Thinking with African Guernica by Dumile Feni
Curatorial, historical, museological and psychoanalytic perspectives
Dumile Feni, Hector Pieterson, 1987, detalle
© Estate Dumile Feni and Dumile Feni Family Trust
Held on 25 Mar 2026
Curator Tamar Garb brings together a panel of specialists from different disciplines, ranging from Art and Social Anthropology to African Studies and the History of violence, on the occasion of the first edition of the series History Doesn’t Repeat Itself, but It Does Rhyme, starring African Guernica (1967) by Dumile Feni (Worcester, South Africa, 1942 – New York, 1991). The aim of this meeting is to collectively reflect on the points of convergence between the works of both Pablo Picasso and the South African artist.
African Guernica is the monumental drawing created by Dumile Feni in the 1960s. The piece is being shown for the first time outside South Africa, in dialogue with Picasso’s Guernica (1937). This provocative physical encounter invites us to consider both artworks as anti-war and anti-totalitarian manifestos, albeit relating to different places and moments.
For this panel, Siyabonga Njica presents the artistic and cultural context of 1960’s Johannesburg, contemporary to Dumile Feni’s work. Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela addresses the trauma of apartheid from both aesthetic and oneiric perspectives. Thozama April analyses the artist’s corpus in relation to archival practices and conservation. Finally, Elvira Dyangani Ose offers a reading of African Guernica through the lens of Pan-African modernity and the collapse of the centre-periphery duality.
These events, which form part of the core strands of the Public Programmes department, aim to provide deeper insight into and broaden public engagement with the Museo’s Collections and temporary exhibitions.
Organised by
Museo Reina Sofía
Collaboration
Participants
Thozama April
is the Chief Curator at the National Heritage and Cultural Studies Centre (NAHECS) at the University of Fort Hare and a specialist in the South African political activist Charlotte Maxeke.
Elvira Dyangani Ose
is the Director of the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA) and the artistic director of the second edition of the Abu Dhabi Public Art Biennial. Her research focuses on the relationship between global art practices and postcolonial and museum studies, with particular emphasis on modern and contemporary African art.
Tamar Garb
is Professor at University College London and a specialist in Contemporary African Art and South African Photography, among other fields. She is the curator of the exhibition History Doesn’t Repeat Itself, but It Does Rhyme. Dumile Feni: African Guernica.
Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela
is a Professor at Stellenbosch University and a specialist in violence, transgenerational trauma and transformation.
Siyabonga Njica
is a lecturer at the University of Cambridge and a researcher on the role of the African continent in twentieth-century global politics, from imperialism to decolonisation.
PROGRAMME
7.00pm Introduction
7.05pm Speakers’ presentations
7.45pm Discussion
8.05pm Questions and Answers
8.25pm Closing remarks
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