburg Art Fair, 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, AKAA Art Fair and Art X Lagos Art Fair.

African art is shining on the global art stage and this is a blessing for everyone who is involved in the art ecosystem on the continent. The increase in sales and prices is a good incentive for many artists across different artistic backgrounds and status to earn from their craft. Equally, it is a motivation for fresh art graduates to hone a career out of the discipline because it is now profitable to be a professional artist. But within the context of this positive outlook, lies the complexity of sustaining this glorified success. With no proper or well managed art infrastructures needed to sustainably grow the artists’ creativity in order to produce art that competently competes on the global art stage, countries like Uganda may only purport this success but never actually realize it.