My apologies for the radio silence on the blog these last days. I was occupied with all the events in Brussels. I started Wednesday evening with a lecture, called Looking at Yoruba art at Lempertz – they are after all offering a lot of Yoruba art in their upcoming sale..
On Thursday, there was the opening of BRAFA, this year featuring 8 dealers specialized in African art – establishing its position as a must-visit fair. As the cherry on top, there was a small but wonderful exhibition, called The Belgian Collector, curated by the King Baudouin Foundation, that highlighted exceptional works of art from various Belgian private collections. It had a small, but exquisite group of ivory Lega figures and, a wonderful surprise, the Lengola figure from the Willy Mestach collection – probably the best of its kind.
At the same time the Winter edition of Bruneaf was happening, with 28 participants this year and a huge amount of art on view. I’m still wondering about the origin of this enigmatic pole on show at Oliver Larroque..
Ishan came to mind, some suggested Goemai (also in Nigeria) and Burkina Faso or Togo were also proposed. On Saturday there was the Native auction, where a small Bamileke mu po figure, my favorite object in the sale, sold for € 9,300 (including premium) – a very good price for such a powerful miniature.
Tomorrow brings the Lempertz sale and then the circus moves to San Francisco for the Tribal & Textile Arts Show and the opening of Embodiments (featuring the Scheller collection) at the Fine Arts Museum (info). In the meantime, I was amazed how much African art I found highlighted on magazine covers when visiting the local magazine shop..
I have the feeling that 2015 will be a great year for African art; it definitely started off on the right foot !