The neocolonization of European galleries, a reality that makes its way in the art market
By Alfonso Masoliver
The relationship between African plastic artists and European art galleries is full of nuances. The future of many creators, especially the youngest, is conditioned with practices that condition their artistic evolution. Black World has spoken with several of them.
One begins to suspect that Europe feels some predilection for judgments. That is, Europeans They worship commit all kinds of crimes and then take their hands to the head, look around in search of guilty and judge them and punish them for the crime they committed in collaboration with them that they sit on the court bench. Is six million Jews mass in Europe? Nuremberg judgments. General Ratko Mladic commits atrocious war crimes? The International Criminal Court for the former Yugoslavia is created. Genocide in Gaza? The International Criminal Court issues an arrest warrant against Netanyahu and you will see who complies with. The same with Vladimir Putin. Are European museums colonized, stealing millions of works of art from other continents? Then organizations arise that are responsible for questioning this legacy and, very little by little, return the occasional device to their land of origin.
The crime is created and then the punishment, because sin walks in the lead in the row of morals. Therefore, now, after decades of fierce criticisms against the colonization of museums – after committing a crime and judging it -, Europe Zigzaguea to find a new fault, the neo -colonization of art galleries, which we will judge in the future until there is no puppet with head.
If the colonization of European museums started from the theft of works of art of African nations – because no one paid for them and violence was an identity sign of colonialism -, with the old excuse that Africans do not have the ability to take care of their own art, neo -colonialism in galleries consists in extorting and cheating African artists to sell their works in Europe, obtaining a juvenile benefit for the galleries to the detriment of who produced the work. A habitual practice involved for African artists – especially those youngest who are starting – higher obstacles to those who can face their European contest. They don’t have it easy either.
A path of obstacles
The first step is to prevent the African artist from traveling to Europe. If I did, it would be fatal to the galleries, because it would imply that I could meet other gallery owners who would have the opportunity to offer them better conditions. If you travel to Europe, you would see the real price for which your works are sold. If you travel to Europe, you could explore new realities that develop your artistic process and that mutate your art so that it acquires a different dimension than what the European galleries are looking for, that is, African art … that it seems African – to the eyes of the West. This journalist has interviewed artists from various African countries and takes Emma Adoli, Ugandesa, who has been working with European galleries for four years, but has never stepped on the old continent. Take Khadim Bamba, Senegalese, whose visits to Europe have been reduced to an art residence, despite having been working with European galleries for almost five years. He takes Stephanie Nyangono, Cameroona, who has only visited Europe on a personal capacity on one occasion, despite having dealt with European galleries for six years.
Galleries use all kinds of excuses to prevent the artist from leaving the continent. That if it is too complicated to get a visa, that if the plane tickets are too expensive … it is essential that the African artist stay still. It is a useful measure for the beneficiaries, because the bleak rates of poverty in the continent give scarce to the art market, where those with sufficient capital to invest move to the western or Asian markets when they wish to consume art, whether or not it from the continent.
The second step consists of charging exorbitant commissions. All the artists interviewed who wanted to enter the European art market had to yield to the galleries between 40 % and 60 % of the profits of their works. If it is not sold, depending on the interest shown by galleries, artists can take up to a year to receive a reimbursement for the transport expenses of the work. Because they are generally they who cover that expense. Adoli even remembers the occasion where «once I did a work, I had to produce it and present it as the buyer wanted, but then said that at that time the expense could not be allowed. The buyer left me hanging, almost suffocated ». He points out that there are times where Europeans are doing “a favor” for marketing their works outside of Uganda. Chigbu, from Nigeria, even commented when asked that “sometimes, (the galleries) pretend that the works have been lost, which perhaps could be interpreted as a form of robbery, and refuse to reimburse the expenses.”
When, finally, the artist manages to sell a work, “the galleries usually take between one and three months to pay,” recognizes Chinwe Chigbu. Views the difficulties facing African artists, that delayed payment can be the only one they receive throughout the year. Three months of delay involve three months of accumulated debts. That, when any disruption does not occur that justifies that the gallery does not make the payment agreed in a first place.
A risky bet
Being an artist is a risky economic decision in any case, but the risk increases until it reaches practically unacceptable levels when we refer to African artists. If sending a Paris canvas to Madrid costs about 100 euros, the price triples when it is intended to do it from Bamako (Mali). The artist pays him from his pocket. If you do not have the money to pay it and the gallery is not sufficiently interested, its dream of becoming an artist with an impact on the European market will reach its end for about 300 euros.
In a country like Mali, where per capita income does not reach 900 euros per year, one third of that amount is a lot of money. Too much. But we would have to talk about how African messaging rates are higher than those in the rest of the world – existing, I suppose, Antarctica. It will be enough to know that 100 euros are equivalent to 0.3 % of the Spanish per capita income, while more than 33 % of the Malian per capita income. The inequality of opportunities in a gesture as simple as sending a package by mail is spectacular and works as a cement cube tied to the feet of the African artist.
Once the creator still does not leave his land, drowned by the economic issue, there is the option to leave. Some do it. Others continue, but under certain conditions. Emma Adoli denounces that he has experienced continuous pressures to create a “more African” or “more exotic” art, so that he married the ideals sold by galleries when associating with an African artist. Chinwe comments that “the treatment is very poor, especially when the artist does not know influential people, in which case he is at the mercy of the will of the galleries if he wishes to continue working with them.” The artists whose fame had spread to sufficient levels to be able to create freely confirmed that, despite everything, other colleagues had been forced to produce works that seemed exotic or African.
Is part of the business
What gallery would be interested in a black artist who paints the same as whites, unless he is recognized? Why do they need one who does not paint ought Paint a black creator? That is neocolonialism: forcing the author to act according to the conception of blackness that they hold from the West. It is also racism. Although the art world was supposed to be progressive and inclusive. The Ugandesa artist says in a complaining tone that «African artists remain frozen over time with their technique or theme. There is no evolution because, according to galleries, it is what sells the most … they no longer have freedom to produce, they transform into fashions or street wallets ». That European artists have freedom to develop their art while Africans are forced to stagnate over time is also neocolonialism. It is abuse. It is the opposite of artistic freedom.
This journalist, tired of listening to the stories that are narrated in this piece, broke the fourth wall and wanted to help a Malian friend sell his works in Europe. He decided to choose three of his paintings with the help of a Spanish gallery owner, and then sell them at a fair price for the artist and costing transportation expenses. The artist had turned in recent years towards a more mature, less “exotic” technique, leaving aside the traditional elements present in his first works to focus, instead, on the portraits of individuals dressed according to the canons of Western fashion. The Spanish gallery owner, even if it was with the intention of helping, recommended that it would be better to sell the paintings of the previous stage because it seems “more African,” and added: “Tell your friend to stop painting in the direction in which he is doing it. If it continues, nobody will want to buy their works in Europe … what it produced before it works before ».
Nothing likes less in much of the world of western art than a black painter who does not paint like ought do it. The opposite would be something inadmissible.
