Alicia Knock

ALICIA KNOCK:

The exhibition is part of a body of work that the institution and my department have been carrying out for the last 10 years to inscribe a postcolonial, Pan-African history of art in the institution’s collections. This is partly thanks to the Friends of the Centre Pompidou and the creation of an acquisitions committee [Cercle International – Afrique, launched in 2019 to acquire modern and contemporary artworks by artists from Africa]. It also follows on from exhibitions, such as the one on the artist Ernest Mancoba [in 2019] and research projects.

The exhibition places Paris at the intersection of this great history of post colonialism that took place from the end of the 1940s. It starts with the arrival of intellectuals from different black worlds such as James Baldwin, Édouard Glissant and poets and writers about negritude like Léopold Sédar Senghor and Aimé Césaire who gathered in Paris for the Congress of Black Writers and Artists in 1956.

ALICIA KNOCK:

Decolonisation lasted until the end of apartheid. It’s important to remember that Paris was not only the centre of exterior struggles, but also an international Black capital in the 1950s/1960s with artists fleeing apartheid, segregation and struggles for equality and independence. It raised the question of a country with a multicultural identity and the topic of a Black France.

In the 1990s, Black artists of African descent who were born in France took part in the cultural dialogue from this perspective. In the 1980s/1990s, women artists also made an appearance. We really wanted a chronological scope to show this historical, political movement in all its breadth and to open up contemporary questions like that of identity in France and the inclusivity of women artists.

ALICIA KNOCK:

What was complicated was carrying out archaeological and investigative work because many artworks had not been acquired by museums or hadn’t been on the art market. Rather, a lot of works were scattered through trajectories from Africa to the Americas with families who continued to move around and the artists themselves had disappeared. So we had to find and locate the works, then bring them back. Another issue was that they weren’t always in the best condition. The exhibition makes us aware of the urgency to safeguard the preservation of heritage. Sometimes we had to reconnect with artists who had lost hope in institutions or find works that were hidden in the studios of artists who’d been marginalised.

ALICIA KNOCK:

This self-portrait is important for placing the chronology of the exhibition because it was made in 1947 when Gerard Sekoto decided to leave South Africa for the conquest of Europe. It’s a powerful embodiment of the artist with all his aspirations and projections, and this dramaturgy between light and shadow, illumination and a very affirmative gaze. Sekoto would very quickly speak out and recount his experiences as a Black South African artist in exile – a position that many artists in the exhibition, who were also philosophers, poets and intellectuals, would find themselves in.

ALICIA KNOCK:

It was important for us to have a circular matrix that pays homage to the Black Atlantic, an idea that’s configured in a sound space like a record. It’s a way to pay tribute to Édouard Glissant and the relationship with jazz clubs, cafés and meeting places for debating in Paris. We also wanted to embody this relational form that Glissant highlighted in his thoughts through this dynamic, central space that’s an evocation of all these crossings and relationships that Paris made possible.

ALICIA KNOCK:

Beauford Delaney’s powerful portrait of James Baldwin (1945-1950) which speaks of the intimacy between them and how Delaney made portraits that weren’t realistic but transformative, with a dimension of metamorphosis and a use of yellow which he employed in his abstractions of light. Delaney said that yellow could illuminate and heal. 

Diagne Chanel’s Le Garçon de Venise (1976) by this French artist who lived in Senegal and represented his school friend at the École des Arts Décoratifs in the style of the Italian Renaissance. 

There’s also Bob Thompson’s The Struggle [La Lutte], 1963, which is a masterpiece, and Ming Smith’s Self-portrait as Josephine, 1986, in which the photographer represents herself as Josephine Baker.

ALICIA KNOCK:

As I said at the beginning, the exhibition is part of our ongoing programme of research. The acquisitions fund that was created enabled 30 artworks to be purchased before the exhibition opened and will continue to receive more funds. We hope to inspire other museums and universities to dedicate research programmes as well as organise monographic and thematic exhibitions. 

The exhibition sheds light on the history of our country to show a Black, multicultural France where questions about emancipation and freedom are raised, questions that are far from being resolved. 

After the closing of the museum [for renovations], it will enable us to rethink our permanent exhibition and these artists will help us to redefine the narratives of art history from the second half of the 20st century. Over the last few years, we’ve also been making acquisitions of works by young artists of African descent, like Julien Creuzet for example, who find references in Black Paris that relate to them but that had never been visible in an institution.