Dak’art is the most important and longest-running African biennale. It is a medium-sized show having work both in Dakar and also sometimes in Saint Louis. Dak’art 16 was the twelfth edition of the biennale. Its artistic director was Simon Njami.
There are certainly biennales that have bigger budgets, attract more prestigious artists, or have more important projects created explicitly for them, though Dak’art does fairly well in the last two of these categories. My opinion has always been that Dak’art is special because of the focus it seems to place on serving local audiences by always having an OFF. Their OFFs are a form of open studio where any artist can participate. This differs from the associated shows that biennales often include; most of the works in associated shows have been selected by the biennale in one way or another. The OFF contains a wide range of art, from Sunday painters, schools, cultural centers, artists making works for tourists, graffiti artists, commercial galleries, all the way to La Village des Arts, and Raw Material Company (one of Africa’s most important art spaces). Frequently the OFF contains more than two hundred locations spread through Dakar and Saint Louis. The OFF’s range of work, the difficulty of finding each studio and the number of studios makes the OFF a grueling affair. I do as much of it as I can; it contains some gems. But many times I have spent an hour looking for a studio only to find a show whose work is not interesting to me. My impression (admittedly, that of an outsider) is that the OFF serves the local community better than it does an international art audience; it seems to bring Senegal’s art world together. Not only is it very different from the sort of top-down participation where audiences are assigned activities, but it helps Dak’art to avoid one of the dangers that biennales present, that of imposing an international style on a local audience. Dak’art’s OFF allows an audience to talk back, and ensures that the show can function as an exchange of ideas. At the same time, the inclusiveness of the OFF seems to express the sociality that is so important to the Senegalese.
Along with the OFF, Dak’art almost always has a section of the show that pays tribute to the country’s artistic heritage, focusing on post-independence artists from the ’60s and ’70s. In 2012, Dak’art featured Papa Ibra Tall and Joe Ouakam (also known as Issa Samb) and gave access to Ouakam’s courtyard studio. The two shows were amazing. Tall’s form of modern art seems perfectly suited to the LA art scene. Seeing Oakum’s project a year later at Documenta 13 was a treat, but not as much of a treat as meeting him and seeing his work in Ouakum’s own studio. This year the biennale focused on Ouakam again but also on four other artists from the 1970s.
Not only does the structure of Dak’art nurture Senegal’s art scene but it also extends into a celebration of its neighbors. The show featured one of the Bamako Encounter’s signature works, Inch Allah by Aboubacar Traoré which was a satire of an Islamic extremist; sadly, many missed the Bamako Encounter because of the attack on the Radisson Blue. Dak’art also commemorated the recently deceased Didier Schaub, who was long the creative director of Doul’art.
Not only did Dak’art serve its local community well, it was also a compelling show for an international audience. Simon Njami was the artistic director of this year’s edition. Its main location was the Ancien Palais du Justice; built a few years before Senegal’s independence, the building’s modern style testifies to the hopefulness of that period. Now a beautiful ruin, the building also bears witness to the challenging years that separate Senegal from that moment. It was perfect to be visiting the biennale the day that Chad’s Hissène Habré was convicted for crimes against humanity in Dakar’s new Palais du Justice, the complicity of the United States notwithstanding. (Habré was found guilty in a hybrid local/international court.) The location of’ Fabrice Monteiro’s funny and relatively interesting project (P)residant, This is not a Phoenix in the Ancien Palais du Justice added to this sense of serendipity. Monteiro’s installation is a satire of corrupt African leaders that reduces them to three main categories( founding father, Supreme guide, and father of the nation). Monteiro’s project was one of those iconic works that has a tendency to provide a biennale with its defining image.
One of the show’s most political works was Heba Y. Amin’s Speak 2 Tweet project (Click on the title to see the film online). It was a video installation whose voiceover was a series of powerful political statements about Egypt made by people protesting Mubarak on the social media platform Speak 2 Tweet. The work’s images depict the ruins of empty half-constructed office buildings, which have come to represent a type of political corruption feeding off construction projects (think of the work of Yoo Juli Chung).
Kader Attia, whose wonderful Reasons Oxymoron was on display at several biennales this year, had a good small political installation Les rhizomes Infinis de la Revolution at Dak’art. And Sammy Baloji, who produced one of my favorite projects at the Lyon Biennale, developed an interesting work called Ouakam Fractals 2015 for a residency in Senegal. Unfortunately, it was badly hung at Dak’art and was hard to see. Simon Gush had a lovely little conceptual work called Lazy Nigel (Click on the title to see the film online) and Leila Alaoui’s Crossing was also shown at Dak’art. I find Alaoui’s type of very visceral politics a little heavy handed, if not manipulative, but her work is very popular; and it’s hard not to be heartbroken by the circumstances of her untimely death.
Simon Njami’s 2016 edition of Dak’art showed a good number of prestigious contemporary artists. But, as in other years, the thing that makes Dak’art stand out is the way it served local audiences.