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"FUSION: WEST AFRICAN ARTISTS AT THE VENICE BIENNALE" Okwui Enwezor Lately , the buzz around town has been of contemporary African art eliciting a "great deal" of attention in segments of the Western art world When considering such talk, one question essentially comes to mind: how much of it is fact, and how much is manucfactured optimism? Now, one must excuse my reticence in not being so easily co-opted into this mode of manufactured optimism Since at best, this "great deal" of attention remains at the trickle stage, and largely hidden from public view Anyone really interested in seeing what is current in contemporary African visual practice will undoubtedly have to travel to the continent itself to be fully appraised of its progression Until then, we will just have to make do with exhibitions like "Fusion: West African Artists at the Venice Biennale" , curated by Susan Vogel, and the Senegalese sculptor Ousman Sow, and currently on view at Museum of African Art in the SoHo section of Manhattan Following the debacle of Africa Explores a purported survey of 20th? century African art (organized by Susan Vogel at the above named museum) and other colonialist and ethnographic voodoo shows masquerading as contemporary African art exhibitions of the past few years, one grows weary and suspicious of another exhibition by misguided Euro-American curators on the same subject Transnational agitations for substance of presence and representation have all but made it obvious that exhibitions mandated from a purely Western centered gaze are dying breeds To allay the suspicion of those being studied, and perhaps to reclaim tarnished credibilities might lie at the heart of "Fusion", a less ambitous and by extension more manageable Part of the strategy, it seems, is the appointment of Ousman Sow as cocurator This is to perhaps help blunt growing criticisms of exhibitions by self-appointed insiders claiming to speak for Africa But in a sort of ironic twist, the organizers of this show compounded the situation by clearly showing that this was an American concotion all the way Beyond the conspicuous placement of his name alongside Ms Vogel's in the exhibition site, there is no way we can judge what the critical contribution of Mr Sow was If Mr Sow was indeed a co-curator, how then can one make sense of his remarkable absence within the structuring of the exhibition? It is quite instructive, especially in the exhibition catalogue, that Thomas McVilley who is no expert neither of the region of selection, nor of contemporary African art in general, conducted all the artist interviews, and authored the entire body of text By presenting Mr Sow as co-curator the chaps at the museum seem to have been fishing for applause from certain quarters, only to render him mute and incapable of speaking intelligently about the work of his contemporaries when it most counts Not one sentence about the artworks or artists was attributed to this co-curator So again we find ourselves confronted with the image of an African who can only be dimly perceived, but worst of all, not heard One is then forced to ponder what Mr Sow's actual role in this exhibition was Or was his name just mere decorative detail on the wall; an outwitted pun serving the duplicitous needs of Western paternalism? In this climate of doubt, one can't help but to revisit repeatedly , scenes of former crimes In any case, we will know in the coming months what the critical response to this exhibition that tries so valiantly from falling into the trap of repeating the troubling aspects of past forays into the world of contemporary African aesthetics will be Premised around five West African artists whose works were shown at last year's Venice Biennale, this modest exhibition of works by Ouattara (Ivory Coast) Tasmir Dia (Ivory Coast) Gerard Santoni (Ivory Coast) Moustapha Dime (Senegal) and posthumously Mor Faye (Senegal), still showed promise, albeit a small one But promise nevertheless Yet as I viewed the exhibition , I found myself between peaks and ebbs of enthusiasm I wondered what the exhibition criteria was, since the show did not particularly expand the already narrowed terrain of contemporary art...

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