George Lilanga (1934 – 2005) was born in the Makonde area of Northern Mozambique. In the beginning of the 1970s he came to Dar es Salaam/Tanzania where her started his artist career at Nyumba ya Sanaa (House of Art) founded by the Maryknoll sister Jean Pruitt. In the following over 30 years he became one of the most important contemporary African artists. His works are established in the spirit world of the Makonde tribe and standing out due to an own, unmistakable style. Lilanga can be regarded as a universal artist. He is sculptor and painter. His work covers sculptures, paintings, drawings, etchings, batiks and metal work. By a number of expositions Lilangas works have become known to the art lovers and collectors in Europe, America and Asia.

In 1982 Lilanga created a row of exceptionally and culturally important artworks for the inner and outside area of the renewed Nyumba ya Sanaa. Unfortunately end of 2010 the House of Art was torn down and Tanzania lost one of its most world-known and important cultural institutions.

With the exhibition George Lilanga: Inside…Africa…Outside as a part of the Hamburg Art Week 2012 the Hamburg Mawingu Collection (HMC) wants to appreciate not only the African artist George Lilanga. The aim is also to remind of the art house Nyumba ya Sanaa in Dar es Salaam/Tanzania. The exhibition will show Lilanga masterpieces, special art works from the art house which the artist considered to his most important.

Date:
1. - 10. June 2012

Exhibition place:
Brücke - Ökumenisches Forum HafenCity
Shanghaiallee 12 (directly opposite the Automobiles Museum)
20457 Hamburg / Germany

The Hamburg Mawingu Collection is among the internationally leading collections of modern East-African Makonde woodcarving art. Beside numerous masterpieces of the known Makonde carver (for example Dastani, Karinto, Anangangola, Kashimiri, Chanuo and many others) the HMC: George Lilanga Collection represents an essential part. The Lilanga collection contains pieces from all work-periods of this internationally admired artist, for example paintings, drawings, etchings, metal-works, sculptures and other works. In the year 2005 the Hamburg Mawingu Collection submitted a systematically work directory directly after the death of George Lilanga. The HMC has its own research department and initiates and supports art-referential projects in Africa and world-wide.

Contact:
Hamburg Mawingu Collection (HMC)
Peter-Andreas Kamphausen
Seestraße 4, D-22607 Hamburg
Email: lilanga@makonde.de
Internet: www.lilanga.info

Hamburg Art Week 2012:
hamburgartweek.de/home/

This release was published on openPR.