Enwezor, Okwui

▪ 2003

      Nigerian-born Okwui Enwezor followed a short and nontraditional path to the peaks of the art world; the part-time poet and art critic began curating important art shows in 2002 without ever having studied art history formally. In February he mounted his first major show, “The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa, 1945–1994,” at P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center in Queens, New York City. Just a few months later, in June, Enwezor put into practice his theory of art as an expression of social change when he became the artistic director of Documenta 11, the international exhibition held in Kassel, Ger. Ambitious in size and scope, the three-month show, held about every five years, was often likened to “the Olympics of contemporary art.”

      Enwezor, the first non-European to host the Documenta exhibition, took a decidedly unconventional and global approach; he prepared for the show with a series of seminars on international issues. He eschewed the trendiness of many art shows. He did not shy away from political issues, including globalization, and was understandably comfortable looking beyond American and European traditions into African arts. His emphasis on ideas over the veneration of objects “art for art's sake” was evident in his development of the “The Short Century” exhibit, which appeared first as a book in Munich, Ger., a full year before becoming a gallery show in New York City.

      Enwezor was born in 1963 in Calabar, a Nigerian town bordering Cameroon. He was raised in Enugu in eastern Nigeria, but he relocated to the United States in the early 1980s to attend Jersey City State College (now New Jersey City University) in Jersey City, where he earned a B.A. in political science. His foray into the art world began as an observer. At various exhibits Enwezor noticed the absence of artists from Africa and started critiquing the shows. He began writing widely for art magazines and even launched one of his own—Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art—published from 1994 in concert with the Africans Studies and Research Center at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. As a curator, he became known for his work on an exhibit of African photography at the Guggenheim Museum in SoHo, New York City, in 1996; at the “Africus” Second Johannesburg Biennale in 1997; and as an adjunct curator (1998–2000) of contemporary art at the Art Institute of Chicago. Later exhibits included a group show that traveled through Europe and Canada and a showing of South African photographer David Goldblatt at the Equitable Gallery, New York City, in 2000. A frequent lecturer and member of many art juries, Enwezor also coedited, along with Olu Oguibe, Reading the Contemporary: African Art from Theory to the Marketplace (1999). His most recent undertaking was the drafting of a book entitled Structural Adjustment, a discourse on contemporary African artists.

Tom Michael

* * *