Reiner Opoku develops, realizes and manages international art- and culture projects. He is a Berlin based art consultant and international art agent. He has curated numerous international art exhibitions since the early 1980s and is representing a variety of renowned contemporary artists. Reiner Opoku serves as an advisor and initiator for aligning artists and the creative world with institutions, galleries and brands by creating collaboration platforms, publications and commissioned works. The network build in nearly 40 years of experience in this professional field is the foundation of his work.

Reiner Opoku was the founding director of St. Moritz Art Masters in Switzerland and a Co-Founder of Parley for the Oceans in NYC. He is partner and executive producer for the Virtual Reality production company Mirror+Sparks in Munich and NYC.

afrolifestyle:  Hello Reiner, great to have you at afrolifetsyle. Could you please briefly introduce yourself.

Reiner Opoku: Hello my name is Reiner Opoku. I am sixty years old. My father came from Ghana and my mother from Germany.  I grew up in Cologne and now I am living in Berlin.

Cologne in the early eighties

afrolifestyle: How was it to live in Cologne in the early eighties?

Reiner Opoku: Living in Cologne in the early eighties, was really an important time for my coming up, because Cologne became like the capital of the art world besides New York. In the collective mind of the people there was New York and on the other hand Cologne. There was not even London on the map or Paris. The two cities were not that far from contemporary art, but for me Cologne was the place where my artistic skills were developed. I met a lot of artists from the generation before and from contemporary art, the so-called Young Wild painters. 

Office Reiner Opoku in Berlin

afrolifestyle: As a successful businessman, you work with stars and famous artists. What were your most important encounters? 

Reiner Opoku: Somehow it just happened! Certain artists became famous and successful over time. I follow them now for more than thirty years and at that time they were maybe known but not as famous as they are now. Fame is relative, it doesn’t express everything that is behind the character. But I would say, the most important encounter was that I met one artist at that time, that was Georg Dokoupil, with whom I am still working today. He is one of the leaders of the German Young Wild painters generation. We went through his complete career together, because I was a part of it. But I started out as his assistant working in his studio, stretching the canvases and really getting into the art world from scratch, but not the academic way, more the hands-on way. We spent so much time together, we went to museums, I learned a lot from him about art and what artists do. What is the intention? I worked on a lot of paintings with him, which also gave me the physical knowledge to do art. I would say that this was the most important encounter to start my so-called career in the art world. 

afrolifestyle: It sounds like you became good friends.

Reiner Opoku: Yes, we are very good friends and he taught me a lot about art.

It’s all about art

afrolifestyle: On your website there are a lot of big names like Julian Schnabel, Gerhard Richter, David La Chapelle, of course Georg Dokoupil, Rosemarie Trockel and many more. When did you decide to work with artists? 

Reiner Opoku: It is not like that I chose the art, it’s more like the art chose me. I realized my ability to transmit what artists are doing, somehow like a catalyst, like a tool for the artists. More and more I was in the position to be able to channelize them, to make a project out of it and to finalize it. These are my humble skills in the whole context. A good artist is a good artist, that will not change, but he needs people to support him, either galleries, institutions, critics or someone like me who is able to channelize his creativity and fulfilling projects he has on his mind.

afrolifestyle: You are the man behind the scenes! You are not in the front row and the artists believe in you. They have their freedom and space and you do all the organizational stuff.

Reiner Opoku: Exactly, I don’t have to be in the frontline. For me, it’s about the art and the artwork itself. My goal is to finalize projects. Nowadays some artists are becoming Popstars, that’s okay! It’s just a development in our current time and society, but in general the art will stay and the artist will die. The artworks will remain, as they were done in their time. Art does not age.

afrolifcestyle: What have been your biggest challenges so far? 

Reiner Opoku: When I do something new, it’s always a big challenge for me. I have this tendency to approach things with my gut. It’s not that my mind doesn’t guide me, but it’s more my instinct. I have made so many decisions in my life based on my gut, some of them were wrong, some of them were good. Now that I’m getting older, I’m a bit more careful to evaluate what’s right or wrong. But I still need that certain gut feeling that sometimes leads you into different areas, which has enriched my life in success and brought excitement in the not so successful things.

St. Moritz Art Masters

afrolifestyle: You and your business partner created the Art Masters in St. Moritz, Switzerland. What was the driving idea behind it? 

Reiner Opoku: The city of St. Moritz wanted an annual event, something high profile on a cultural level in the summer. In winter, St. Moritz is known for sporting events and luxury. My business partner Monty Shadow from Milan and I developed the idea of curating art exhibitions in the valley of St. Moritz. He is a networker and works with major brands. He has contacts all over the planet and I have business relationships with well-known artists. The claim was Art & Nature, to enjoy art and promote the Engadin region around St. Moritz in the summer. So we created an art festival in the summer. The nature in the valley is so interesting. We brought many artists from all over the world to the Art Masters and curated art exhibitions in different places and hot spots in the region, e.g. cabins on the mountains, in churches, in hidden places, on lakes, we turned the whole valley into an art program. We convinced companies and major brands to help us build this unique art festival that brings art and knowledge transfer to the people. We started the Walk of Art in this region, which resulted in many exhibitions, panels and workshops. Of course, it was funded by the brands. The brands helped us to settle up the Art Masters into a public festival. They invited their business partners, paid for the side events and they also invited the artists, which was a huge amount of money. It took us a couple of years to establish it, but after that it went very well for at least ten years. A smaller version of the Art Masters is still happening. After 10 seasons, I felt it was enough for me and I stepped out to start new projects.

What does digitalization mean to you?

afrolifestyle: One of your new business areas is virtual reality. What does digitalization mean to you?

Reiner Opoku: Without my partner Prof. Jörg Liebold, I wouldn’t be so deep in VR. He is a Professor at the Macromedia University in Munich. I knew him from New York, where Jörg was working for a friend of mine and they did all this high-end advertising with animated films. Then Jörg went back to Germany and we met again through an idea that I had when Virtual Reality came out six years ago.

We started to think about; What could that do to the art? We developed ideas and we got to the point that we are now producing films on artists in Virtual Reality but also with artists. You give people the chance to experience an exhibition by not being there but still having a 3D surrounding. So the curatorial aspect is much better to be realized than in a two-dimensional picture version. 

You can stay in the room and see a painting hanging there because the other painting is hanging on the other side of the room and you see the correspondence of the works. The correspondence is much better to see than in the two-dimensional world. This is one way to use Virtual Reality in our world. You are closer in touch with the art. One can dive deep inside an immersive world.

We are already doing a longterm project with Julian Schnabel for the last couple of years. We are trying to capture as many exhibitions of his as we can, footage from his works in the studio and in his private home in New York. This will become a bigger thing. But we also did specific projects e.g. for the Metropolitan Museum in New York. We captured the Gerhard Richter exhibition, which just opened when the pandemic happened. The museum was very happy to have another layer besides the film they did. The 3D walk through the museum was a big success. We also did projects with the Pace Gallery in New York. Now we are working on an NFT project for Vito Schnabel, which has to do with the quality of resolution. This medium is definitely something usable in the art world. You see already many artists using NFT (non-fungible token).

By thinking about Virtual Reality I now see the next step with the NFT. It is art with different kinds of animation. It’s not a film, it’s not an animation, it’s not a video, it is becoming something new, something three-dimensional. I very much believe, that we are in a time where we can expect some completely new approaches on art, because technology is ruling the world and the tech companies are the rulers. Out of that, we are obviously creating new challenges for artists. It’s not only the canvas and the oil paint and it’s not the photography, which took much time to be established as an art medium, but now photographers have a standard position in the art world. The newest thing for me will be Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), Extended Reality (XR) and NFT.

afrolifestyle: Is the ownership matter solved with the NFT-technology?

Reiner Opoku: Yes, because the ownership (on the token) is not fungible. This was a thing you always had a problem with e.g. falsification or you had to ask an appraiser or an expert, but an expert can also be wrong. This is now all gone and solved with NFT. NFT is not a hype, this technology will stay. Every week I get an invitation from a gallery to visit their online NFT platform to look at what they have there. It was the same thing with Virtual Reality in the beginning. People thought it’s only a hype, but Virtual, Augmented and Extended Reality will also stay. The processes are slower but the development and the quality of the cameras and the experiences are enormous.

Vision for Africa

afrolifestyle: What is your vision for Africa? 

Reiner Opoku: Africa has to have its own identity. I see a lot of potential and positiveness which we are missing a bit in the rest of the world. I am very happy about the development concerning the art world, technology, creativity, brand building, fashion and design. A lot of good things are coming from Africa. What Africa has to do now, is to get away from the feeling that they have to ask the western countries what they have to do, then Africa will find a way. It is not about the money. I also think, that it is very important to find solid and democratic forms, so that the people can trust their leaders, then I am not worried about Africa. We have to do it ourselves. The power comes from the people and I think this is more and more happening. I see a lot of potential in Africa..

afrolifestyle: Do you believe in knowledge transfer and educational progress?

Reiner Opoku: Yes, of course! When knowledge is there the future could be bright. My father studied in Europe in the fifties and his generation had the aim to go back, in this case Ghana, to bring back knowledge to Africa! Education is a key element not only for Africa.

afrolifestyle: As a businessman with African roots, what would you like to share with afrolifestyle?

Reiner Opoku: Stay positive even if it is hard sometimes. Everything comes in waves. Try to encourage people to stay positive and not negative. What goes around comes around.

afrolifestyle: Thank you Reiner for your time. It has been a pleasure having you for the interview.

The post Reiner Opoku appeared first on Afrolifestyle.

Originally from Ivory Coast, born in France and now living in Germany for over 14 years. Bienvenue Angui has a solid knowledge of European and African cultures. She has worked as Director of Marketing and Communications for the German office one of the largest networks promoting French trade shows abroad.

Mrs. Angui is now the Director of the professional network „Le Mittelstand BVMW“, which connects German SMEs with European Francophone SMEs. She is also the Managing Director of the « Mittelstand Alliance Africa » (MAA) (www.maa-bvmw.de), the German-African Entrepreneur Network of the BVMW, which supports German companies that want to become economically active on the African continent and vice versa. The MAA works in cooperation with governments, embassies, civil society and entrepreneurs on the African continent with the aim of being a strong voice for small and medium-sized enterprises in Africa and Germany and promoting the African continent as a place of opportunity and a strong partner.

afrolifestyle: Hello Bienvenue! You are the managing director of the Mittelstand Alliance Afrika “MAA” of the BVMW. The BVMW is the biggest SME Association in Germany. That means a lot of responsibility every day. You meet high-level delegations and medium-sized companies from Africa and Europe and you offer them a chance to boost their business. Your claim is “together for success”! Why was Germany a good option for your career?

Bienvenue: Since my school days I wanted to live in Germany. I studied international business with a focus on Franco-German cooperation. It is then quite natural that I decided to start my professional career in Germany after obtaining my Master’s degree in Franco-German international trade and management.

What inspired you the most?

What I always liked about Germany was the culture and the language. The land of poets and thinkers.

afrolifestyle: In times of digitalization and the covid-19 pandemic, what are the biggest challenges and biggest opportunities for SMEs in Africa and in Germany?

Bienvenue: The bottom line of the covid-19 pandemic is that the business location Africa is more important than ever before. Since the supply chain bottlenecks in China, alternative production locations have to be tried in order not to be completely dependent on China or other markets. The pharmaceutical companies were the most affected by the supply chain problems. Africa can get a completely new value and new market opportunities.

What does digitalization mean to you?

I associate digitalization with the future, inclusion, creativity and startups. Digital reality will be everyday life for us.  Since the pandemic, everyone is aware of this.

afrolifestyle: Knowledge transfer at eye level is one of the key perspectives when it comes to networking. Can you name successful collaborations between Africa and Europe?

Bienvenue: The dual education system is a good example to create a knowledge transfer at eye level on both continents. There are many examples where knowledge transfer works out pretty well. It is often the personal efforts of SMEs such as the company Hansen Korbwaren from Germany, which works in Senegal and trains its labour force locally. During the pandemic, the company invited young Senegalese trainees to Germany to learn more about the work processes, taking into account the strictest health requirements. The company is currently planning to set up a production unit in the department of Podor in northern Senegal that will employ around 1,000 people.

What is your vision regarding the economy in Africa?

Through my work  I see the difference between Africa and Europe. African countries need to start programs to help young people and women build an economic structure. A change in the economic structures is important to make the African SMEs more secure. The informal sector represents over 85% of the economy in many African countries. In comparison, the percentage in Europe is about 25%. A transformation of the informal sector in Africa is needed to implement a secure economic structure for the upcoming young generation and for businesswomen.

afrolifestyle: How do you evaluate the economic partnerships between Africa and Europe, such as the new Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) between the EU and Africa?

Bienvenue: In these new negotiated Economic Partnership Agreements between the EU and Africa, the African countries commit to open their markets to 80% to Europe. In return, they get full duty-free access to the EU. However, the danger for the African states is the potential for cheap competition from Europe, e.g. in the food sector, which could lead to the collapse of their own agriculture. That is, even if this agreement is better than the Cotonou Agreement, not optimal and still not on an equal footing! That’s why many African countries are fighting against it.

What is your biggest achievement so far?

When I was a teenager I had a dream: to live in Germany and make a career there. Now I have been in Germany for 14 years and I feel I have arrived in Berlin. I am part of a great dynamic that wants to see Africa presented in a different and better light than before.

afrolifestyle: What does diversity mean to you?

Bienvenue: I look at diversity very positively and for me, it means cultural enrichment, tolerance towards others and inclusion.

What do you do when you are not at work?

I play the piano and sing along with it. I was a singer in a soul band for several years, and yes, I miss the stage sometimes. I also like reading  and for my health and well-being I like to jog when I have time.

afrolifestyle: As a businesswoman with African roots, what would you like to share with afrolifestyle?

Bienvenue: Africa is more than the savannah, dancing, and safaris. There are a lot of beautiful people with talents. Creativity can be found everywhere in Africa, it is inspiring! It is worth taking the time to discover the diversity of the people and the continent.

afrolifestyle: Thank you very much for your time and for the interview!

The post Bienvenue Angui appeared first on Afrolifestyle.

Her quadraphonic performances, characterized by their physical affect, seek a cathartic effect through the interplay of psychoacoustics, the perception of rhythmic structures, and the interchange of noise and melody. Her ever-changing and immersive sonic landscapes are grounded in questions such as the relationship between individual perception and collective dynamics or the investigation of listening expectations and their societal roots. In 2019 she released her first LP via Important Records.

Jessica Ekomane | re:publica 2018

Cashmere Radio | « Open Sources »

A Berlin Community Radio [INCUBATOR] resident for their 2017 edition, she now hosts a monthly show on Cashmere Radio. « Open Sources » is focused on linking folk and traditional music with contemporary musical experiments. Her work has been presented in various institutions across Asia, Australia and Europe such as CTM festival, KW (Berlin), Ars Electronica (Linz), Dommune (Tokyo) and MUMA (Melbourne).

The post Jessica Ekomane appeared first on Afrolifestyle.

History

The term originated from the 2003 documentary Afro-Punk directed by James Spooner

In the early 21st century, Afro-punks made up a minority in the North American punk scene. Notable bands that can be linked to the Afro-punk community include: Death, Pure Hell, Bad Brains, Suicidal Tendencies, Dead Kennedys, Fishbone, Wesley Willis Fiasco, Suffrajett, The Templars, Unlocking the Truth and Rough Francis. In the United Kingdom, influential black musicians associated with the late 1970s punk scene included Poly Styrene of X-Ray Spex, Don Letts and Basement 5. Afro-punk has become a movement, comparable to the early hip hop movement of the 1980s. The Afropunk Music Festival was founded in 2005 by James Spooner and Matthew Morgan.

“In their 15 years of existence, Afropunk has managed to curate an environment that can only be described as an ethereal, momentary hideaway for black people from all corners and crevices of the diaspora – and this year was no different. The festival explicitly invites folks to come and be who they are, wear whatever they wear, and dance how they dance. It was a blank space to freak out in – and freak out they did.” – GQStyle

“AFROPUNK became a radical act of self care – a realized demand of safe spaces for people of color.” – TeenVogue

“The musicians at AFROPUNK were there not just to sing and rap but to celebrate and give voice to communities of difference. That dual responsibility is exactly what separates AFROPUNK from other run-of-the-mill music festivals in America.” – Noisey

Festivals

AfroPunk has Festivals in 5 locations. The 2019 Brooklyn AfroPunk Festival took place on August 24 and 25. The Atlanta AfroPunk took place on October 12 and 13. There were also festivals in London, Paris, and Joburg in 2019. The line-up for the festivals varied depending on location but included artists like, Jill Scott, Anderson Paak, FKA Twigs, Leon Bridges, Danny Brown, Smino, Tierra Whack, Ho99o9, Earth Gang, Kamasi Washington, Santigold, Fever 333, Leikeli47, Mahalia, and many more.

(From afropunk.com)

AFROPUNK IMPRESSIONS 01

AFROPUNK IMPRESSIONS 02 – Mawana Afrobeat – AFRO PUNK – (Uhuru Africa ft. Coco Stone)

The post AfroPunk Festival appeared first on Afrolifestyle.

The post Afrofootball appeared first on Afrolifestyle.

Her first novel, De Feniks, was published in Dutch in September 2005 and is the first book of fiction written by a Flemish author of African origin. Her second novel, Fata Morgana, was published in Dutch in 2008 and subsequently released in English.

Nigeria Prize for Literature winner 2012

Entitled On Black Sisters’ Street, Unigwe’s novel is about African prostitutes living and working in Belgium, and was published to acclaim in London in 2009 by Jonathan Cape. On Black Sisters’ Street won the 2012 Nigeria Prize for Literature; valued at $100,000 it is Africa’s largest literary prize. Also in 2012, Zukiswa Wanner in The Guardian rated her as one of the “top five African writers”.

Chika Unigwe | On Sisters’ Street

Jaipur Literature Festival – Chika Unigwe and Marcia Douglas in conversation

Creative Writing

In autumn 2014 the University of Tübingen welcomed Unigwe and her fellow authors Taiye Selasi, Priya Basil, and Nii Ayikwei Parkes to the year’s Writers’ Lectureship, all of the authors representing what Selasi calls Afropolitan Literature. In 2014, Unigwe published Black Messiah, a novel about Olaudah Equiano. In 2016, Unigwe was appointed as the Bonderman Professor of Creative Writing at Brown University in Rhode Island.

In September 2016, Unigwe’s novel Night Dancer (published in 2012) was shortlisted for the NLNG Nigeria Prize for Literature; the winner was subsequently announced as Abubakar Adam Ibrahim.

Unigwe sits on the Board of Trustees of pan-African literary initiative Writivism, and set up the Awele Creative Trust in Nigeria to support young writers.

The post Chika Unigwe appeared first on Afrolifestyle.

Chika Okeke-Agulu was born in Umuahia in Nigeria in 1966. He studied at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (BA, First Class Honors, Sculpture and Art History, 1990; MFA, Painting, 1994), University of South Florida, Tampa (MA, Art History, 1999), and Emory University, Atlanta (PhD, Art History, 2004).

Okeke-Agulu taught at the Yaba College of Technology, Lagos, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Penn State University, and was the Clark Visiting Professor, Williams College. He is Associate Professor of Art History in the Department of Art and Archaeology and the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University

He is a writer and columnist for The Huffington Post, and blogs at Ọfọdunka. He is a member of the Board of Directors of College Arts Association, and Princeton in Africa. He received the College Art Association 2016 Frank Jewett Mather Award for Distinction in Art Criticism. He is the recipient, from African Studies Association, of the 2016 Melville J. Herskovits Award for the most important scholarly work in African Studies published in English in 2015, and Honorable Mention, The Arnold Rubin Outstanding Publication Award, from the Art Council of African Studies Association (2017).

“El Anatsui: Triumphant Scale” | curated by Chika Okeke Agulu

Curator Chika Okeke-Agulu and artist El Anatsui talk about the artist’s work and the exhibition “El Anatsui: Triumphant Scale” at Haus der Kunst in Berlin.(2019)

Curator

Curated Uche Okeke 60th Birthday Anniversary Retrospective at the Goethe-Institut, Lagos. In 1995, he organized the Nigerian section of the First Johannesburg Biennale and co-organized Seven Stories about Modern Art in Africa at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, and Malmö Konsthall, Malmö, Sweden. In 2001, he co-organized, with Okwui Enwezor, The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa, 1945–1994, at the Museum Villa Stuck, Munich, Haus der Kulturen der Welt/Martin Gropiusbau, Berlin, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and PS1/MOMA, New York. He served as an Academic Consultant and Coordinator of Platform 4, for Documenta11, Kassel in 2002. In 2004 he co-organized the 5th Gwangju Biennial and Strange Planet at the Georgia State University Art Gallery. He co-organized Life Objects: Rites of Passage in African Art for the Princeton University Art Museum in 2009, and (with Udo Kittelmann and Britta Schmitz), Who Knows Tomorrow, at the Nationalgalerie, Berlin, (June-Sept., 2010)

Publications

Okeke-Agulu has published articles and reviews in Parkett, African Arts, Glendora Review, Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism, South Atlantic Quarterly, Artforum International, and Art South Africa. He has contributed to edited volumes, including Reading the Contemporary: African Art from Theory to the Market Place; The Nsukka Artists and Nigerian Contemporary Art; The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movement in Africa, 1945–1994; Art Criticism and Africa; and Is Art History Global? His books include Obiora Udechukwu: Line, Image, Text (2016), Postcolonial Modernism: Art and Decolonization in Twentieth-Century Nigeria (2015), Contemporary African Art Since 1980 (2009), Who Knows Tomorrow (2010), Phyllis Galembo: Maske (2010), and Ezumeezu: Essays on Nigerian Art and Architecture, a Festschrift in Honour of Demas Nwoko (2012). He is editor of Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art, published by Duke University Press.

Exhibitions

As an artist Okeke-Agulu has had three solo exhibitions, five joint exhibitions, and twenty-eight group exhibitions in England, Germany, Nigeria, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Trindad and Tobago, and the United States.

He participated in the First Johannesburg Biennale (1995). His work is in the collections of the Newark Museum, Iwalewa-Haus, University of Bayreuth, and the National Council for Arts and Culture, Lagos.

The post Chika Okeke Agulu appeared first on Afrolifestyle.