Fluidity

"Bas Relief (people know, people don't
know)" (2007) by Mounir Fatmi

FLOW
Studio Museum of Harlem
April 2—June 29, 2008

I'm a bit peeved at the Studio Museum for their no-photo policy and having such a crappy Web site without suitable images and information for "press" like myself. But I'll set all that aside to tell you about this enjoyable show on 125th Street.

Like 2001's "Freestyle" and 2005's "Frequency," "Flow" highlights emerging artists of African descent. But whereas the first two in the series featured African-American art, the emphasis of the current show is internationalism, presenting artists born all over the African continent that are now living and working around the world. There are many more African-Europeans represented than first-generation African-Americans.

The show is refreshingly diverse in more ways than geography, making use of many different methods and media to address a wide range of issues -- some, but not all of them, dealing with Africa and African identity. Despite the continent's serious problems, there is little in the show that is angry or overtly political. These artists' works are personal and insular.

While the show's title references water and movement, I kept seeing its elemental opposite -- work dealing with land and earth -- a pervading sense of place, perhaps born of displacement.

Born in Réunion, France (an island in the Indian Ocean), and living in Australia, artist Thierry Fontaine makes photographic self-portraits that obscure his face using a shell, a piece of earth and a broken mirror.

Michèle Magema, a native of the Democratic Republic of Congo and resident of Paris, creates videos of performances. Her "Overseas Stories" (2006) shows her wearing a traditional white robe and deliberately and ceremoniously placing white stones to form a path.

In a series called "Alterscape Stories: Uprooting the Past,' Otobong Nkanga (Amsterdam and Paris via Nigeria), photographs herself inside a diorama of a desert landscape as she seemingly spoils the land with a beaker of bright blue toxic waste.

A sculptural installation by Ethiopian artist Elias Sime features piles of molded monkeys, frogs and televisions made of traditional clay.

Less about earth, but also tweaking notions of traditional vis-a-vis the modern, is a wonderfully intricate patterned arabesque wall relief made of coaxial cable by Mounir Fatmi, a Moroccan artist living in Paris. (See image above.)

In a similar vein are wall sculptures by Senegalese-American artist Moudou Diey made of LPs, paper and neckties treated with a paint pattern applied using a basketball.

In these works, the flow is the fluidity of identity.

It's nice to see the Studio Museum embracing internationalism, and "Flow" is a superb and celebratory introduction to a very talented group of artists.