ANTÓNIO OLE

During his walks, Angolan artist António Ole collects true fragments of memory: pieces of boats, shells, souvenirs from various sources, which are then poetically arranged into art work that retells the turbulent history of his country. The long civil war that devastated Angola for over 25 years, the dissolution of structures, the colonial legacy, but also reconstruction, hope, and life. Ole’s work, claims Angolan writer José Eduardo Agualusa, contains ”the memory of shipwrecks, the scent of the sea, masks and masquerades, the cry of seagulls, the sound of seawater against piers, the glory of twilights led astray, the last breath of afternoons amidst ruins”. The sea, a repository of significant part of the African continent’s history, evokes departure and arrival, dislocation and approximation. ”I believe that, when confronted with the art of António Ole, any Brazilian will feel transported into a past life, on the other side of the Atlantic, to an African memory that has been inherited, if not by blood, at least through culture”, says Agualusa.

Ole, a self taught artist, was born in 1951 in Luanda, Angola, where he lives and works. He started his career in painting, and then went on to explore different media, such as photography, sculpture, film, and installation. He graduated in the eighties from the American Film Institute, in the United States. Ole’s art work has been featured in Biennales at Havana, São Paulo, Johannesburg, and Venice. In 2004, he integrated the large ”Africa Remix” itinerant exhibition.

Canoa quebrada (Broken boat) | Luanda, 1994
(detail)




Hidden pages, stolen bodies | Lisbon-Grahamstown-Luanda, 2001