-Exhibition: “RED CARD” by Khalifa Mané – hosted by Galerie Mémoires Africaines, Saly, Senegal
“I am a revolutionary artist. I am an artist who addresses current events - especially all that has caused such upheaval in Africa over the last years – which has been like a revolution. My work is my way to revolt.” - Khalifa Mané
I have not yet had the privilege of meeting the young Senegalese artist Khalifa Mané. But I am quite certain we would be good friends. Visiting Mané’s RED CARD exhibition at the Galerie Mémoires Africaines’ new Africa House gallery (Maison d’Afrique), a magnificent space, in Saly, Senegal, is profoundly inspiring.
Khalifa Mané was born in 1998 in the southern Casamance region of Senegal. While his early artistic formation was in the workshop of a well-known artist nearby, he enrolled at the School of Fine Arts in Dakar, the capital city. However, from the outset, he felt that the lack of freedom he was experiencing there would restrict the originality of his creativity. So, he left the school early on and decided to focus his attention on simply creating in his studio.
He reminds me of the early 20th century Lebanese artist Kahlil Gibran, whose art and writings, like his best-selling book The Prophet, are celebrated for both their originality and depth. Not long into his formal art studies at L’Académie Julian in Paris, France, Gibran began to feel confined and frustrated by the rules and constraints of a traditional art program.
Mané’s RED CARD exhibition is truly one to be experienced. I use the word “experienced” as opposed to “seen,” as his work has an inherent energic magnetism that pulls the viewer into his art. The exhibition’s title is taken from the meaning of a “red card” in football (soccer in North America), West Africa’s most popular sport. When a red card is shown to a player by a referee, it signifies a player's dismissal from the match. They are required to leave the field of play immediately. A red card represents the most severe penalty in the game.
Reflecting on the exhibition’s theme, Mané says, “Red card - is my way of calling for the removal of everything that is not good for Africa - everything that does not develop Africa, and everything that slows us down. . . It’s also a way of giving a ‘red card’ to African political leaders who lead the African continent very badly. While there are other causes, this is one of the main ones, and we must really fight against all these leaders who do not lead our continent well.”
This sheds light on why Mané refers to himself as a revolutionary artist. Describing his artistic intention, he says, “My work is my way to revolt, and to say no to everything that is negative happening here – similar to all the young people who go out into the streets to demonstrate.”
Again, he echoes Kahlil Gibran, who was also seen early on in his career as a revolutionary, as he spoke out against the injustices of the Ottoman occupation in his home country of Lebanon (termed Syria then). Gibran even called on his fellow countrymen to rise up to free themselves from that oppressive yoke. At that time he actually saw himself as a revolutionary and rebel, writing, “Life without rebellion is like the seasons without spring.”
RED CARD is an exhibition divided up into six series: From Innocence to Reality, The Arbiters of Destiny, Pain in the Atlantic, Revolt, Sovereignty, and Hope. And throughout it, Mané’s primary material base is none other than recycled paper - a gesture to his passion for preserving the environment.
As I wandered through the exhibition, contemplating Mané’s numerous works, allowing them to do their magic on me, it was clear that he truly embodies the best of revolutionary thinking. Mané is visibly sensitive to the needs around him. I sensed he has "feelers" out, or "antenna" up, and is able to discern Africa’s present-day social, political and environmental challenges. His work demonstrates insightful perception as to the current context, and the pain that is being felt as a result. He queries rhetorically, “Africa, a rich continent, the cradle of humanity - but what is it today?”
One of the tragedies of life is humanity’s strange insensitivity to others, often failing to perceive or understand what others are going through. Certainly, a contemporary danger toward this lack of sensitivity results from today’s media, where we see horrific things happening on our mobile phones all the time. It can blunt the edge of our sensitivity to
feel or care, and a numbness can set in.
Mané reminds us, that while seeing tremendous need and challenges, to remain tender and sensitive. All altruistic revolutionary thinking is based on compassion. And compassion is about perceiving needs. There are individual SOS distress signals going out all the time – at the governmental, societal and individual levels - saying "help." Those who are rooted in compassionate thinking can see right through the walls and screens that are often constructed to prevent needs from either being observed or addressed seriously.
This is nowhere more powerfully seen than in Mané’s “Pain in the Atlantic” series. Speaking about the Senegalese youth who drown in the ocean trying to get to Europe for what they believe might be a better life, Mané says; “In this series I imagine the pain that all these young people feel when they go on this adventure - where the person knows that may not come back. Also, what really upsets me, is thinking about that last moment, when that person knows they are really going to die, and when they cry for help, there is no one there to reach out toward, and so they cry out, until…it's something that upsets me a lot, in my head.”
I found Mané’s painting titled “The African Dream,” particularly powerful. One can spend hours reflecting on all that he is attempting to communicate through it. About the painting Mané explains, “I am talking here about the popular dream of the majority of the young Africans - the dream of going to Europe. It is the dream that the majority of the African youth are ready to do anything for - the dream of finding this famous El Dorado. But it's this dream that costs them their lives. This dream to me is just an illusion, because I'm one of those young people who believe that we can stay in Africa and succeed here.” I was particularly struck by the figure in the painting that seems to be on a cross of some sort. It reminded me of Marc Chagall’s use of crucifixion depictions in his work to represent the suffering of humanity.
The African Dream, Mixed media on canvas – Diptych, 200 cm x 135 cm
Mané’s installation in RED CARD will also grip your heart. Through it he is illustrating those young people who take the way of the Sahara Desert, as opposed to going by sea, to try and emigrate to Europe. “It's an installation that shows the tragic pain that we can also find in the desert today,” he says. “I would say it's an African pain, because if we look at what is happening in the desert it's catastrophic, it’s deplorable. You see people, like dead fish throughout it.”
Mané exemplifies sensitive and imaginative insight, which sees into the plight of his fellow youth. And he demonstrates a sensitivity to the many “SOS” signals among them today, who so often find themselves without hope. In addressing these difficult topics, there is a genuine tenderness in the works themselves, visibly embodying the spirit and heart of their creator. Mané is someone naturally moved with compassion. The artist’s tears are real tears, the feelings real feelings. His very being has gone into these creations, where his empathy is made manifest.
Mané also reflects the best of revolutionary thinking in that he not only focuses in on the reality in his country today, but he depicts that reality in a new light. This is what true vision entails. It begins with a dissatisfaction over the status quo and it grows into an earnest quest for a better alternative. It is a deep discontent with what is and a clear belief and understanding of what should and could be. That is why artistic revolutionaries, like Mané, are so often hostile to “conventional wisdom.” Instead, they see the world ahead in terms of what it can be if someone is willing to look at things differently.
Mané’s art reframes the way we describe our reality. In RED CARD, using photographic language, he turns the “negatives into positives.” In doing so, he rightly embodies revolutionary vision, as it can never healthfully exist from a predominately negative position. His work reminds me of that old adage of two prisoners in a small cell looking out the same tiny window. One sees bars and one sees stars. And one sees bars, those metallic reminders of reality. One sees stars - a new future envisioned as it was meant to be.
Click Image Above for Slideshow
Mané is essentially leading us into the future, offering a forward-thinking vision that is full of hope. While he visually draws our attention to the suffering of so many African youth today who feel they have no future in their own countries, he also spends much of the exhibition on focusing us on children and youth through portraits full of joy and innocence. About these portraits Mané says,
“These are portraits of young people, young girls and young boys. This is to me the hope of Africa. It is the new generation that has energy. I am often told that my paintings are very energizing, full of strength. I respond by saying that this is part of the makeup of the new generation. It is not a physical strength when we talk about strength, but it is a mental strength. Today we have a new mentality – we are awakened people, and very well aware of all the political and societal games being played on the African continent. These awakened youth, of which I am one, will be the saviors of Africa. I have a strong hope for this new generation.”
Both the hardship and hope of youth depicted throughout the exhibition are in effect two sides of the same coin. And I love how Mané juxtaposes the older generation of African political leadership, to whom he says, “I give a ‘red card’ for the suffering they have caused,” with the innocence of children in his portraiture. About his series of paintings of children, Mané remarks, “In this series, which I titled ‘From Innocence to Reality,’ I speak of young children who are innocent and who know nothing at all, but who will come to confront all these things that are happening everywhere in the world. They are truly the hope of Africa.”
Mané’s RED CARD is a visual call to embrace a revolutionary vision, which he shows us is essentially, and quite simply, about changing the lives of people. He challenges us to be people who are able to truly see the reality of our current landscape, and who dream dreams of an alternative more honoring to our Creator, the Divine Artist, and then who determine to do something about it.
I recall the words of that High Renaissance 15-16th century Italian painter Raphael, a visionary himself: "I simply dream dreams and see visions, and then I paint around the dreams and visions." This is what Mané does for us.
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-Watch a short video about the RED CARD exhibition with Khalifa Mané (in French): https://youtu.be/MTOzJTJ4xyo