Iwalewahaus
The Iwalewahaus as part of the University of Bayreuth presents changing exhibitions of contemporary non-European art, in particular contemporary art from Africa and the African diaspora . The house has the task of researching, documenting and teaching contemporary African culture. In addition to fine arts, the focus is also on everyday African culture, media and music. The Iwalewahaus offers space for lectures on contemporary African culture, conferences, concerts, film screenings and readings.
Research and Teaching
The Iwalewahaus conducts art and cultural studies research in Africa and its diaspora and presents the research results to a broad public in thematic and monographic exhibitions. Most Iwalewahaus projects are created in close cooperation with other institutions in Africa and Europe and are accompanied by publications. The main focus of the research is on the fields of contemporary art, popular culture, the media - especially photography and film -, African modernism and museology. These include the projects Africa Screams - Evil in Cinema, Art and Cult (2004); Black Paris (2006); Hidden Pages, Stolen Bodies (2009); Piga Picha! (2008/2010) and Iwalewa - Quatre vues de l'Afrique contemporaine (2013).
The teaching carried out at the Iwalewahaus focuses primarily on four areas: art studies with a reference to Africa, aspects of African popular culture, institutionalization and interaction of art worlds as well as general questions of media history and the study of visual culture. For the participants of the courses “Culture and Society of Africa”, “Ethnology” and “African Languages, Literatures and Art”, the art-specific part of the course is covered by the courses of the Iwalewahaus according to the above-mentioned focus. Since 2012, a module area “Art and Curation” with a practical component has been offered in the master’s course “Culture and Society of Africa”.
collection
The Iwalewahaus has a collection of modern and contemporary fine arts from Africa , Asia and the Pacific region that is unique in Germany . The focus of the collection is Nigeria , but there are also important works from Sudan , Mozambique , Tanzania , DR Congo , Haiti , India , Papua New Guinea and Australia . The collection is largely based on Ulli Beer's private collection , whose life was closely related to the promotion of early modern Nigerian art. The painting collection, in particular the Oshogbo School, and the graphic collection with a focus on the Nigerian Nsukka Art School are of international importance . In addition to fine art, the archive of the Iwalewahaus houses an extensive collection of contemporary African music, video film productions from Nigeria and Ghana and African textiles. There are also private foundations used by the Iwalewahaus.
Naming
The proverb Iwalewa comes from the language of the Yoruba , one of the three major ethnic groups from southwestern Nigeria . Literally translated, Iwalewa means "character is beauty". The term Iwa stands for “good character”, whereby the original meaning of the term Iwa can be translated as “Dasein” or “Existence”. Taking this second level of meaning into account, Ulli Beier's explanation of the naming of the house becomes understandable:
“We named this house Iwalewa because we don't want to present the exoticism of foreign cultures here. We don't just want to deal with the formal beauty of foreign art objects, we want to try to understand their true identity, their Iwa. "
history
The Iwalewahaus was inaugurated on November 27, 1981 in support of the University of Bayreuth's focus on Africa with the aim of presenting non-European art and culture to a wider audience. The founder and first director of the Iwalewahaus from 1981 to 1985 was Ulli Beier (1922–2011), a connoisseur of Nigerian art and culture . When Beier went to Papua New Guinea in 1985 , Ronald Rupprecht, who had previously worked at the Goethe Institute in Lagos , took over the management of the house. From 1987 to the end of 1996 the house was again under the aegis of Ulli Beier. From January 1997 to September 2001 Till Förster was director of the Africa Center. When Förster left the University of Basel in November 2001, Tobias Wendl took over the management of the house. After his appointment to the Free University of Berlin, the Iwalewahaus has been run by Ulf Vierke and Nadine Siegert on his behalf since March 2010.
building
From November 27, 1981 until the end of 2013, the Iwalewahaus was domiciled in the former Margravial Mint , a listed sandstone building from the 18th century.
On November 4, 2013, the Iwalewahaus moved into its new residence at Wölfelstrasse 2. The building at Münzgasse 9 was handed over to the Israelite Religious Community. The four-storey new domicile in Baroque Art Nouveau style was built in 1907 for the Bayerische Staatsbank in Upper Franconia. In the 1970s, the building was taken over by the forestry office and was last used by the land surveying office and building authorities. With a basement and attic, the building has 2,300 m² of office space as well as exhibition and archive space.
literature
- Sigrid Horsch-Albert, Till Förster (Hrsg.): Art reflections of the modern. Paintings and graphics from the collection of the Iwalewa House . Köppe, Cologne 2001, ISBN 3-89645-127-8 .
- Till Förster and University of Bayreuth (Hrsg.): Afrikaforschung in Bayreuth. 20 years of African research at the University of Bayreuth . Iwalewa House, Bayreuth 1998.
- Pierre-Nicolas Bounakoff, Katharina Greven, Nadine Siegert (eds.): Iwalewa - Quatre vues de l'Afrique contemporaine . Iwalewahaus, Bayreuth 2013.
Web links
- Iwalewahaus. Africa Center of the University of Bayreuth
Individual evidence
- ↑ Ulli Beier: 10 years of Iwalewa House Bayreuth. Encounters with cultures from Africa, Asia and the Pacific . Iwalewa House, Bayreuth 1991.
- ^ History. In: iwalewahaus.uni-bayreuth.de. University of Bayreuth, accessed on August 22, 2020 .
- ↑ Bernd Mayer: Bayreuth in the twentieth century , p. 152.
Coordinates: 49 ° 56 ′ 40.6 ″ N , 11 ° 34 ′ 46.6 ″ E