Are you Qualified to SPEAK?

For quite some time I have been feeling a little despondent; it is mainly to do with this idea of the “Institutionalization of African Art”. Writing out an oral culture, which is clearly impossible, an oxymoron in fact. This talk really harps back to the days of dependency and that omnipresent hangover of Colonialism. The questioning of, who exactly is qualified to talk on the subject of Africa? This is a matter of control. It is an ugly way to find order and gain rights to have opinions and what and whose opinions matter? To take charge of the way in which the words are placed and what phraseologies work best, sadly now, these inconsequential issues are of enormous importance. This maybe so today, but was never so in the recent past or beforehand. Personally, my passion for Contemporary African Art stems from the easy ignorance, that enlightening lack of education and the freedom to play with the idea of a brave new world. Its very strength lay in its lawlessness and nonconformity. There was no decorum or airs and graces; this gave the whole environment a sense of liberation, an awareness of an incredible newness, something unique and special with ideas that where inclusive and at the same time, that quintessential accessibility to the creators of the artworks too. Initially, unbeknown to me, this “Otherness” was a door that I had been blindingly seeking my entire adult-life. Today, the artists who are being bestowed grants and awards are simply over-qualified, many have done their MFA, Masters in Fine Art, some have even gone as far as doing PhD’s, so the whole idea of Africa is now leaning towards the academics, the historians, the wealthy educated privileged and drifting quickly away from supporting the true, original, raw and authentic impoverished artists. So, with that in mind I wrote this today...

Heartbroken, that is the word I was looking for. The wilderness has been tamed; the crops sprayed with chemicals, the water-table contaminated and those in control just sit back and smile. All that is free must be repackaged, forced into a certain thought process and caged, surrounded by newly built fences, making everything so exclusive and therefore precious. Awards dished out to those that stay on-the tracks and those compromised few, so willing to play by the rules are highly rewarded. Elitism has well and truly won, she has her claws embedded into the undomesticated; constantly polishing the unruly, finding every kind of fault in nature and reshaping to make a square pegs fit into round holes. The passionate have been de-fanged, their poison bled out, rendering their potent-sting useless. What good is life on earth when all life is instructed to do as they’re told by voices of authority; overlooked by cameras on every street enforcing draconian reliance of a bygone era. The time to riot was yesterday; today we have all but destroyed ourselves. Clap as hard as you can, in order to see us out with a BANG.