The catalogue for The True Size of Africa, the exhibition running until 17 August 2025 at the UNESCO World Heritage Site Völklinger Hütte, is now available. Edited by Christiane Solte-Gresser and Markus Messling, directors of the Käte Hamburger Centre for Cultural Practices of Reparation (CURE), together with Ralf Beil, general director of the Völklinger Hütte, it is published by Hirmer Verlag (Munich).
This beautifully produced volume showcases artworks from the major international exhibition of contemporary art, featuring pieces from across Africa and the globe, including works by John Akomfrah, William Kentridge, Kaloki Nyamai, Emeka Ogboh, and the Kongo Astronauts. Some of the artworks were created specifically for the show in Völklingen, such as those by Berlin-based Namibian artist Memory Biwa, Congolese artist Géraldine Tobe, and Franco-Algerian artist Zineb Sedira, who lives in London and Paris. All three took part in artist residencies at the Käte Hamburger Centre CURE in Saarbrücken in preparation for the exhibition. The catalogue includes photographs of the wide-ranging works, which exemplify the depth and diversity of contemporary African and Afro-diasporic art.
The works and their installations across the vast terrain of the decommissioned pig iron plant are accompanied by the conceptual space of a “Museum of Memorability”, as well as by literary and philosophical touchstones including James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time (1963), Édouard Glissant’s Introduction to a Poetics of Diversity (1995), and Teju Cole’s Open City (2011). Julien Jeusette (Käte Hamburger Centre CURE) contributes an interview with Memory Biwa, in which the artist and historian traces connections between the iron ore industry at Völklingen and histories of land dispossession and apartheid in South Africa.
Distributed internationally by Chicago University Press, the catalogue also includes a series of critical essays exploring the perception and cultural significance of African art. Contributions include Souleymane Bachir Diagne (Columbia University) on colonial violence and the restitution of African artistic thought; Elara Bertho (Sciences Po Bordeaux) on the historical movement from Pan-Africanism to Afrofuturism; and Nadia Yala Kisukidi (New York University) on the remapping of the continent. Christiane Solte-Gresser and Markus Messling (Käte Hamburger Centre CURE) discuss ressentiment as a social issue and the role of creativity in reparations of the self, while Franck Hofmann (Saarland University) examines a shift in emphasis from restitution to questions of infrastructure.
THE TRUE SIZE OF AFRICA
Edited by Ralf Beil, Markus Messling and Christiane Solte-Gresser
Hirmer Premium
Hardcover with die-cut
512 pages, 325 illustrations
25.5 × 28 cm
ISBN: 978-3-7774-4474-1
https://www.hirmerverlag.de/de/titel-1-1/the_true_size_of_africa-2672
