ANCESTORS AND DREAMS IN AFRICAN ART

Everard Read and Jacaranda are delighted to present Ancestors and Dreams, an online exhibition of the finest contemporary art in South Africa in conversation with exceptional pieces of traditional African art.

Culture and tradition are celebrated and preserved in most contemporary African societies. They inevitably morph and converge with our globalized sense of modernity, but historians and scholars across the African continent endeavor to preserve traditional knowledge, art and objects. Sadly, many of the finest examples of traditional African art are housed by museums outside of Africa and are largely inaccessible to African audiences. Museums and private collections dedicated to traditional African art are commonplace in Europe and America, and yet only a few South African museums, and even fewer private collectors, have obtained, and retained, exceptional collections of traditional African art.

The objects sourced by Jacaranda demonstrate both the exceptional craftsmanship and the important societal functions of traditional art. They have been carefully studied and contextualized by Dori and Daniel Rootenberg (the Directors of Jacaranda, New York) alongside the invaluable scholarly contributions of Dr. Ndubuisi C. Ezeluomba, Curator of African Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Contemporary South African art has found an enormous audience both on the African continent and abroad, and collectors have enjoyed the accessibility and familiarity of the contemporary African art market. However, African collectors are largely geographically excluded from the traditional African art market, with major sales taking place in New York and Paris annually.

It is of deep importance to Everard Read that we support and enable African collectors to engage with and acquire fine pieces of traditional African art that compliment and expand contemporary art collections. Through our collaboration with Jacaranda, we hope that collectors who focus solely on contemporary art or traditional art, realise the valuable conversations between them. This exhibition, pairing contemporary with traditional art, demonstrates the role of art as a record, a reflection, and a projection of society in physical form. The aesthetic similarities are abundant, but even more poignant are the converging conceptual frameworks in which these works were created. This exhibition demonstrates the history and harmony of Ancestors and Dreams in both traditional and contemporary works of art.

We do hope you enjoy it!

Dori & Daniel Rootenberg – Jacaranda New York city, May 2022

Gina Mollé & Grace O’Malley – Everard Read Johannesburg, May 2022

VIEW CATALOGUE HERE