Our first drop from New York’s @engineered_garments_official has arrived and is available in-store and online. For this season Daiki Suzuki was inspired by the flamboyant style of Senegalese artist Issa Samb. Think vibrant and colourful patterns, on linen and lightweight fabrics. All cut and sewn in the Garment district of New York. #engineeredgarments #daikisuzuki #issasamb #menswear #mensstyle #surryhillsboutique #sydneystyle #bigtroublestore (at Big Trouble Store) https://www.instagram.com/p/Coti_nHPd3F/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

(Vid source: @amysall) Issa Samb (Artistic Alias #JoeOuakam) the Senegalese Multidisciplinary Artist, Writer, collaborator of #djibrildiopmambety and Sculptor has passed away. In 1974 along with other Artists, Ouakam co-founded the experimental arts collective Laboratoire AGIT-art together they created art that went against the societal and cultural policy of President Léopald Sédar Senghor's Administration. The tone of his work was deliberately and distinctly African opposing the strict formalism of the 'Ecole de Dakar'. Joe Ouakam rarely participated in exhibitions, making is work even more precious instead he would exhibit his work at his home under the name 'Issa's Garden'. Sleep well mr Ouakam. #blackart #africanart #IssaSamb #africanartist

We loose a king ♔ Joe Ouakam, #IssaSamb Onenof the greatest artist 💞 May he Rest In Peace 🙏 (at Dakar, Senegal)

A painting of late Issa Samb, great artist! Painting by Artist Nathaniel Richman @enwenede.richman #360artlife #issasamb #painter #painting #africanpainting #art #artist #africa #paint #greatartist #contemporaryart #weloveafrica #colour #africanartist #africanart #lnstagram #like #comment #share #follow #portrait #portraiture # https://www.instagram.com/p/BlrSMcen3gl/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1k41pb338ajq1

#Repost @duroolowu with @repostapp ・・・ I first met the revered Senegalese painter, sculptor and conceptual artist Issa Samb (8th September 1945 - 25 April 2017) in 2014. He was in London from Dakar, where he is based, with my friend the curator Koyo Kuoh to install his fantastic first solo UK solo exhibition. "Issa Samb: From the Ethics of Acting to the Empire without Signs" at INIVA (Institute of International Visual Arts) , curated by Kuoh @rawgram2011 . They stopped by my Masons Yard boutique inbetween installing and I was immediately struck by the beauty and luminous artistic integrity of this wonderful man. Smart, witty, funny and supremely elegant, Issa was a joy to behold. A man of few, carefully chosen words and a warm heart. He was taken with a collage patchwork cape of mine from a previous collection that I brought out from the stock room to show them. He himself had arrived wearing a beautiful floor length patchwork coat of his own design and made in Dakar. He loved and understood clothes in a way that moved and overwhelmed me. And as Koyo and I chatted he quietly slipped into the cape and stared at himself. Suddenly we were faced with this startling and amazing vision of majesty and grace that stood before us. He had made the cape his own and indeed, as he slowly paced back and forth, a part of his ongoing and fascinating conversation with objects, materials and nature that have become so recognisable in his magical work. I asked if I could photograph him in it and he agreed, standing still with a wistful gaze (pictured) Two years later, while on a visit to Dakar with artist Glenn Ligon @glennligon and a friend, Issa invited us to stop by his incredible "enchanted forest" of a studio, atelier and home in downtown Dakar. I shall never forget that visit or this special, amazing man and artist whose pure and inspiring work lives on. Thank you Koyo @rawgram2011 for bringing him into my world and being such a caring friend and constant collaborator of his. Adieu Issa. Rest in Peace. #RIP #issasamb #JoeOuakam #artist #dakar #senegal

Rip #issasamb

Repost: ✨RIP 🙏🏿 #IssaSamb born in Dakar, Sept. 08, 1945 - among the stars April 25, 2017. Foundly remembered as one of the founding members of Laboratoire Agit’Art. 📡@yesladypheOnix 🎨 @underdogthedj #JoeOuakam #TheYesUniverse : @yesladypheonix http://ift.tt/2qc91Yi

Issa Samb - Senegalese painter, poet, playwright, sculptor, and performance artist

Just don’t lean against the walls

I’m on a bus parked in front of the Musée Théodore Monod, Place Soweto, better known as the Muséé de l’Institut Français de l’Afrique Noire (IFAN). Thanks to a wireless connection I can blog from anywhere, which I would be doing more often if images didn’t take so long to load. I’m working on it. In the meantime, you’ll find my photos on my Facebook page.

The opening ceremony got under way a bit late this morning. Here, punctuality would be surprising. Disconcerting, even. Things move “sénégalaisement”—that is, at the pace of a long and thorough greeting. Buul yakamti. Ne te presse pas. No need to rush. The beauty of each event reveals itself in the interstice between here and there, between now and then, between mine and yours. I learned long ago that it’s only in suppressing my impulse to impose an order on my days here that I find myself in precisely the right place at the right time.

While loitering in the courtyard of the IFAN museum, for example, drinking in the green of the rare grass and the refined date trees in this quiet corner of the city, I had the chance to say hello to Joe Ouakam, the undisputed guru of Senegal’s art scene.

Joe, the founder of Agit-Art was born Issa Samb in December of 1945. It was the year that many tirailleurs sénégalais having fought to liberate France came home to the unbearable hypocrisy of a colonized Senegal, where asking for the recompense that had been promised them—a meager veterans’ pension—could get them massacred by their “mother” country. Earlier that same year, eleven months before Issa/Joe came into this world, my favorite filmmaker of all time, Djibril Diop Mambety, had arrived, and the two extraordinary friends would later work alongside other artists and writers to agitate the cultural scene as early as 1970 through provocative works and collective actions that radically broke with Léopold Sédar Senghor’s Negritude, the reigning cultural imperative of the time.

I think I’ve always been a bit in love with Joe, and have secretly always wanted to be loved back. Today when he put his arm around me to pose for a picture, I held him like a father and thanked him deeply in my heart for the warm embrace.

It was while the guest curators were introducing the concept behind each of their shows, addressing the spectators from the balcony of the annex gallery, that Joe arrived on the scene from behind the crowd and announced his presence with a loud call-and-response sort of greeting, signaling the true launch of the event with his authoritative disruption. I couldn’t hear a word of what the curators had been saying, but Joe’s words, carried by the strong Atlantic breeze, found their way straight to my gut. Voilà, I thought. Le grand est là. On entre du coup dans le vrai.

On the ground floor of the gallery, guest curator Sumesh Sharma (India) had asked his artists to tape and paste their works directly to the walls. No frames, no fuss. No little foamboard card indicating the artist’s name and the title of each piece, as we are accustomed to finding in any exhibition. As to who did what, your guess is pretty much as good as mine.

Follow this link to see the images.

The dividing walls that the carpenters had finished just hours before the official opening were painted in the sublime sky blue referenced in the Biennale’s theme: La Cité dans le jour bleu, a reference to Senghor’s 1940 poem “Au Guélowâr,” which he wrote while detained in a German prison camp during the war.  Rounding a corner, I made the happy mistake of touching one of these walls and came away from the encounter with sticky blue fingertips.

C’est parfait, I thought. J’y ai laissé mes empreintes. I will have left a trace after all.

@therealswizzz ||• Peace )) to remove artist credit from @underdogthedj as the artist for the artwork posted on your page was a mistake. This artwork done by #Underdogthedj was done in honor of artist #issasamb. The original photo was taken by Christa Holka before the artistic rendering by Underdogthedj. This photo of Issa Samb was taken in 2014 at #Iniva in London for Samb's first UK solo Exhibition at Rivington Place. ™ The triangle at the top of the artwork is Underdog's Mark. All Rights Reserved ;) ARTIST CREDIT: @underdogthedj 💙💙💙💨 #TIDALforALL

BLACK HISTORY MONTH ARTIST PROFILE: ISSA SAMB

In 1974 he founded, together with a group of artists, writers, film-makers, performance artists and musicians, the Laboratoire Agit’Art, whose aim was to transform the nature of artistic practice from a formalist, object-bound sensibility to practices based on experimentation and agitation, process rather than product, ephemerality rather than permanence. With a focus on the contingent character of actions, the Laboratoire was informed by a critique of institutional power. Samb also co-founded the Gallery TENQ – Village des Arts in Dakar. He is the author of numerous plays, poems and essays. A retrospective of his work was held at the National Art Gallery, Dakar in 2010. His work has been included in exhibitions such as dOCUMENTA (13), Kassel, Germany (2012), the Biennale de l’Art Africain Contemporain, Dak’Art, Dakar (2008) and ‘Seven Stories of Modern Art in Africa’, Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK (1995).

Comment: cwhite_design said "Marche! Issa Samb @iniva ! Check it out! Great collection by a Senagslese artist. Until 26 July #art #senegal #issasamb"