The Short Century

Okwui Enwezor
Biographical data (2001)

1963
Born in Kalaba, Nigeria, a small city on the border to Cameroon. Raised in Enugu, in eastern Nigeria.

1983
Moved to New York. Began studying political science at Jersey City State College

2011
From October 2011 on, Director of Haus der Kunst in Munich, Germany. More about...

See also:
Okwui Enwezor - UiU Index of curators

Projects / Curatorial Activities (selection)

1998 - 2002
Artistic Director of Documenta 11 in Kassel, Germany

 Adjunct Curator of Contemporary Art at the Art Institute of Chicago

2000
David Goldblatt, South African Photographer, Equitable Gallery, New York. Curator

1999
Mirror's Edge, BildMuseet in Umeå, Sweden, November 21, 1999 - February 20, 2000. Also in Vancouver, Turin, Glasgow, Kopenhagen. Curator

1999
Global Conceptualism: Points of Origin, 1950s-1980s, Queens Museum of Art, New York, April 28 - August 29, 1999. Walker Art Center, December 19, 1999 - March 5, 2000. Co-Curator for Africa.

1998
Cinco Continentes y una Ciudad (Five Continents and a City), international painting-exhibition in Mexico-City, November 26, 1998 - February 28, 1999. Curator of the African selection.

1997
2nd Johannesburg Biennale , South Africa, October 12, 1997 - January 18, 1998. Artistic Director.
(see the interview with Universes in Universe)

1996
In/sight: African Photographers, 1940 - Present, Guggenheim Museum, New York, May - September 1996. Co-Curator and Editor of the publication.

Further exhibitions:
Modern Life, Aljira Centre for Contemporary Art in conjunction with the Newark Museum.
New Visions: Six Contemporary African Artists, Zora Neale Hurston National Art Museum, Eatonville, Florida.

Publications (selection)

Enwezor has written extensively on contemporary African art and artists, as well as on American and international art.
 
Founding Publisher and Coeditor of Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art, a critical art journal co-published with the Africana Studies Centre at Cornell University, New York, founded in 1994.

Correspondent for Flash Art und aRude; consulting editor for Atlantica; writes regularly for Frieze, International Review of African-American Art, Third Text, Index on Censorship, Glendora Review, Africa World Review, African Profiles International, SIKSI.

Reading the Contemporary: African Art from Theory to the Marketplace.
Edited by Olu Oguibe and Okwui Enwezor. Institute for International Visual Arts: INIVA, London, and MIT Press, 1999.

Lectures

Okwui Enwezor has lectured extensively in Museums and Universities in the US, Mexico, Europe, and Africa, for example at "100 days - 100 guests", during documenta X (Kassel), Ecole des Beaux Arts Superieur (Paris), Royal College of Art (London), Moderna Museet (Stockholm), Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin), National Arts Academy (Oslo), Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (Annandale on Hudson, New York), New York University (New York) and Temple University (Philadelphia).

Further professional activities

Member of numerous juries and committees, among others:

1999
International Advisory Committee of Carnegie International

1998
Jury for the Hugo Boss Prize at the Guggenheim Museum, New York

Enwezor is the recipient of the 1998 Peter Norton Family Foundation Curator's Grant.

Biography compiled by Universes in Universe, according to information on the website of the Documenta 11 and other sources.
© Photo: Haupt & Binder

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