António Ole and Aimé Mpane have created multimedia installations on view at the National Museum of African Art through August 2.
Stephen Voss
Across Africa, Finding Common Ground in Their Art
António Ole and Aimé Mpane came together to converse through artwork in a new insallation at the National Museum of African Art
- By Joseph Caputo
- Smithsonian.com, June 23, 2009
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Across Africa, Finding Common Ground in Their Art
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António Ole, 57, from Angola, and Aimé Mpane, 40, from the Democratic Republic of Congo, created multimedia installations as part of an artistic dialogue on view at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art. The exhibition, on view through August 2, is the first in a series from the museum in which contemporary artists are asked to create work in response to each other.
The pair spoke about their individual work and the collaborative process with Smithsonian’s Joseph Caputo.
Why is this dialogue important?
Mpane: The human being doesn’t live alone--he lives in contact. You will not progress if you’re just by yourself. You must have a dialogue anyhow and anywhere. In Africa there’s dialogue all the time, especially when things are going wrong. We don’t have therapists, we have the whole extended family and we put a matter to anyone who’ll provide a word on it. Then we must find a solution. This very act of creating together is an example of how to develop new ideas.
Before this exhibit, you barely knew one another. What kind of ground did you have for conversation?
Ole: I think this conversation happened because we are neighbors. We share a big border north of Angola and south of Congo. There are a lot of people that are part of the same ethnic group that barely respond to this division. This is the consequence of the Berlin Conference [1884] that divided Africa into these straight lines that most of the time divided families. From this we started sharing ideas.
What has this dialogue taught you?
Ole: I don’t think artists know everything. The most important thing is sharing experiences. It’s an immense pleasure to work with Aimé because, even though he comes from another generation than mine, I have the impression that he’s a good human being, putting humanity inside his painting and sculpture. I also learn a lot from him. I’m not capable of doing what he does. I think I’ve become richer after this meeting.
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