The premise of the ARS 11 exhibition is Africa in contemporary art. The themes are global, issues that affect us all. Memory, recollection and the simultaneous presence of different histories and layers of time, these are some of the common starting points of the work of many artists featured in ARS 11.

About 30 artists will be invited to participate in the exhibition, some of whom will produce new work for the show. The following artists have already started work for the exhibition: Georges Adéagbo (1942 Benin), Samba Fall (1977 Senegal), Laura Horelli (1976 Finland), Alfredo Jaar (1956 Chile), Otobong Nkanga (1974 Nigeria), Nandipha Mntambo (1982 Swaziland), Odili Odita (1966 Nigeria) and Barthélémy Toguo (1967 Cameroon). The Center for Contemporary Art Lagos CCA will produce an exhibition of work by the Nigerian photographer J. D. ‘Okhai Ojeikere (b. 1930), to be mounted on the second floor in Kiasma.

ARS 11 will extend across Finland and also to one venue in Sweden. The satellite exhibitions will be curated and produced by the partner museums and will showcase the themes of ARS 11.

ARS 11 will be part of the programme of the Capital of Culture year 2011 in Turku. The contribution of Kiasma will include two video installations from its collections: Where is Where? (2008) by Eija-Liisa Ahtila and WESTERN UNION: Small Boats (2007) by Isaac Julien. Both works will be on show for the first time in Finland. This part of the ARS 11 exhibition will be produced in cooperation with the Kiasma Foundation.

The ARS 11 curator team are Pirkko Siitari, Director of Kiasma, Arja Miller, Chief Curator, and Jari-Pekka Vanhala, Curator. The ARS 11 programme for Kiasma Theatre will be compiled by Riitta Aarniokoski. The African theme for ARS 11 was chosen by the former director of Kiasma, Berndt Arell.

The ARS 11 exhibition celebrates the 50-year history of the most important exhibition institution in Finland. Organised since 1961, the ARS exhibitions have played a crucial role in shaping ideas about art and giving a face to contemporary art in Finland. The history of the ARS exhibitions will be showcased during ARS 11 by two publications produced by the Central Art Archives of the Finnish National Gallery as well as by documentary material.

Environment and Object • Recent African Art examines recent African art according to two fluid and often intertwined aesthetic and conceptual frameworks: the impact of the environment on contemporary African life, and the use of found objects and appropriated materials as a recurring presence in current African art. Charting a wide range of ways that contemporary artists from Africa are responding to environmental conditions and their own situations to make art, Environment and Object includes sculpture, photography, painting and video by well-known artists from Africa and contemporary African artists living abroad.

The artists featured in Environment and Object • Recent African Art engage the environment in varied ways and display distinctly different approaches to the use of objects and media in their art making. Some artists in the exhibition focus on the interplay between natural resources, capitalism and colonialism, and their impact on life in Africa today. Decisively rejecting romanticized perceptions of Africa, they interrogate contemporary African conditions and their urban and natural landscapes as contested spaces of economic and political power, creating conceptually resonant images with an overt social critique. Other artists in the show employ strategies of accumulation and “recuperation,” drawing on objects present in their surroundings to create dense, poetically lyrical works that combine a love of abstraction with a commitment to the use of quotidian materials. The interdisciplinary implications of the art on view will underscore the range of ways environmental issues impact Africa, adding the frequently biting and provocative voices of these artists to scientific and political discourses on African nations, environments, and realities.



Environment and Object • Recent African Art is curated by Lisa Aronson, Associate Professor of Art History at Skidmore, and John Weber, Dayton Director of the Tang. The exhibition is accompanied by an extensive catalogue with new essays on a range of topics related to art and the environment and will be a valuable resource on the current generation of African contemporary artists.

Environment and Object • Recent African Art is supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Getty Foundation, the Tadahisa Kuroda Exhibition Fund, the Virginia Gooch Puzak '44 Faculty Curatoria Endowment, Chief Oskar Ibru '81 and Chief Mrs. Wanda Swann Ibru '79, Institut Français and Friends of the Tang, with additional support from the Henry Luce Foundation and the Creative Thought Fund at Skidmore.



Environment and Object • Recent African Art will be on view at The Anderson Gallery at Virginia Commonwealth University from September 9 through December 11, 2011 and the Middlebury College Museum of Art from January 26 through April 22, 2012. The exhibition will be available to tour through December 2012.