As our common understanding of inter-national borders fundamentally shifted following the COVID-19 pandemic and the invasion of Ukraine, I found myself becoming curious about previous instances of significant geopolitical realignment. I began by investigating the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union – which prompted American political theorist Francis Fukuyama to famously question, per the title of his 1989 essay, whether this might even signal ‘The End of History?’ But despite the popularity of this phrase, Fukuyama’s conclusion was ambiguous.
As part of this research, I stumbled upon G. Thomas Burgess’s 2010 essay ‘Mao in Zanzibar: Nationalism, Discipline and the (De)Construction of Afro-Asian Solidarities’, which examined a deep yet idiosyncratic connection between post-revolutionary Zanzibar and the People’s Republic of China. As Burgess writes, China became ‘widely regarded as the model for the islands’ future’. One of the essay’s protagonists was Ali Sultan Issa, a Zanzibari revolutionary whose life story offered a thread through resurgent Afro-Asian political imaginaries of the Cold War and the Non-Aligned Movement of the 1960s.
Denne historien er fra Issue 243 - May 2024-utgaven av Frieze.
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Denne historien er fra Issue 243 - May 2024-utgaven av Frieze.
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I'm trying to follow my instinct: to have confidence and not get into my head too much about what other people are expecting.'
Conversation: Ahead of a solo show at London’s Cubitt Gallery, Marlene Smith speaks to Lubaina Himid about her time in the BLK Art Group, friendship and collaboration
Tell It Slant
Built Environment: Giovanna Silva on photographing history through unexpected architectural interventions
Dean Sameshima
What does it mean to be alone? In Dean Sameshima’s recent body of work – 25 monochrome photographs of queer men in Berlin porn theatres with sumptuous black negative spaces and blinding white cinema screens – ‘alone’ is a complicated term.
Nicole Wermers
Nicole Wermers’s Reclining Female #6 (2024) looks out over Glasgow.
Greater Toronto Art 2024
Museum of Contemporary Art, Toronto, Canada
Echoes of the Brother Countries
In recent years, the former German Democratic Republic (DDR) has been the subject of a reappraisal that, while not seeking to redeem the stiflingly authoritarian state, has attempted to present a more nuanced overview of its social and cultural realities.
Pierre Huyghe
A pale tetra fish swims around a vast obsidian tank, while another bobs on its side at the top of the water, perhaps ailing from debilitating swim bladder disease (Circadian Dilemma [El Día del Ojo], 2017).
Inward Yearnings
Essay: Rianna Jade Parker retraces the history of the Jamaican intuitives, a group of self-taught artists who ushered in a national form of artmaking mythologizing African traditions through religious divination and esteem-raising cultural work
The Promise of the Past
Built Environment: On the occasion of the ‘Tropical Modernism’ exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, Derin Fadina examines the architectural movement’s exclusionary narratives
Where Is Everyone?
Built Environment: Minoru Nomata’s paintings ask why we obsess over unpeopled architecture
