Art is back with a bang in the French capital.
After numerous
cancellations throughout 2020 and in the spring of this year because of the
Covid-19 pandemic, the fall cultural calendar has been packed, with people
flocking to see contemporary art (at FIAC), photography (at Paris Photo), and
African art (at AKAA – Also Known as Africa), in addition to a host of new
museum exhibitions.
A few days
after the well-attended 2021 edition closed its doors, SWAN spoke with
AKAA’s founder Victoria Mann about the cultural calendar and about AKAA’s raison
d’être. An edited version of the telephone interview follows.
SWAN: How
has the fair turned out, in your view?
VICTORIA
MANN: We’re extremely
happy. We were coming back after a last-minute cancellation in 2020 because of
the pandemic, and losing a year between two editions when there are so many
fairs all around us is not an easy thing. So, it was important for us to be
back with a fair that was high in quality for the public. And in terms of
public, it was just as important for us to have our collectors and institutions
here to allow for good business for our exhibitors, as well as a more general
public who really want to discover and know more about these artistic scenes
that we defend at the fair.
SWAN: Did
you notice new attendees - people coming for the first time?
VM: I think we definitely had that kind of
visiting and viewership. It’s important for us every year to work on that. We
want those who know us to come back but we also wish to expand our visitorship,
and that’s the kind of work we do all year-long - and in this case, all
two-year-long – so that more and more people who don’t know the fair can come
and discover it. That’s also part of why it’s important for us to be here
during that week of November when Paris Photo is taking place because there is
a significant back and forth between the two fairs, and every year we get
visitors from Paris Photo who come and discover our event.
VM: I think this year is particular,
right? Because the truth is that all the events that were planned even for the spring
sort of got pushed back because of the pandemic. So, I agree - this fall was
completely crazy in terms of cultural calendar, with fairs popping up in the
middle of the regular calendar which is already quite full. I think that things
will shape back up to be normal, hopefully, although I see some Covid cases
rising in certain countries, which makes me quite anxious like everybody else.
But, if we do come back to a semi-normal state, I think that the calendar will
spread over more evenly around the year.
In terms of
AKAA, I think we bring … that fresh outlook, and that’s really the identity
that we seek to develop and to push forward - we’re a discovery fair. And I
think that’s what our visitors and collectors really appreciate. They know that
every time they come to AKAA, they might see several artists that haven’t
already been presented in the fair in the years past, and artists that are
starting to have important standards in the world of art. But they will also
automatically discover these brand-new talents, and I think that’s what is
exciting.
SWAN: There
aren’t that many events in Paris that focus on Africa or the Caribbean, but
when they take place, people do come out in support. For instance, the First
African Book Fair of Paris earlier this year attracted a very high number of
visitors. How do you see the space for more events like this?
VM: In order to properly answer that
question, I think it’s important to resituate our positioning and our
philosophy. When we created AKAA, the idea was to create a platform that was
both a commercial one - we’re a fair, so the idea was for business to be able
to happen - but it was also going to be a cultural platform to bring about
dialogue, to bring about encounter, and therefore to bring about education
regarding certain art scenes. As I said, we’re a fair that’s positioned on
discovery, but with discovery you need to bring the right tools to understand
what you’re discovering. And, what was really important to us, is to not create
an artistic ghetto, but rather to be able to open up as much as possible over
the years.
But we also
have all these other artists that find their relationship to the African
continent through a number of different things. With the African American
artists, for example, there’s the link of heritage, the link of memory, the
link of ancestry. This is extremely important for us. And they have their place
alongside artists who are from the continent in the same capacity, as well as
artists who have a link through different elements, through - for example -
collaboration with artists from the continent, or residency or projects put
together. And so, we’re talking about a very international art scene centred on
the African continent.
SWAN: That’s
an interesting perspective …
VM: Yes, what we try to do is to basically
offer a new angle, a new point of view of that contemporary art map, and
instead of looking at it with Europe and the States in the centre as we’re a
little bit used to doing when we talk about contemporary art, we’re looking at
it with Africa in the centre, and from that centre, all these dialogues, all
these connections, and all these confrontations as well, that may happen. So,
from that point, the more this artistic echo system grows, the richer it gets.
Photos (top to bottom): Le soleil est coeur by Amadou Opa Bathily, 2021, mixed media on canvas, at African Arty Gallery - photo AM:SWAN; Victoria Mann; Hanging Fruit by Jamaican-born artist Shoshana Weinberger, 2021, mixed media on paper, courtesy NOMAD Gallery; Focus@memory.cm by Justin Ebanda, 2021, acrylic on canvas, courtesy / copyright Galerie Carole Kvasnevski.
