The MUSEO Organises a concert in conjunction with the Show Dumile Feni: African Guernica
Performed after the Inaugural Conversation, at 7:15pm on 24 March in Auditorium 400
The Museo Reina Sofía, in conjunction with the exhibition History Does Not Repeat Itself, but it Does Rhyme. Dumile Feni: African Guernica, organises an Inaugural Conversation with the show’s curator, Tamar Garb, who will be introduced by Museo Reina Sofía director Manuel Segade, and the first ever performance of the piece Inkomo iwile, by Philip Miller and Tshegofatso Moeng, in a concert held in Auditorium 400 of the Nouvel Building.
African Guernica, a monumental drawing made by South African artist Dumile Feni (Worcester, South Africa, 1942 – New York, 1991) in the 1960s, is displayed for the first time outside of South Africa and engages in dialogue with Pablo Picasso’s Guernica (1937). Feni’s work is deeply connected with his roots, arising from the climate of state violence and institutionalised racist oppression under apartheid, and contemplating both works side by side will enable the viewer to consider their shared references and resources, similarities and synergies, and the formal and figural differences owing largely to their geographical and temporal distance.
On a further note, the musical composition of Philip Miller and Tshegofatso Moeng establishes a parallel dialogue between traditional South African sounds and the classical repertoire of string, voice and wind instruments. Therefore, to perform the piece a broad ensemble of performers from South Africa and Spain will converge, with the support of the South African organisation Spier Arts Trust.
Philip Miller is a South African composer and sound artist who has worked with choreographers, film-makers and visual artists. His recent project with William Kentridge, The Head and the Load, has been performed at Tate Modern in London and Armory in New York.
Tshegofatso Moeng is a South African singer, arranger, composer and music director. With an MA in Opera Performance from the University of Maryland via a Fullbright Scholarship, his work is renowned internationally, in Europe and the Americas and Africa.
Inaugural Conversation and the Thinking with Dumile Feni’s African Guernica panel
In the Inaugural Conversation, scheduled to get under way at 6:30pm, curator Tamar Garb will address the possibilities of analysis and reflection set forth in the Museo by African Guernica(1967), Dumile Feni’s work, which will be juxtaposed with Picasso’s emblematic painting.
Furthermore, at 7pm on 25 March in Auditorium 200 the encounter Thinking with Dumile Feni’s African Guernica will take place, whereby Tamar Garb, alongside a panel of experts from different disciplines, will, from art to social anthropology, African studies to the history of violence, reflect collectively on the points of convergence in Picasso’s work and the South African artist’s piece.
Participants on the panel include Siyabonga Njica, a professor at the University of Cambridge, Gobodo-Madikizela, a professor at Stellenbosch University, Thozama April, senior curator at the National Heritage and Cultural Studies Centre (NAHECS) of the University of Fort Hare, and Elvira Dyangani, director of the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA).
These activities are part of the main working strands of the Museo’s Public Programmes area and seek to explore in greater depth the content of exhibitions organised by the Museo from the perspective of artists, curators and specialists.
With the support of:
