Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein, Germany, is celebrating Africa this spring and summer.
The prelude to the VDM’s African theme for the next six months is the smaller show “Architecture of Independence: African Modernism,” which opened in the Vitra Design Museum Gallery on Feb. 20 and runs through May 31. It is largely a photography exhibition focussing on futuristic and heroic architecture in five African countries. It is curated by an architect and academic based in Basel, Manuel Herz, and is intended to travel after its first presentation in Weil am Rhein.
“Making Africa: A Continent of Contemporary Design” – opening on March 13 and running through Sept. 13 – is the second and larger show. It showcases the work of 120 African designers and is accompanied by a star-studded events program. Okwui Enwezor – who was also an official Curatorial Consultant to the show – will give the opening talk together with Curator Amelie Klein. Enwezor is probably Africa’s most prominent figure in the art world, a former curator of the Documenta and currently the director of Haus der Kunst in Munich, as well as the curator of the upcoming Venice Biennale. The show is a collaboration with the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, where it will travel next.
For more info, visit http://www.design-museum.de/en/information.html