The 15th biennial of contemporary African art was due to open on May 16 in Dakar. Its postponement, due to a lack of funding, is a hard blow for the organizers and regulars of this world-renowned artistic event.
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With our correspondent in Dakar, Léa-Lisa Westerhoff
The press release, signed by the Minister of Youth, Sports and Culture, Khady Diene Gaye, speaks of “ constraints “. Without further details. It is also a question of the desire of the new authorities to organize the biennial under conditions “ optimal “, up to “ its reputation as a historic meeting place for art lovers from around the world “. The new meeting is therefore set from November 7 to December 7. A hard blow for this event which since its creation in 1992 has only been postponed once due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
According to several sources, budgetary difficulties are at the origin of this postponement. The event, and this is its specificity, is almost exclusively financed by public funds, the budget of the Ministry of Culture. However, the last two payments planned for this event were not honored by the previous administration. Of the budget of 1.5 million FCFA, only a third would be available. “The money was used for something else,” a member of the organizing committee told RFI. However, without these funds, which the organizers had been waiting for for weeks, it was impossible to move forward with the preparations and in particular to finance the transport of the works to Dakar or to publish the catalog.
With 21 days to go before the biennial, we had to face the facts and postpone it, assures a member of the organizing committee. The fact remains that many Dakar art galleries have planned to maintain the programming of the off festival, financed by private funds. They intend to communicate in the coming days about maintaining their artistic programming.