Ce samedi 29 mars :
Des centaines de personnes ont manifesté dans toute la France samedi 29 mars 2025, en soutien aux mineurs isolés sans logement, notamment après les violences policières à la Gaîté Lyrique... Ici, à Paris.
29/03/2025
26/03/2025
Visiting the 'Black Paris' exhibition at Pompidou with Johny Pitts
In English
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Read also my article:
'Paris Noir' exhibition showcases work made in French capital by black artists
The 'Paris Noir' exhibition at the Pompidou Centre brings together works by African, American, Caribbean and Afro-descendant artists who lived and worked in Paris between the 1950s and the end of the 1990s.
Exposition 'Paris Noir' au Centre Pompidou - Petite vidéo d'introduction
En français
(English to come...)
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Read also my article:
'Paris Noir' exhibition showcases work made in French capital by black artists
The 'Paris Noir' exhibition at the Pompidou Centre brings together works by African, American, Caribbean and Afro-descendant artists who lived and worked in Paris between the 1950s and the end of the 1990s.
24/03/2025
“TO BE HOPEFUL in bad time..."
“TO BE HOPEFUL in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.
What we choose to emphasise in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.
And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvellous victory.”
―
21/03/2025
Yasmine Hamdan - Shmaali شمالي
Beloved Yasmine Hamdan
Yasmine Hamdan - Shmaali شمالي
(Official Music Video)
(Official Music Video)
"I’m happy to share with you my new single, Shmaali on Mother’s Day (we in the ME celebrate our mothers with the first breath of spring). Shmaali comes from the Tarweeda, a Palestinian folk song form that expresses grief and joy using coded language as an act of rebellion against occupation and rule. Tarweedas were traditionally performed by women and largely preserved and passed on by them. It is difficult to determine the origin of the song, but it most likely originated towards the end of the Ottoman Empire and the beginning of the British Mandate over Palestine. I am honoured to carry this tradition, especially in these times🌹To our mothers"
- YH
18/03/2025
Paris Noir @ Centre Pompidou
First insight, in pictures.
New works by Jon One, Valérie John, Nathalie Leroy Fiévee, Jay Ramier, Shuck One
20th century artists include: Wifredo Lam, Beauford Delaney (a friend of Baldwin's), Ernest Breleur, Skunder Boghossian, Christian Lattier, Demas Nwoko...
Lots of them from Haiti, Martinique, Côte d'Ivoire... And a few Americans, of course, like Faith Ringgold.
From the creation of the magazine 'Présence Africaine' to that of 'Revue noire', Paris noir traces the presence and influence of black artists in France between the 1950s and 2000s.
It highlights one hundred and fifty artists, from Africa to the Americas via the Caribbean, whose works have rarely been shown in France.
During the press visit, this Tuesday:
"Black Paris offers a vibrant immersion in a cosmopolitan Paris, a place of resistance and creation," the curators said, "that gave rise to a wide variety of practices, from a new awareness of identity to the search for trans-cultural artistic languages."
From international to Afro-Atlantic abstractions via surrealism and free figuration, this historical voyage reveals the importance of artists of African descent in the redefinition of Modernisms and Post-modernisms.
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Meeting a British friend: Photographer Johny Pitts, author of the book 'Afropeans'. More with him soon!
The exhibitions gathered paintings mostly, but also drawings, photographs and films works.
Always the view...
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Black Paris
Artistic circulations and anti-colonial resistance 1950 – 2000
March 19th – June 30th 2025 Centre Pompidou | Galerie 1 | Level 6
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Update
My article here:
https://www.rfi.fr/en/culture/20250322-paris-noir-exhibition-showcases-work-made-in-french-capital-by-black-artists
15/03/2025
Paris African Book fair 2025
A little tour at the fourth edition of the Paris African Book fair, this Saturday. More soon, especially on Frantz Fanon, as this year marks his centenary.
Paris African Book fair, Saturday 15 March 2025:
The French Caribbean artist Julien Creuzet presented his art book
at the Paris African Book fair, on Sat. 15 March 2025 © Melissa Chemam
Authors Jean Khalfa and Suzanne Dracius, two world-renowned specialists of psychiatrist
and anti-colonialist writer Frantz Fanon, speaking at a discussion on Fanon's centenary,
at the Paris African Book Fair, on 15 March 2025 © Melissa Chemam
Cameroonian author Eugène Ebodé presenting his latest book, 'Zam Zam'
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The Salon continues tomorrow!
https://www.salondulivreafricaindeparis.com/
14/03/2025
East Africa and Palestinians
Scary reports from Associated Press, shared also by the Reuters news agency, about plans coming from Israel and the United States to deport Palestinians to the Horn of Africa, namely Somalia, Somaliland and Sudan... all Affected by long-lasting wars!
Details:
March 14 (Reuters) - Somalia and its breakaway region of Somaliland have not received any proposal from the United States or Israel to resettle Palestinians from Gaza, their foreign ministers said on Friday, with Mogadishu saying it categorically rejected any such move.
The Associated Press quoted U.S. and Israeli officials as saying their governments had contacted officials from Sudan, Somalia and Somaliland to discuss using their territory for resettling Palestinians from the devastated Gaza Strip.
Sudanese officials said they rejected the proposal by the United States, and officials from Somalia and Somaliland said they were unaware of any contacts, AP reported.
Somalia's Foreign Minister Ahmed Moalim Fiqi said his country would categorically reject "any proposal or initiative, from any party, that would undermine the Palestinians people’s right to live peacefully on their ancestral land".
Fiqi told Reuters that Somalia's government had not received any such proposal, adding that Mogadishu was against any plan that would involve the use of Somali territory for the resettlement of other populations.
Somaliland's foreign minister, Abdirahman Dahir Adan, told Reuters that "there are no talks with anyone regarding Palestinians".
Unlike Somalia, which has been battling an Islamist insurgency for more than 17 years, Somaliland has mostly been at peace since declaring independence from the Mogadishu government in 1991.
But Somaliland is not recognised by any country and its government has expressed hope that U.S. President Donald Trump will be favourable to its cause.
Somalia rejects any claim by Somaliland to be recognised as an independent state and says its sovereignty and territorial integrity are inviolable.
The White House and the U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment.
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12/03/2025
Noah Davis at Barbican
London's must-see exhibition of the moment.
A selection of pictures I took.
Noah Davis
It is his debut retrospective in the UK. The work of the late African American artist is celebrated here as his expansive creativity is exposed.
"Noah Davis appears as one of the most original and uncanny painters emerging in recent years."
Noah Davis created a body of figurative paintings that explores a range of Black life, primarily based from Los Angeles.
Motivated by the desire to ‘represent the people' around him, Davis painted figures diving into pools, sleeping, dancing, and looking at art in scenes that can be both realistic and dreamlike, joyful and melancholic.
Davis drew from anonymous photography, personal archives, film, art history and his imagination to create a ravishing body of work. Often enigmatic, his paintings reveal a deep feeling for humanity and the emotional textures of the everyday.
In 2012, Davis also co-founded The Underground Museum to give free access to world-class art for the people of Arlington Heights, LA.
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