Curator, Smooth Nzewi: Présence Africaine thought of itself as a platform, as a catalyst, as an incubator of ideas.
I'm Smooth Nzewi, a curator in the Painting and Sculpture Department.
Présence Africaine was a journal that was established in 1947, shortly after the end of the Second World War. It was a moment in which people were trying to make sense of the world. But for those who started Présence Africaine, they were also trying to make sense of themselves as Black people in Europe. It was part of an attempt to reassert their sense of self that has been negated by colonialism and the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
Alioune Diop, who was a Senegalese intellectual, was the founder of Présence Africaine. But then he had a network of friends that were both Black and white. So they all came together to create Présence Africaine as a platform for African culture and to stress its importance. They would offer literary criticism, art criticism, poems, philosophical thoughts, and also artworks by both African artists but also artists who were influenced by African art.