The Art Newspaper

Artists still await return of work from 2010 Dakar festival

Some pieces are returned but shipping company awaits payment from Senegalese government

By Georgina Adam. Web only
Published online: 23 April 2012

Johann van der Schijff discussing his Community Punching Bags, 2011

After more than a year’s delay, some of the works of art loaned by more than 100 artists to the third World Festival of Black Arts and Cultures (Fesman) have been returned to their owners. However, another group of art is still blocked in Senegal while the shippers await payment from the government (The Art Newspaper, December 2011, p1).

Fesman was held in Dakar in December 2010. Artists based in Europe and Senegal have received their material after the Paris-based shipper LPArt was finally paid by the Senegalese government early in 2012. The Londoner Sokari Douglas Camp confirmed to The Art Newspaper that she and other colleagues had received their work back. However, according to the Cape Town artist and lecturer Johann van der Schijff, his work and many other pieces by artists mainly from sub-Saharan Africa and South America, “are still stuck in Dakar”.

According to Van der Schijff, a Dakar-based shipping company, SDV Senegal, has still not been paid; at press time, the company had not responded to requests for comment. Last year Schijff launched an online petition at change.org asking for the return of all the art. He says: “With the 2012 Dakar Biennale coming up I think it is outrageous that this situation has still not been resolved.”