Creative video. And why don’t black people write?

“What writing is for Jewish people, is making music for black people,” said my old Jewish High school classmate Ab a long long time ago.

His statement suddenly came to my mind while seeing a creative book video (see below), which I spotted on the blog De-cluttering my Mind

But is he right about black people? Of course there are lot of black writers out there. UK's Zadie Smith (picture), France's Marie NDiaye and my all time favorite, the American James Baldwin. I remember I had to defend my choice of Baldwin on my English literature list. Baldwin was not considered “literature”, at least not on my high school in Amsterdam.

Back to classmate and Jewish encyclopedia Ab. He added. “The reason why the influence of Jewish people in Hollywood is big, is also because there are many Jewish writers. We create are own heroes. That’s why black people don’t get Oscars.“

This reminds me of the global discussion about the underrepresentation of black people in the movies, and about the problems of black actors on ‘white’ stages. About these problem a black producer once said, “we need black writers who write black stories so we can create are own heroes in plays and films. “But,” he added, “ you need quantity to get quality.” I forgot to ask what he was implying.

But I refuse to believe that what writing is for Jewish people, is making music to black people. If that’s true then black people will be chained to Hip Hop videos forever, and the rest of the planet will create their own stories and transform them into block buster movies.

Chuck D once called Rap music the black CNN. I think I’ve heard enough ‘black’ news by now, I would like to read some of it on paper for the change. And the oral history thing? It’s just another way of saying that we don’t read books.

Back to the video: the video is of course what story writing is all about: creating a reader’s experience. The moment you open a book you must feel as if you were sitting in a train heading west. You see the smoke of locomotive, feel the bumpy railway and hear the train conductor saying: “ tickets please.” Yes, I tried!



And for the one who wants to be a writer, here’s the cliché tip from the writers wannabe class: Read Tsjechov! Read some of his short stories here.

And Ab? He started a Klezmer band. So he was wrong after all.

THEATRE: Seize The Day by Kwame Kwei-Armah - London

“The symbolism of having a Black mayor! A city of 45% colour, should have a mayor of colour don’t you think?”

Jeremy Charles has got the face to represent it – a well-spoken, good-looking Londoner, with an appetite for change: yes he can! He’s sold his pitch on reality TV, but can he be the real people’s candidate?

Kwame Kwei-Armah has had a great idea for a play: the pressures on an African-Caribbean contender for the office of London's mayor. And, as the second show in the Tricycle's Not Black and White season, it goes down a storm with its audience and raises a host of issues: too many, in fact, for a play that basically offers a plausible portrait of metropolitan realpolitik.

Seize the Day Tricycle, London Until 19 December.

For more information: The Tricycle

Black media organisation AFROTAK wins second prize in competition “RESPEKT GEWINNT!“ (Germany)

The Afro-German media organisation AFROTAK cyberNomads has been awarded second place for its contribution in the competition „RESPEKT GEWINNT!“ of the “Berlin counsel for Democracy”.

The award ceremony of the Berlin counsel for Democracy will be held 02/12/2009 at 18.30h in HEIMATHAFEN in Neukölln.
More information at: www.berlinerratschlagfuerdemokratie.de

AFROTAK cybernomads was awarded second prize for the spoken word video, were black German, Afro German and blacks in Germany were invited to perform a spoken word piece about respect, tolerance and humanity.



After been awarded as BEST MEDIA Projekt 2005 by the African Youth Foundation, and as BEST MEDIA Projekt 2008 by Foundation for Democracy and Tolerance of the federal government, this new price will be added to the list.

AFROTAK cyberNomads

Marie NDiaye is the first black woman to win France’s top literary prize (Prix Goncourt)

Today French-Senegalese writer Marie NDiaye (42) won France's top literary prize, the Prix Goncourt, for her novel Trois femmes puissantes [Three Strong Women], a novel on family, betrayal and the hellish ordeal of illegal migration from Africa. She is the black woman to win the prize.

Marie NDiaye was born in France, she is the daughter of a French mother and a Senegalese father. NDiaye was raised by her French mother in Pithiviers, a provincial town south of Paris. After her father returned to Senegal, she did not travel to Africa until she was in her 20s. She now lives in Berlin with her three children

Marie NDiaye is the sister of historian Pap NDiaye.

Marie NDiaye: “I grew up in a world that was 100 percent French. My African roots don’t mean much, except that people know of them because of the color of my skin and my name,” she said recently.

“I don’t represent anything or anyone,” she said. “I have met many French people raised in Africa who are more African than I am.”

While she rages at the discrimination still faced by French blacks, NDiaye says she has been sheltered by her writer career.

“I have always had a quite special, marginal life, the life of a writer lucky enough not to have to ask anyone for anything,” she said.(AP)

It’s great achievement for a black woman in France, and it’s also a sign that France is changing. But there’s one thing about Marie N Diaye that leaves me puzzled. She says her African roots don’t mean much to her, but she does write about Dakar and the black migration experience. Apparently roots does matter.

Entretien Marie Ndiaye
Geüpload door fluctuat. - Bekijk de laatste nieuwscontent.

Trois femmes puissantes [Three Strong Women] is the book beneath the French media’s spotlight this rentrée. Three, tenuously linked narratives. At their heart, three women who say no.

Forty year-old Norah arrives at the home of her father in Africa. An egocentric tyrant, he has now become silent and bulimic, and spends his nights perched in a tree in the courtyard. Why did he ask her to come? The answer, Norah discovers, is worse than she could have ever imagined.

Fanta, who used to teach French in Dakar, had to follow her partner, Rudy, to France. Here, Rudy proves incapable of providing her with the rich and joyful life she deserves. He remains under the morbid influence of his mother, who dedicates her life to convincing her entourage of the existence of angels.

Destabilised, Rudy wanders through an angry reality, while Fanta, by his side, is a rock. Khady Demba is a young African widow. Penniless, she tries to find her distant cousin, Fanta, in France. The long journey of emigration she pursues will be punctuated with unspeakable suffering. (source: French book news)

Read: Black woman wins Prix Concourt for the first time

Black History: Black European nobility tucked away

Black nobility in Europe? According to black Dutch researcher Egmond Codfried and author of the book "Belle van Zuylen's forgotten grandmother" there was black nobility in Europe, but there history and images were later carefully tucked away. His claims are controversial, and of course not accepted by European historians and the man in the street.

Codfried has systematically studied hundreds of paintings of famous and less famous nobility. He regularly stumbled upon people who looked black or coloured, or although they were white, clearly had African facial features.

About his work he writes: “This study of historical sources and literature on black and coloured historic persons was inspired by the chance finding of a portrait of Maria Jacoba van Goor (portraited in the picture). We get a view of the problems and of the methods to identify these Europeans. This beautiful painting was also a reason to cast an afrocentric view at Belle van Zuylens life and her works, the biographies en the origin of her financial fortune. Through her coloured grandmother, the Dutch Belle van Zuylen (1740-1805) also known as Madame de Charrière, joins the rank of writers as the Russian Alexander Pushkin, the French Alexander Dumas and Colette, the Britons Elizabeth Barrett and her husband Robert Browning. As well as the German classic composer Ludwig von Beethoven and Queen Charlotte of Britain. These are Europeans of great merit, who had black forefathers. Also we find that Belle was a friend of Pierre Alexander Du Peyrou (1729-1794), a brown coloured and wealthy Surinam plantation owner in Swiss. He is renowned as a close friend, benefactor and publisher of the most famous philosopher of the Enlightenment, Jean Jaques Rousseau.

The reason why he studies nobility has to with the fact that nobility has left traces in the form of portraits and writings.

Some of his claims

Queen Charlotte Sophie of Mecklenburg Strelitz (1744-1818), Wife of George III

Described by others in her time as 'a true mulatto face' , ' brown' or ' yellow.' Her nose is to wide and her mouth shows the same fault.













Maurits Huygens (painted by Rembrandt in 1632) the older brother of Constantijn Huygens. Constantijn was one the most famous poets in the Golden Century.












The way black people were portraited

A painting of the French-Swiss painter Liotard (1702-1789) "Portrait of a young woman". Liotard is also considered coloured by Codfried.













A Moor by Juriaen of Streeck (1619-1673). Most people do not realize how many pictures exist of Moors in Europe. Why the love of Moors? Names, family crests, geographical indications, all references to the Moor, according to Codfried.

On the forum someone writes, that this is a picture of a servant.








As a response Codfried writes: "Part of the Moritzburg Treasure (Renaissance), , with a gold and silver cup in the form of a Moor's head, which was used at high nobilty marriages. Why Moor's head? The Moor was apparently in high regard."











PORTRAIT OF AN AFRICAN MAN January Mostaert (ca.1474-Haarlem Haarlem 1552/1553) Ca. 1520-1530. A unique 16th-century portrait

A painting of a black African in European clothing - with sword - portrayed as a Habsburg-Burgondian nobleman from that period. The self-conscious attitude, clothes and rich attributes demonstrate a successful assimilation of this man within the cultural norms of the European Renaissance. (Research lab Black is beautiful Dutch)

But, the research lab also writes, black Africans were in the 16th-century Europe rarely people of distinction. Most of them were imported as slaves in Spain and Portugal. A small number of them were released over the years, but most were employed as servant to their master. Only the Congo, which in the late 15th century was Christianized by the Portuguese, had a special status as a black kingdom of which the elite was educated in Portugal. Some Congolese made it as scholar, clerk, musician and jester quite far. Most remained employed in subordinate occupations. In the Netherlands, where the slave status was not recognized, negroes usually came along as servants of Spanish and Portuguese traders.


But why is it so important to show that black or coloured people were part of the European nobility? Codfried's motivation is to show that Europe was never as 'white' as we have been taught. Black people were always in Europe, even among the European nobility.

Looking at the portraits of those 16th and 17the century black people in Europe, I wonder what they would think of us now.

Some links

Pictures of nobility

Black nobility tucked away (Dutch) – an interesting article with pictures

Blue Blood Is Black Blood

Update: Also read: First black head of a European state: Alessandro de Medici (Italy)

PostSecret

-----Email Message-----

Working as a teacher in the inner-city has rid me of my racism.

PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people
mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a postcard. Go to http://postsecret.blogspot.com/

Very interesting project. I think I will also mail my secret on a postcard, and I will also post up here as well.

Photo expo of black London gang culture in Holland

A photo exposition about youth gang culture in South London, from 6 September through 4 October 2009 at Noorderlicht international Photofestival 2009 in Groningen, the Netherlands. It's the exposition of the Irish photographer Adam Patterson. Read the interview with Patterson here.

But I wonder if he really succeeded in his mission. He teamed up with a guy called Vipoh who is from the Ivory Coast, which of course is French Africa. Patterson even went with him on a bus to France to photograph him at his aunties wedding.

I don't know much about the situation in London, but wouldn't it have been more interesting to see the situation of born and raised young Afro-Caribbean Britons, who don't get on a bus to Paris?

Although I’am usually sceptical about this type of urban black community photography, I'am actually planning to visit the exposition.

More black people are collecting art (Netherlands)

Photo and copyright: My first Art collection
My First Art Collection, next edition : a course for prospective art collectors in the Netherlands. So this is not about the Rembrandts and Vermeers.

Do black people collect art? The answer is: Yes they do. And the number of black people who are collecting art is growing.

Two years ago Ricardo Burgzorg started the training program My First Art Collection, where prospective art collectors could get acquainted with the ins and outs of the art world. Burgzorg bridges the gap between collectors and museums, but also guides beginning art collectors in the art world. My first Art Collection focuses on young native and new Dutch people.

This season the programs in Amsterdam and Rotterdam have ended successfully. Due to the success, and the enthusiasm from all sides, the next course (2009 - 2010) will also start in The Hague. A year later, Arnhem and Groningen will follow. For more information go the website www.myfirstartcollection.com (Dutch)

On the site My first Art Collection there is an interesting video of art collecter and writer Judith Greer. In the video she visits the Frieze Art Fair in London (15-18 October 2009)

Judith Greer on Owning Art

“People come to collecting in different ways; I began nearly 20 years ago. My friends were artists, I started by buying early works. My relationship with art and artist is extremely important. But equally important are those with dealers, curators and other collectors. I read about art, I see endless exhibitions and still I'm learning.”

Judith Greer is co-author of Owning Art: The Contemporary Art Collector's Handbook, and chair of Artangel



My first piece of art was an big old photograph of a Carribean street in 1930. Now I am looking for a Gordon Parks orginal.

The nominees of the Trophées des Arts Afro-Caribéens 2009 (France)

On June 26th the nominees for the ‘Les Trophées des Arts Afro-Caribéens’ were disclosed. See list below.

Les Trophées des Arts Afro-Caribéens (The Afro-Caribbean Arts Awards) is the annual French award ceremony for black cultural achievements. Since 2006 The Good Music Association has organized the award ceremony, formerly les Césaire de la Musique, to pay tribute to the founding father of the Negritude movement, and to promote cultural diversity of French Afro-Caribbean arts in the fields of cinema, music, literature ...

Although the name Afro-Caribéens refers to Afro-Caribbeans, artists from the overseas department Reunion and from the former French colonies in Africa are also nominated.

The award ceremony will be held on September 21th 2009 at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. It will be preceded by a public vote.
For more information go to ‘Les Trophées des Arts Afro-Caribéens’

Nominated in the categories

Artiste de l’année (Artist of the year)
Patrick Saint-Eloi
Tanya Saint-Val
Davy Sicard
Rokia Traoré

Meilleur groupe (Best group)
Baster
Amadou et Mariam
Magic System
Ti Kabzy

Révélation de l’année (Revelation of the Year)
Erik
Medhy Gerville
Jessy Matador
Sandra Nkaké

Album de l’année (Album of the year)
Madagasker - Ziskakan
Victor Démé - Victor Démé
Ouvrir mes ailes - Medhy Custos
Inspiration information vol 3 - Mulatu Astatké

Meilleur documentaire (Best documentary)
Katanga business de Thierry Michel,
Le pays à l’envers de Sylvaine Dampierre
Jacques Roumain d’Arnold Antonin
Mémoire vaudou d’Irène Lichtenstein
Tu n’as rien vu à Kinshasa de Mwézé Dieudonné Ngangura

The other categories are: best clip, literature, best essay, best novel, and best fiction.

Les Trophées des Arts Afro-Caribéens 2008

Les Trophées des Arts Afro-Caribéens au Théâtre du Châtelet
Geüpload door LesCesaire.

Fela Kuti art exposition in London

Album sleeves, Pop Art and Fela Kuti, that's the theme of the art exposition that will start from Mon 8 June to Mon 6 July. Place, London UK.

It's the exposition of artist Lemi Ghariokwu’s who's colourful paintings were found wrapped around the music of Nigeria’s most charismatic and notorious musician, Fela Kuti. Lemi’s distinctive images of Africa – angry, sexy, cheeky, righteous – were known and owned by hundreds of thousands of people across three continents.

This new exhibition brings together the best of Lemi’s work and reveals how creative and repressive movements in 1970’s Lagos helped give birth to the Afrobeat phenomenon.

Art's Own Kind, the Blog about the expo. With interesting information about Fela Kuti.

The Fela Kuti project


Fela Kuti = Black President

Passing Strange: a black American in Europe

Passing Strange is a musical which has stopped in 2008. It was an award winning musical on Broadway about a black American in Europe. Spike Lee filmed the last two production. The news is, he finished it recently and showed to a selected audience on Saturday May 2de.

But what's so special about a story about a middle class black American who travels to Amsterdam, Paris and Berlin in search of his identity and soon discovers he starts to play to the stereotypes he's trying to escape? The negro problem, according to director of the story.

It’s the experience of a black American in Europe what makes this play interesting. Since Amsterdam is yelled several times in the play,I was wondering – as a black Amsterdam native - what the director and star of the show had learned in Amsterdam. His name is ‘Stew’ by the way. Of course there are ‘Coffee shops’ in Amsterdam where you can buy Lebanon. But I don’t consider that a big deal. He also mentioned the experience of black American artist like Richard Wright, James Baldwin and Josephine baker, they are typical examples of black Americans expats in Europe. But the sad news is I didn’t found what Stew had really learned from his trip to Europe.

But in an interview he made some interesting remarks about what he called the black American expat myth. Like most black Americans he grew up with that myth. “The American expat myth was that you where accepted more as human being and maybe not as a race. Most of that was true. But the problem with the expatriate myth was that you had a lot of people who where going to Europe though that everything was going to be fine and great, but found out that racism is everywhere. And that are people who trying to put you in a box everywhere.“

But I think his statement is universal. Black Europeans are also being put in box when to go the USA. Oui, je suis de Hollande!



The interview with Stew about the play and his personal life.

French exhibit Kréyol Factory Saison Créole 2009

The Parc de la Villete in Paris is the site for Kréyol Factory, an art exhibit that ponders what it means to be Creole in the 21st century. The exhibit, which opened on april 7th, will close on July 5th. It includes works by over sixty artists from the Caribbean, the Indian Ocean, and from their European and American diasporas. It is inspired by the work of Jamaican-born cultural theorist and sociologist Stuart Hall, especially his notion of the « three presences »–African, European, and New World-that constitute African-Caribbean identity. It sees Creole identity as stemming from the tragedy of the slave trade, slavery, and colonization-and from the cultural and racial métissage that grew out of it. «Creole worlds were born of violence and plunder, of the disappearance of some-the Amerindians-and of the forced coming together of peoples who had ben separated by an ocean, » Yolande Bacot, curator of the exhibit, explains. The works on view include art installations, paintings, literary texts, photographs, and documentary films.
For more information on the exhibit go to:
Kreyol factory
Parc de la Vilette
Pictures of the opening

Yinka Shonibare – Modern African art from the UK

British-born Nigerian textile Artist, Yinka Sonibare is an internationally recognized contemporary artist. He has gained international attention by exploring issues of race and class through a range of media that includes sculpture, painting, photography, and installation art. One of his creations are classic Victorian costumes in African style. But he discovered something about the African clothing style that most people don't know.

He discovered that the 'Dutch wax' fabrics he chose to use in his art pieces was originally manufactured in Holland by the Dutch as they were trying to copy Indonesian Batik designs. The Dutch industrially had produced the fabrics for sale in the Indonesian market. The mass produced fabrics failed to appeal to the Indonesians as they did not like the industrially produced versions and so the Dutch merchants began selling the fabrics in West Africa. The English also started to manufacture the fabric in Manchester. Many people think this are authentic 'African fabrics' and he likes the 'fakeness' of that. Today in West Africa, and in many parts of the African continent, the patterned fabric is now an important and distinctive element of the African culture and symbolic of African identity.

On the photo: Scramble for Africa, 2003, 14 figures, 14 chairs and table " a recreation of the Berlin conference in the 19th century...It was when Africa was being divided up. It was in Europe. They had this conference in Berlin. And the conference was called Scramble for Africa. So on the table there's a map of Africa drawn.

Read: Yinka Shonibare - The African Textile artist

The blog: SAHARAN VIBE - a blog with photo's and news from Cairo to Cape of Good Hope

International art in Amsterdam Bijlmer

Her Majesty the Queen opens on Saturday 9the of May 2009 the first international art manifestation in the public space of Amsterdam. Open Source Amsterdam is the title of this unique event, which takes place in the Bijlmermeer. (The Bijlmermeer is the Caribbean and African part of Amsterdam.) From May 9 to July 11 there are 16 works by 15 artists from both foreign and domestically, internationally established and upcoming talent, a three kilometers long between art route between the Bijlmer-ArenA railway station and metro station Kraaiennest.

Editors note: The Bijlmer is considered the most multicultural black neighborhood of the Netherlands, with nationalities from the Caribbean, Africa and other part of the world. So if you are visiting Amsterdam you can enjoy international art and a black atmosphere.

Do black people collect art?

New ideas from the Netherlands. My First Art Collection is a training program for people who want to learn how to collect art. During the first training My first Art Collection: 20 participants get the chance to experience the art world in a personal way from the inside. In 13 meetings the participants are prepared to be a collector of contemporary art! über blick
From january - june 2009/ Amsterdam and Rotterdam / 375 euro