Art History Conference Versant Sud & Luis Belhaouari
Versant Sud is organizing a conference in partnership with IESA.
As a reminder, the event takes place on 05.19.2022 at 16:00 at the Alcazar library in Marseille with Luis Belhaouari.
Free event, reservation recommended: https://www.versantsud.org/discussions
Luis Belhaouari
A Doctor of art and archaeology, Luis Belhaouari is a lead professor at the Institut d’Études Supérieures des Arts – IESA – a training institution recognized by the Ministry of Culture and Communication. For many years, he has headed a department of art market studies, a subject to which he also devotes one of his courses.
A colorful character, he works with great finesse and humor to communicate his passion for Art to students from all artistic fields. Through snippets of classes and interviews, he thus reveals his vision of Art past and present, which he embodies and passes on from an original and offbeat perspective, far from the austere clichés the discipline might suggest…
The Rise of Contemporary African Art
Lecture by Luis Belhaouari
In 2015, a work by Julie Mehretu, an Ethiopian artist, sold for 3.5 million dollars at Christie’s… The history of the contemporary African art market is a particularly interesting field of research. The secrecy surrounding most transactions most often leads to hypotheses. Nevertheless, studying this booming market raises issues generally left in the shadow of art history: is the Western gaze legitimate in its claim to evaluate contemporary African art? Moreover, in this age of globalization, is there a specifically African contemporary art? Isn’t this label the result of a marketing effect? Where does the reputation of an artist from this continent come from? How is their market value built? What are the criteria for evaluating their work? What place do collectors, gallery owners, museums… occupy in this work of promotion?
In a word: how is art history written, and more particularly the history of contemporary African art? Through specific examples, the lecture sets out to address all these questions. And perhaps to glimpse a few elements of an answer to this complex history whose writing is not without ambiguity…