Artists turn the country into an exhibition zone                                                                                      

Ivy Achieng with a painting instructor at National Museums of Kenya. PHOTO | ANTHONY OMUYA 

By MARGARETTA WA GACHERU

Posted  Tuesday, December 23  2014 at  16:08

In Summary

• There were consistent exhibitions underway all year long at local galleries, like One Off, Banana Hill, Red Hill and the ‘new’ Nairobi Gallery where the Murumbi collection showed off everything from rare stamps, jewellery, costumes, crafts to out-of-print books from all over Africa.

Kenyan artists were incredibly inventive in 2014, turning the Capital city and other parts of the country into venues where the visual arts could be seen, not just by patrons and private investors but by the public at large.

Share This Story

There were consistent exhibitions underway all year long at local galleries, like One Off, Banana Hill, Red Hill and the ‘new’ Nairobi Gallery where the Murumbi collection showed off everything from rare stamps, jewellery, costumes, crafts to out-of-print books from all over Africa.

The Nairobi Gallery operates under the auspices of the National Museums of Kenya, where the Creativity Gallery mounted exhibitions of art by mainly young Kenyan artists throughout the year.

One major exception to the youth rule was Creativity’s giving free reign to veteran Kenyan artist Yony Waite (co-founder of Gallery Watatu with the late Robin Anderson and David Hart), whose exquisite exhibition entitled Into the Trees is still up for all to see.

The Nairobi Museum also hosted two important expositions in 2014 by the Kenya Museum Society (KMS). One was of the amazingly diverse drawings and paintings by the late Joy Adamson. The other was the annual KMS Affordable Art exhibition featuring artwork by Kenyans that had to be sold for less than Sh100,000.

Meanwhile, exhibitions were also held at art centres like Kuona Trust, Paa ya Paa, GoDown and the Kenya Cultural Centre – which finally opened up an exhibition hall in the last year.

Foreign cultural centres like the Alliance Francaise, Goethe Institute, Italian Institute of Culture and the Heinrich Boell Foundation were also sites where paintings, posters, photography and sculptures were regularly on display. Heinrich Boell is especially notable as it served as the launching pad both in 2013 and this past year for the new Kenya Arts Diary, the annual calendar cum visual arts catalogue of works by both upcoming and veteran Kenyan artists.

Major shopping malls like the Village Market and Sarit Centre also became spaces to peruse amazing art exhibitions. Sarit deserves a special mention since it hosted the first ever Nairobi Art Fair that was organised by Kuona Trust with support from Textbook Centre.

Restaurants like Talisman, Que Pasa, Carnivore and Lord Errol also have become sought-after sites by artists keen for their works to be seen by the upmarket clientele that eat out at such luxurious settings.

And despite Le Rustique having moved up to Nanyuki from Nairobi where it was always filled with fresh, new Kenyan art, the restaurant continues attracting artists who want their works seen by potential art patrons.

In the same vein, high class hotels and private clubs like the Villa Rosa Kempinski in Nairobi, Diani Beach at the Coast and the Capital Club in Westlands had beautiful exhibitions this past year. The Kempinski’s most notable one was the East African Art Auction organised by Circle Art Agency in November.

In addition to all the above, visual art both by Kenyans and other East Africans could be seen in exceptional locations throughout the year. For instance, Kuona Trust held an artists’ residency and exhibition early last year at the Tafaria Castle near Nyahururu.

Both the Sondeka Festival and the Nairobi Craft Fair took over the Nairobi Race Course to display not just art, but also jewellery, crafts, hand-made furnishings and even original Kenyan fashion.

Several foreign embassies opened up the residences of their high commissions and ambassadors to mount exhibitions featuring mainly artworks by Kenyans. That was true of the Russians, Americans, British, Belgians and Mexicans, all of whose senior state representatives warmly welcomed local artists and friends into their homes.

There were exhibitions in people’s private gardens, backyards and private homes as art patrons hosted exclusive dinners so their friends could meet and eat with local artists. Occasionally, whole houses were reserved so that artworks could be shown.