ABOVE: details from portraits of Angolan refugees by South African photographer Guy Tillim. Mr Tillim’s work is part of “Africa Remix,” a show on at the Pompidou Centre right now about the emerging contemporary art scene in Africa.

Hey, how ’bout that Live 8? It turned out to be pretty much the square root of dick-all as far as helping Africa was concerned. And now, mere weeks after the 23 hours of terrible music and sanctimonious rock-star ass-kissing that made up the Live 8 experience, the whole thing has vanished off the cultural and political radar as quickly as it came, leaving the wheezing masses of Africa, once again, to their own wretched devices. It’s the same old song. The Christian Science Monitor, however, has found a wee glint of a silver lining, in an article in today’s issue reviewing Africa Remix: L’art contemporain d’un continent (”Contemporary Art of the Continent” for you francophobics), which is showing right now at the Centre Pompidou (”Pompidou Centre”) in Paris (”Paris”).

No tribal masks or mahogany giraffe candleholders here. Naturally, the market for contemporary art is—to put it charitably—underdeveloped in Africa; most of the artists in the show do the bulk of their business in Europe, although they continue to draw inspiration from their native lands. Their work includes all the mod cons, including video, installation, photography, and so on. There’s not much good news from Africa these days, but don’t worry: there’s no shortage of carved tribal masks.

LINK: The Christian Science Monitor > Eye on African Art

[Editor’s note: This is our 100th post—how time flies. To celebrate, have a beer on us*.]
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