Africa Archives - Dante Today

Jems Robert Koko Bi, Convoi Royal (2009)

April 29, 2022 By Sephora Affa, FSU '24

“Dante’s journey paints a fine portrait of the world I was living in when Convoi Royal was created. This time, the world is a lot like reality. A world running a merciless race, steered by wild beasts devouring everything in their way. The huge hooves hammer the ground, chipping it away to form an infernal whirlpool. The earth trembles with each thud, tilts, and is thrown off balance. A terrible panic strikes its inhabitants. They raise their arms to shield their heads, run around in a crazed fray, seeking temporary shelter. In the beginning, these wild animals were normal beings whose duty was to ensure a better future for the world, but their stomachs were too empty and their prey too easy for this duty to be respected. They decided to satisfy their ego instead, rather than work for the well-being of their numerous fellow beings who were famished and dying. The unknown paradise started its royal convoy. Backed up against the wall, I resign myself to a constraint, deadly as it may be: to leave.” –Jems Robert Koko Bi

Retrieved from The Divine Comedy: Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell Revisited by Contemporary African Artists by Simon Njami.

For more information on the Ivorian artist, see Wikipedia. For more information on Convoi Royal, visit the link here.

Kader Attia, Dispossesion (2013)

April 29, 2022 By Sephora Affa, FSU '24

“Soul—the term occurs often, meant in a rigorously philosophical sense as a ‘vital principle’ or ‘bodily entelechy.’ Just like all the medieval masters, Dante sees in man a being made up of both body and soul. As regards the relationship between the two components, Dante sticks to the Aristotolean solutions, adopted unanimously by the theologians of the day. Hence, the soul may be conceived and represented as separate from the body, in its definitive condition of a dweller in the kingdoms of the afterlife. In this sense, the term is used countless times to refer to the shadows of the dead in their concrete individuality: ‘O spirit courteous of Mantua’ (Inferno, Canto II, 58); ‘But all those souls who weary were and naked,/Their colour changed’ (Inferno, Canto III, 100).”

Retrieved from The Divine Comedy: Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell Revisited by Contemporary African Artists by Simon Njami.

For more on the French-Algerian artist Kader Attia, see Wikipedia.

Pascale Marthine Tayou, Sisiphe remontant le tarmac (2013)

April 29, 2022 By Sephora Affa, FSU '24

“Miserere—In vulgar Latin, it is the first word of Psalm 50: ‘Miserere mei, Deus, secundum magnam misericordiam tuam,’ used in the Catholic liturgy in funeral services, in the rites of Lent and the Holy Week, and generally in the orations of penitence. The penitential psalm is sung in the Comedy by the rows of the dead, in the second terrace of Ante-Purgatory, and the chant, is recited in alternate verses (‘singing the “Miserere” verse by verse’ [Purgatorio, Canto V, 24]), is interrupted by an exclamation of astonishment when the souls realize from his shadow that Dante is alive. In a rather different context, however, the expression ‘Miserere mei’ is cried out by Dante at the appearance of Virgil’s shadow in the forest (Inferno, Canto I, 65).”

Retrieved from The Divine Comedy: Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell Revisited by Contemporary African Artists by Simon Njami.

For more on the Cameroonian artist Pascale Marthine Tayou, see Wikipedia.

Kudzanai Chiurai, Charity (2013)

April 28, 2022 By Sephora Affa, FSU '24

“Dante echoes Saint Paul (Rom. 5:1-5) when he shows charity as born of hope, in turn generated by faith. These three virtues sum up all the celestial philosophy and constitute the very condition of salvation. Within the doctrinal field, the word indicates the fundamental attitude of the Father towards all His creatures, a relationship that finds its perfect form in the blessed [. . .] (Purgatorio, Canto XV, 71).”

Retrieved from The Divine Comedy: Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell Revisited by Contemporary African Artists by Simon Njami.

To learn more about the Zimbabwean artist and activist Kudzanai Chiurai, see Wikipedia. Read an interview with the artist about his related 2012 video work Iyeza on the RISD Museum blog.

Pélagie Gbaguidi, Sacrifice (2013)

April 28, 2022 By Sephora Affa, FSU '24

“Sacrifice—it appears twice in the usual sense of ‘solemn offer of victims and gifts’ made to godheads. In a broader sense, it refers to any offer, real or symbolic, material or spiritual, made to God: ‘Even as thine own Angels of their will/ Make sacrifice to thee, Hosanna singing, /So many all men make the sacrifice of theirs’ (Purgatorio, Canto XI, 11). In particular, the vow is described as a sacrifice, insofar as its formulation obliges the man, standing before the divinity, to perform or not perform a given action, thus offering to God one’s own freedom of choice. It is Beatrice who clarifies to Dante what the importance of the vow is, as a spontaneous sacrifice and offering to God: ‘closing between God and man the compact, /A sacrifice is of this treasure made’ (Paradiso, Canto V, 29).”

Retrieved from The Divine Comedy: Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell Revisited by Contemporary African Artists by Simon Njami.

For more information on Pélagie Gbaguidi, see Wikipedia. For more on the artist’s body of work, see AWARE, the Archive of Women Artists, Research, and Exhibitions.

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