PORTO.- You Love Me, You Love Me Not is a major exhibition devoted to works from the Sindika Dokolo collection. A renowned art collector, Congolese-born Sindika Dokolo owns one of the most important and largest existing African art collection. The show currently on view at Galeria Municipal Almeida Garrett in Porto, presents over 100 paintings, sculptures, photographs and video by 50 artists from Africa and the diaspora, including works from well-known visual practitioners, Marlene Dumas (South Africa), Ghada Amer (Egypt), Yinka Shonibare (Nigeria), Robin Rhode (South Africa), Seydou Keita (Mali), Kendell Geers (South Africa), Bili Bidjocka (Cameroon) to emerging artists such as Zoulikha Bouabdellah (Algeria), Mustafa Maluka (South Africa), Nastio Mosquito (Angola), Joël Andrianomearisoa (Madagascar), Edson Chagas and Marcia Kure (Nigeria).

The title, You Love Me, You Love Me Not is drawn from a work by Wangechi Mutu, a Kenyan artist well-known for her intricate collages in which she explores mundane and political themes in a manner that is simultaneously subtle and complex. The exhibition draws from this abstruse template by bringing together a group of artist’s conjuring a vivid sense of their personal histories within a social and unnerving political context. The exhibition also highlights a unique construct in demonstrating the act of collecting alongside a curatorial framework.

The works assembled for the exhibition articulate a story. characterized by representing realities, thereby engaging in a dialogue between compositional approaches and artistic production. In a series of seminal photographs Untitled (1953-54) by Seydou Keita, unique moments of a specific time in the history of Mali are captured. Adopting a variation of personas in a sequence of self-portraits: La Bourgeoise (1997), Le Chef (1997) and Emperor of Africa (2013), Cameroonian photographer Samuel Fosso is often commenting on the history of Africa through his own ocular aesthetics. With Yinka Shonibare’s The Diary of a Victorian Dandy (1998), the artist plays on Hogarth’s A Rake’s Progress through the lens of a modern costume drama. The figure of the dandy, which is played by Shonibare himself, reflects on his ‘outsider’ status as a black, disabled artist.

The exhibition underlines artists playing on the emphasis of eradicating traditional paths to art and advancing artistic ‘counter-proposals’. Prominently video and installation take centre stage with the works by Nastio Mosquito (Angola), Kiluanji Kia Henda (Angola), Loulou Cherinet (Ethiopia), William Kentridge (South Africa) among others. The latter’s piece Felix in Exile (1994) conspicuously uses animation to illustrate the brutalised society that apartheid left in its wake in South Africa while Ingrid Mwangi/Robert Hutter’s (Kenya and Germany) chilling installation and sound piece Waiting Room (2000) consists simply of fours chairs covered in a white sheet, conveying a sense of isolation and a seemingly austere rigour. The collection also features works by African American artists: Nick Cave is represented by a duo of Soundsuits, his wearable fabric sculptures and a trio of unparalleled miniature black and brown cut paper silhouette sculptures by Kara Walker depicting African American slaves are lucidly displayed in vitrines.

“My ambition is to constitute over the years the best possible contemporary collection in Africa. Not the most expensive one or the biggest one in volume, but the one that stimulates and enriches the best the African art scene,” says Dokolo. You Love Me, You Love Me Not elucidates the diversity, originality and indeed brilliance of Dokolo’s collecting. The collection reveals an illuminating intracontinental artistic discourse by artists from the continent, from Muslim cultures of the North to the countries south of the Sahara including the African diaspora. The show attests to Dokolo’s role not only as a collector but as a promoter of contemporary art in Africa and on the global landscape.

You Love Me, You Love Me Not is curated by Suzana Sousa and Bruno Leitão, is a collaboration between the Sindika Dokolo Foundation and the municipality of Porto, and will be on display until 17 May 2015 at the Municipal Gallery Almeida Garrett in Porto, Portugal.

Artists in the show include: Abdoulaye Konaté (Mali), Abrie Fourie (South Africa), Berni Searle (South Africa), Bili Bidjocka (Cameroon), Binelde Hyrcan (Angola), Brett Murray (South Africa), Cameron Platter (South Africa), David Goldblatt (South Africa), Délio Jasse (Angola), Edson Chagas (Angola), Ghada Amer (Egypt), Ihosvanny (Angola), Ingrid Mwangi/Robert Hutter (Kenya and Germany), Joël Andrianomearisoa (Madagascar), Kara Walker (USA), Kendell Geers (South Africa), Kiluanji Kia Henda (Angola), Kudzanai Chiurai (Zimbabwe), Loulou Cherinet (Ethiopia), Marcia Kure (NIgeria), Marlene Dumas (South Africa), Michele Mathison (South Africa), Minnette Vari (South Africa), Mohamed Ben Slama (Tunisia), Moshekwa Langa (South Africa), Mounir Fatmi (Morocco), Mustafa Maluka (South Africa), Nástio Mosquito (Angola), Ndilo Mutima (Angola) Nick Cave (USA), Oladélé Bamgboyé (Nigeria), Olu Oguibe (Nigeria), Paulo Kapela (Angola), Robin Rhode (South Africa), Ruth Sacks (South Africa), Samuel Fosso (Cameroon), Santu Mofokeng (South Africa), Seydou Keita (Mali), Sue Williamson (South Africa), Thameur Mejri (Tunisia), Tracey Rose (South Africa), Viteix (Angola), Wangechi Mutu (Kenya), Willem Boshoff (South Africa), William Kentridge (South Africa), Yinka Shonibare (Nigeria), Yonamine (Angola), Zoulikha Bouabdellah (Algeria), Zwelethu Mthethwa (South Africa).