A Harlem institution reimagines how Americans interact with the African continent

A recent panel on Africa’s foreign debt may seem strangely befitting an art institution with a permanent collection that has a ceremonial Baule mask from Ivory Coast and a 2003 mixed media piece by acclaimed artist Wangechi Mutu.

But it was part of conscious programming by The Africa Centera New York institution that has emerged after decades of twists and turns in both location and mission with new leadership and a new optimism that it can find an audience for dynamic and richly varied events aimed at increasing people’s understanding of Africa .

“We want to convince you that these things affect our daily lives and deserve our attention,” said Tunde Olatunji, associate director of policy for The Africa Center, when he moderated the debt panel with researchers from Nigeria and Kenya earlier this year. .

Far from a stuffy museum, the space envisioned by Uzodinma Iweala, its chief executive officer since 2018, is a landing place for the African diaspora, an exploration of Blackness, and a place to explore the way Americans interact with the African continent. change.

Located on an East Harlem street corner overlooking Central Park, the center has welcomed billionaires Bill Gates and Mo Ibrahim who talk about the future of African business, as well as actress Lupita Nyong’o who reads from her children’s book on colorism. Hank Willis Thomas Afro choice installation was located on the square. The center has hosted African presidents and prize-winning authors — and a sweaty crowd invading a dance.

“There are places where your behavior has to be valuable,” Iweala said of his vision. “Then there are the places that are about community — the way we interact, the way we build that community, the way we eat, drink, talk in that space.”

It has taken The Africa Center a long time to get to that point and Iweala recognizes that it is still a long way from reaching its potential. The center, with an annual budget of $4 million, occupies only about 20 percent of about 70,000 square feet of the space allotted for it in the Robert AM Stern-designed 17-story tower of luxury apartments.

According to the plans, the rest is to be filled with an auditorium, café, administrative offices, an event venue, artists’ studios and galleries, a performance space and a learning lab for science and math.

But that would require significant new fundraising and an increase in headcount, which now stands at 11 full-time positions and four part-time positions.

Members of the council, which along with Nyong’o includes Chelsea Clinton and board chairman Halima Dangote, the daughter of a Nigerian cement magnate, are considering pursuing a new fundraising campaign and other public appeals to account for the soaring post-pandemic construction and other costs that increased by more than 30 percent. In 2019, the capital campaign goal had been a hopeful $50 million to complete construction in the fall of 2021. Officials declined to offer a target figure for a new campaign, saying only that it would be announced later this year.

“There’s pressure on our part to get the rest built,” Iweala said. “These are the things I need to work on.”

As it stands, the center has received $4 million in city money. But over the years, more than $32 million in government money and tax credits has gone to the project, largely as the center had a completely different purpose and even a different name: the Museum of African Art.

The institution was first seen as strictly cultural when it opened in 1984 in two mansions on Manhattan’s Upper East Side and later in a building in the Soho neighborhood. It was small but received praise for its traveling shows.

In 1997, Elsie McCabe Thompson became president with visions of a sprawling and elaborate building on Fifth Avenue, at the top of the city’s so-called Museum Mile. The institution raised more than $100 million and moved into temporary headquarters in Queens in 2002 while construction began.

But some pledges for money fell through. Construction encountered problems. The financial crisis hit, fundraising stalled, designs were cut back, new leaders cycled through And plans for an opening were delayed half a dozen times.

Eventually a new board took over ideas for a new mandate that would explore African art, economic and policy issues.

Thelma Golden, Director and Chief Curator of The Studio Museum in Haarlemsaid the center’s complicated history is an important part of its identity.

“In many ways, this institution tells the story of what it takes to create an institution,” Golden said. “It involves complex relationships to create a story of how an institution can and will reflect the contributions of many people in order to flourish.”

Iweala arrived five years ago with a background that is not in the arts – he is, among other things, an accomplished author and physician. But because he has a foot in both America and Nigeria, he embodies an attitude that wants to mix both worlds, Golden said.

“Uzo is a visionary and I believe he’s charting a true 21st century path, and I think it’s going to create a model for the future,” she said.

Born in Washington DC to Nigerian parents, Iweala bounced between Nigeria and the US with a solid foundation in both countries. He went to Harvard and trained as a doctor at Columbia University. He co-founded a Nigeria-based magazine called Ventures Africa, received awards for his novel, “Beasts of no nation‘, and wrote two other books. He founded an organization in Nigeria that promotes private investment in health services.

The Africa Center, he said, “feels like it’s an essential part of my identity.”

As the new CEO, Iweala’s first mission was to get people into the building. He started opening terangaattract regular customers view art on the walls of the restaurant that serves West African dishes with a menu designed by Senegalese chef Pierre Thiam.

“One of the best ways to get people together is to show who you are. And food is culture, food is policy, food is economics,” Iweala said.

The center was eventually set to host public programming. Workers prepared the debut exhibit “African/American: Making the Nation’s Table,” a collaboration with the Museum of Food and Drink honoring the contributions of black chefs and food and beverage manufacturers.

But then Covid-19 started to spread and the exhibition was postponed.

The center was hampered by the pandemic but managed to gain a foothold. The square in front of the building became a place for music and dance. And as the nation reeled from the police killing of George Floyd, the center was revealed a 45 meter high screen of white lettering spelling “Black Lives Matter” affixed to the exterior of windows on the first three floors.

The display was controversial, a city official said.

“I knew people were going to have a seizure, and they did, and he just did it anyway,” New York City Council member Gale Brewer said of Iweala. “I think he’s a superstar.”

Once the spread of Covid slowed, the Center picked up where it left off, with the opening of the “African/American” exhibit and a mix of virtual and in-person policy programming.

An exhibition earlier this year called “States of Becoming” featured work by 17 contemporary artists of African descent who have lived and worked in the United States. The idea was designed by the independent curator Fitsum Shebeshe, who moved from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to Baltimore. Many of the works focused on themes of assimilation and clashing cultures.

“They understood what we were trying to do,” Shebeshe said, speaking of the Africa Center’s leadership. “I see this center as a space that creates community.”

Iweala aims to better integrate the space into its surroundings – no easy feat for an institution that sits at the intersection of Black Harlem, Spanish Harlem, Little Senegal and the posh Upper East Side, not to mention its positioning along Museum Mile.

“It’s both an invitation and a challenge,” Iweala said.

The center collaborates on projects with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which has received loans from the center’s small permanent collection along with other institutions. (The Mutu piece is on loan to the New Museum retrospective of her work.)

For now, between exhibitions, The Africa Center and its restaurant are only open on weekends and for scheduled events, an indication that the audience still has plenty of room to grow. Preparations are being made for Africa Day, May 25.

“Success isn’t necessarily measured just by whether we’ve had a blockbuster from a super-famous artist,” Iweala said. “But are you reorienting people in their understanding of what it means to be from this continent? And also what is the importance of the African continent and its people in shaping both the history of the world and how the world is changing?