Trieste Exhibition Questions 'African Art' Myth Through Modernist Dialogue

A critical review of 'Il Mito dell'Arte Africana nel '900' at Magazzino 26 in Trieste, curated by Vincenzo Sanfo, Anna Alberghina, and Bruno Albertino, juxtaposes nearly one hundred sub-Saharan African artifacts with forty works by Western modernists including Picasso, Matisse, Man Ray, Calder, Haring, and Basquiat. The exhibition aims to highlight African art's influence on Western modernism but falls into Eurocentric pitfalls. The installation mimics ethnographic museums and Renaissance studioli, decontextualizing African objects while providing explanatory texts only for African rituals, assuming Western artists need no introduction. The review, citing Edward Said's 'Orientalism' and Linda Nochlin's critiques, questions whether African art is still valued only as a precursor to European avant-gardes. It notes the ongoing debate on defining 'African art' post-colonially, referencing the Benin Bronzes and the 1989 'Magiciens de la Terre' exhibition. Despite the show's intentions, the curatorial choices reinforce a colonial gaze, reducing African artifacts to aesthetic foils for Western masters. The exhibition runs at Magazzino 26 in the Porto Vecchio area, soon to be redeveloped.