Insistent Presence: Contemporary African Art from the Chazen Collection
Insistent Presence now on view at the Carlos presents more than forty works of sculpture, painting, ceramics, printmaking, and photography by twenty-three contemporary artists living and working on the African continent and in the diaspora. Insistent Presence examines how artists have reimagined the human figure as a lens to pose questions about social and political histories, contested identities, and the possible future of how we relate to one another. The exhibition title was inspired by renowned African art scholars and curators Okwui Enwezor and Chika Okeke-Agulu. These scholars point to the enduring usefulness of depicting the human figure for artists keen on affirming the humanity of Africans and those critical of postcolonial governments. In this exhibition, artists provocatively explore the human body through juxtapositions of those political concerns with emotions and passions of everyday lived experiences.
The exhibition and its accompanying publication are organized into three discrete sections along the notions of the presence and absence of the human body. The first section, “The Body in Society,” explores how identity is shaped through isolation, proximity, and interaction among figures depicted in groups or individually. These artists are concerned with the human form as an avenue for expressing the intersections and ruptures between privately and socially constructed identities. The second section, “The Artist Is Present,” examines artists’ production strategies of using their own bodies as the primary medium. These artists share their personal histories through theatrical performances, photography, and sculpture. Works in the final section, “The Absent Body,” remain resolutely non-figurative. Accessories and accouterments prompt the viewer to form a mental image of the body. Each section in Insistent Presence highlights twenty-first-century ways of being in the world and invites us to reflect on ourselves, our relationships, and the worlds we inhabit. The works expand the museum’s permanent collection while also strengthening the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s collaborative relationships with living artists and contemporary organizations on the African continent.
Insistent Presence: Contemporary African Art from the Chazen Collection was organized by The Chazen Museum of Art at The University of Wisconsin–Madison and curated by Guest Curator Margaret Nagawa. Generous support for this exhibition was provided by the Straus Family Foundation.
This exhibition has been made possible in Atlanta by the generous financial support of the Charles S. Ackerman Fund, the Carlos Museum Endowment, the Carlos Museum National Leadership Board, the Mellon Teaching and Training Endowment, and the Carlos Museum Permanent Collection Conservation Fund.
Above: Nana Yaw Oduro (Ghanaian, b. 1994), PHILIP, 2019, inkjet print, 19 5/8 x 29 1/2 in., Sara Guyer and Scott Straus Contemporary African Art Initiative made possible by the Straus Family Foundation, 2021.28.3
Chief curator of the Chazen, Katherine Alcauskas, left, and Margaret Nagawa, guest curator of the exhibition and PhD candidate at Emory University.
Barthélémy Toguo’s Exodus, foreground, and Virtually Mine by Immy Mali, right.
A Carlos visitor looks at Virtually Mine by Immy Mali
Artist Leilah Babirye with her ceramic sculpture Manuleme from the Kuchu Mbogo (Buffalo) Clan