Guggenheim Museum’s ‘Making Africa’ Exhibit Offers Lens into 21st-Century Design

Spain’s Guggenheim Museum is currently showcasing its “Making Africa: A Continent of Contemporary Design” exhibition as an ode to 21st-century African design.

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“Making Africa” presents the work of 120 African artists and designers, cutting across photography, film, fashion, furniture design, graphic arts, urban planning, and architecture with work from Senegalese Omar Victor Diop, Nigerian Ikire Jones, Kenyan Wangechi Mutu, Malian Malick Sidibe, and more.

Speaking to the purpose of “Making Africa,” the Guggenheim says, “These contemporary creations forge a link to the middle of the 20th century, when a young generation celebrated its liberation from colonialism and self-assuredly asserted its place in the world and its right to a promising future. Throughout ‘Making Africa,’ examples of art and design from that era are juxtaposed with recent works.”

The Guggenheim makes a point to underscore that its exhibition’s intentions are not to present African design in its entirety, adding, ” Comprising 54 nations, more than 2,000 languages and cultures, and a billion inhabitants, the continent is simply too large, too complex, and too diverse for that. What the exhibition offers instead is a new story, one perhaps not yet known. It is one possibility among many for looking at Africa and an invitation to consider it from a wholly new perspective.”

Indeed.

The Guggenheim exhibition ends on February 21.

View a snapshot of what the Guggenheim is offering in its “Making Africa” exhibit below:

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