JUNKMEN FROM AFRICA | May 25th 2008

October Gallery

Demand for African contemporary art has always been sluggish, writes Fiammetta Rocco, the Books and Arts editor of The Economist. But that is starting to change for those artists who make powerful work from the continent's detritus ...

African contemporary art rarely comes up for sale at the big auction houses. Sotheby's achieved some success in 1999 when it sold a few treasures from Jean Pigozzi, who holds the world's biggest private African contemporary-art collection. But the event was staged as a benefit for UNICEF and was heavily underwritten; many did not see it as a real auction.

In 2000 Bonhams tried something more conventional, again in London, with a sale of modern and contemporary art, mostly from Nigeria. The estimates were low, yet many pieces did not sell. Those that did went for the asking price or less.

Since then, apart from Bonhams's recent (and phenomenally successful) South African sales, sub-Saharan African artists have had only the odd work in public auction. George Lilanga, a Tanzanian painter of magical figures in cheery acrylic, had a small picture in the second half of Christie's Tettamanti sale in Milan a year ago. On the whole, though, they are as rare as hen's teeth, which is a shame because some wonderfully vibrant and evocative work is being created in Africa.

For those who do not have Mr Pigozzi's resources (he is heir to the Simca motor fortune, which allows him his own private curator, André Magnin), a handful of specialist curators in Europe and America have begun regularly putting on exhibits in public and private galleries. Chris Spring, himself an artist and the energetic curator of the Sainsbury African galleries at the British Museum, has gathered together what he knows in "Angaza Afrika" (KiSwahili for "shed light on Africa"), a book highlighting the work of 60 of the continent's most thoughtful and creative artists, to coincide with a new show at the October Gallery.

Mr Spring explores the work of the tentmakers of Cairo, the vibrantly coloured fantasy coffins of Teshie, near Accra in Ghana, the subversive sign-painters and kanga weavers of eastern Africa, the studio photographers of Mali and Mozambique who manage to be both formal and cosy at the same time, as well as potters, blacksmiths and metalworkers from across Africa.

Among the most inventive are those who make their art out of the continent's detritus. The accumulation of rubbish has considerable artistic resonance in Africa--beginning with the narrative of the "empty" continent that was filled up with colonial mores and Christian beliefs, with all the sub-stories of rampant consumerism, environmental degradation, religious fundamentalism, costly food imports, new diseases, outdated medicines and unrecyclable waste.

"Junk keeps following me like a pilot fish, because I won't let it rest," says Dilomprizulike, a Nigerian artist known as "the junkman from Africa" who lives with his family in the Junkyard, an isolated compound on the fringe of one of Lagos's less lovely beaches. Trained in fine art at the University of Nigeria, Dilomprizulike is increasingly preoccupied with the explosive growth of African cities. He scours the city for junk to bring home: driftwood, tyres, cast-off clothing. Mr Spring says he sees his studio as "a kind of artistic hospital", where he coaxes all manner of figures out of bruised and battered outcasts.

Gerard Quenam is a 30-year-old from Benin who seeks out dolls on scrapheaps and scorches them black before inserting them in spooky works like "Chevalier" (pictured above). El Anatsui is a Ghanaian artist based in Nigeria who brought his rubbish to "Africa Remix", a popular exhibition that travelled from Dusseldorf to London, Paris, Tokyo and Stockholm between 2004 and 2007.

Mr Anatsui uses colourful aluminium bottle tops from imported spirits, flattened out and stitched together, to create cloths of gold. Imported liquor was one of the staples of the slave trade, and many a man grew rich on it. The cloths bring to mind the draping kente cloths of Mr Anatsui's home country. They also makes you think of Klimt, and his dazzling gold-flecked portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer that is in the Neue Gallerie in New York.

Mr Anatsui's work has become quite sought after since "Africa Remix". Mr Spring persuaded the British Museum to buy two pieces, one of which hangs in the director's office. Last year, another huge piece was draped across the front of Palazzo Fortuny at the Venice Biennale. A third smaller piece on show next to Mr Quenam's "Chevalier" at London's October Gallery, has been fought over by several collectors who have been on a waiting list for Mr Anatsui's work for over a year. Even the impressive list price, $300,000, did not deter them. Rubbish to riches indeed.

"Angaza Afrika" is at the October Gallery in London until June 30th. "Angaza Afrika: African Art Now" by Chris Spring is published by Laurence King and distributed by Thames & Hudson; 336 pages; £25

(*Fiammetta Rocco writes the Art.view column on economist.com, and is the author of "The Miraculous Fever-tree".)