In the Memory of Sindika Dokolo
Sindika Dokolo, a wealthy Congolese art collector who championed the African contemporary art and the restitution of African classic art, passed away at 48 on October 29th. I would like to offer my condolences. I could hardly believe the news when I heard it. I’ve just introduced him in the book published this May, as a must-know figure in the contemporary scene.
The cover illustration here is by Takaishi Mizuki, a designer who has worked with me on several projects about African contemporary art, including this book. Even though awareness on both africa and contemporary art is relatively low here in Japan, I see interest in Africa is growing, through visual art, in people who are in touch with me. Takaishi-san is one of them, and I appreciate her for drawing this illustration by herself just after I shared the news.
Sindika Dokolo amassed a 5000-piece collection of contemporary African art, which includes Yinka Shonibare, Zanele Muholi, William Kentridge and other prominent artists. He established a foundation in 2013 to further develop the scene. The African Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007 exhibited many artists from his collection.
Among his collection I especially like those of Aida Muluneh and Kiluanji Kiahenda. The photos are from «Afriques Capitales» (2017 La Villette, Paris), where I visited the first summer after I started research on African contemporary art. I remember I was excited to see the exhibition of brilliant contemporary African photograph of this scale, and found the name of Sindika Dokolo foundation among the collaboraters on the signboard.
He also crusaded for the restitution of classic African art. The exhibition Incarnations (2019 Bozar/Center for Fine Arts, Brussels) curated by him , which brings classic and contemporary African art together, can be seen as a decolonizing attempt to rebuild the discourse of art history.
At the same time, he engaged in the political movement of Congo, and was also known as a business man with immense wealth. (A Japanese collector once told me a story that when she visited an art fair, the gallerist at the booth called him “African Rothschild”.) At the time of his death, he and his wife Isabel Dos Santos were under investigation for money laundering and financial irregularities.
We lost a strong pillar of the African contemporary art community. I would like to commemorate his great achievement and keep watching the moves of the African art world.
