Okwui Enwezor Remembered. The curator of Documenta, Venice Biennale, and art critic who died from cancer at 55.  Image: Haus der Kunst

Okwui Enwezor remembered by artists, friends, and colleagues who pay glowing tribute to the renowned curator who died at 55.

BY KAZEEM ADELEKE

When the renowned curator Okwui Enwezor resigned from his role as director of Munich’s Haus der Kunst for health reasons in June 2018, those who were very close to him knew he was sick.  For more than three years, the celebrated curator had been undergoing treatment for cancer. In spite of the ominous diagnosis, Okwui was very hopeful.

In 2018, Okwui openly spoke about his battle with cancer, noting that despite the dire prognosis he was “still optimistic and full of hope.”  His optimism instilled hope in friends and fans who wished and prayed for a quick recovery.   Not surprisingly, they were shocked when news broke on March 15, 2019, that Okwui Enwezor was dead. He was 55.

Glowing Tribute for the Departed

For more than two decades, Okwui was a force for non-Western art and curated shows that inserted Africa into the global art discourse. In 1996, he organized In/Sight: African Photographers, 1940 to Present at the Guggenheim Museum. The show not only opened a new horizon for the appreciation of the history of photography in Africa, but it also contested the hegemonic Western historical narratives that had pervaded conversations for decades.

Throughout his life, the Nigerian-born curator was constantly looking for new ways to re/present African history and culture to the Western metropolises through art, film, photography, graphics, architecture, music, literature, and theater. His devotion to propagating a new understanding of the African artistic and cultural experience was evident in The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa, 1945–1994.

The landmark exhibition was the first major show that examined how art, politics, and liberation movements coalesced to forge new cultural identities.

Landmark Exhibition

The Short Century was epochal in size and scope. Ironically, the project could not travel to many African countries. In the book In A New Light: Conversations With Nine Nigerian Artists and Curators, Okwui blames the many governments in Africa:

The role governments play in the context of the evolving discourse of the stake in African culture is minimal. You know that culture plays a very marginal role in budgetary and policy reviews in many African countries except for when it’s used to give lip service to the originality of Africa culture.

However, Okwui’s focus was not on Africa alone. Through his work, he acknowledged that the global arena should be a playground for artists from around the world and not a select few. Consequently, he made a great effort to bring artists residing on the periphery of global art discourse to the center. His exhibition Postwar: Art Between the Pacific and the Atlantic, 1945–1965, at the Haus der Kunst in 2017, indicated his broad approach to curatorial practice. It featured nearly 220 artists selected from 65 countries.

Inclusivity was an integral element of Okwui’s curatorial approach. As the director of the 56th Venice Biennale, he brought together artists from 136 countries, who presented works that addressed important issues around the world. Titled All the World’s Futures, many of the works examined the past, present, and future of global engagements, including politics.

The political texts and subtexts in many of Okwui’s projects were at the center of some of the criticisms levied against the curator’s curatorial agenda. Okwui responded to that criticism in the book In A New Light: Conversations With Nine Nigerian Artists and Curators. He argued:

Number one, I think it is sheer nonsense to speculate that my exhibitions are about politics. I don’t accept that my exhibitions are all about politics because the very few exhibitions I have made have little or anything to do with politics.  I think the question is clearly the way in which the subject matter that I’ve worked with has often been constituted or misconstrued as political, when in fact it is not political.

From the Johannesburg Biennale (1996) to South Korea’s Gwangju Biennale (2008), Documenta 11 (2002), Venice Biennale (2015), and many other curatorial projects, Okwui Enwezor brought to bear a conceptual rigor that enabled global participation in the global art space.

Described as a brilliant intellectual and insightful man, Okwui Enwezor, within two decades of curatorial practice, established a contemporary art canon that is very inclusive. But more importantly, his projects engendered a new horizon for the appreciation of global art.

About Okwui Enwezor

Okwui Enwezor was born in Calabar, Nigeria, in 1963.  After studying political science at New Jersey City University, he took a bold step into the contemporary art world. In 1994, he started NKA, a magazine focused on highlighting African artists and bringing attention to contemporary art practice on the African continent. The magazine effectively launched Okwui into the art world. Soon after, he began curating shows, many of which contested the notion of the dominant center by forcefully inserting works by artists in the periphery into global art discourse and exhibitions.

Based on his work, Okwui Enwezor won the admiration of friends and colleagues. In a 2002 article in the New York Times, Glenn D. Lowry, the director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York described him as “an extraordinarily intelligent and insightful man who has opened many people’s eyes.” Okwui Enwezor is remembered because of his amazing contribution to the global art discourse.

Views On Okwui Enwezor

Since his death, many artists, friends, and colleagues have been paying tribute to Okwui Enwezor, who, through his work, reshaped our perception of art.  Bavarian Culture Minister Bernd Sibler, in a recent statement, praised Okwui Enwezor not just for his impact in “broadening our perspective,” but also for his intellectualism. He noted, “We have lost a brilliant intellectual, a man of the world whose encyclopedic knowledge encompassed more than art and a sensitive advocate of art.”

Hito Steyerl, a German filmmaker, visual artist, writer, and innovator described Okwui thus:

The loss of Okwui is an enormous loss to the art world, indeed to the notion of a world itself, which without a steady defender of Okwui’s caliber slowly finds itself devalued to pimp flat-rate packages for corporate data robber barons and feudal museum franchises.

Coco Fusco, the Cuban-American interdisciplinary artist, writer, and curator described Okwui as a self-made immigrant who “established a global view of artistic practice as the standard for the field, making narrower models of internationalism feel obsolete.”

Raqs Media Collective remembers Okwui Enwezor fondly:

“Once, in the wake of one of his visits to Delhi, while he was on his way to spend a few restful days in Kerala in 2014, we laughed together about how finally, at least one aspect of his vivid life could be described as a journey from Calabar to Malabar.

Supercommunity saw Okwui’s commitment and direct confrontation of the notion of the center as genuine and necessary. “For Okwui, the possibility of the global was a necessary commitment—never so much a promise as the beginning of an emergent politics.”

Art Before Death

Until his death, Okwui Enwezor was continually looking for new ways to curate important shows. Presently at the Haus der Kunst is  El Anatsui: Triumphant Scale, curated by Okwui Enwezor, Chika Okeke-Agulu, Professor in the Department of Archaeology and Art History at the University of Princeton, and Assistant Damian Lentini, Curator at Haus der Kunst. The exhibition is a survey of works by El Anatsui, the Ghanaian curator who continues to make a great impression in the global art circle with his innovative sculptures many of which are on display at the museum.

Okwui Enwezor is remembered by all those who love him.

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