Africa Screams

Life in West Africa without horror films is unimaginable. This does not so much concern films from Hollywood but movies that are produced locally and deal with local themes. The posters convey the diversity of the genre: people who have become evil through avarice, victims of witchcraft, Christianity as the deliverer from evil, and others. While horror and evil usually go hand in hand, this is traditionally not always the case. Often it is nothing but our European upbringing that makes us assume that evil is behind the ritual masks, which seem to us both frightening and grotesque. Some modern and contemporary works of art deal very consciously with horror, suffering and evil. They often reflect current circumstances as in Dominique Zinkpè’s installation “malgré tout”, where the sick patient, Africa, is seen on drips of post colonial help agencies. Evil also plays a big role here - for example in Cheri Cherin’s painting “Mystique Congolaise” which portrays the influences of the devil and of mystical rituals on Congolese politics. 

The exhibition features nearly 250 works from the 20th century, mainly from Western Africa (Ghana, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon) as well as from South Africa, creating a connection between the two African worlds which exist today in our minds: war, corruption and catastrophe on the one hand and music, art and culture on the other.

Not suitable for people younger than 16!