"The exhibition Bad for your Health/Wrong Colour expresses what I was incapable of expressing in other mediums. Ideas I could only express through the platform provided by a virtual interface. The work needs your interaction to come alive... Participate and Observe", thus says Mustafa Maluka (South Africa, 1976) whose exhibition meant the start of the unique Virtual Museum of Contemporary African Art. This dynamic, renewing museum - initiated by the Africaserver Foundation - offers an online podium for African artists to present themselves to a worldwide public.
Maluka’s exhibition consists of a series of interactive, animated self-portraits. In his digital work of art the South-African artist makes optimal use of the medium Internet. With his remark Maluka perfectly outlines the character of the museum. Through the works exposed on this website artists experiment with new, contemporary forms. They want to break through stereotypes and provoke discussions. Africa is still in many ways an isolated continent. Especially the Internet provides African artists with the opportunity to communicate with a wide audience and fellow artists elsewhere.
The Virtual Museum of Contemporary African Art is an initiative by the Dutch Africaserver Foundation. A series of 11 earlier virtual exhibitions on the own website has led to he building of this museum, which consists of three divisions. First of all there is ‘Presentations/Virtual Projects’, where the Web art is being exhibited. Then there’s ‘Documentation’ (a spacious documentation-division) and lastly there’s ‘Review’, a profound online magazine. Eventually it will be possible for the visitor to create an exhibition of multiple works of art belonging to different artists to their own taste.
While designing the museum the last two years, it has been kept in mind that the site mustn’t be too heavy to be able to run on older computers. Besides that, the use of XML makes a very refined search function possible. Go see for yourself on www.vmcaa.nl!
About Africaserver Foundation (www.africaserver.nl)
Africaserver Foundation has a long history of collaboration with contemporary African artists. Thus the organisation already functions as an intermediary between (art) institutions and artists. Africaserver.nl is a virtual gateway to Africa with ample attention to the power and dynamics of the continent.
For more information: contact the curators of the Virtual Museum or the director, Fons Geerlings, tel. +31 20 5318499, fax. +31 20 5318498 or info@vmcaa.nl
