Visual arts of Sudan
After independence in 1956, Sudanese graduates of the colonial education system took over leading positions in the new state and thus contributed to the emergence of urban culture and modern art.
[note 2] During the Sudanese Revolution of 2018 and 2019, young artists contributed to the protests and morale of the popular movement, creating wall paintings, graffiti, cartoons, photographs or video messages.
[5] In Sudan's western region, the Jebel Mokram Group, characterized by its pottery and small clay figures of animals, was a prehistoric, neolithic culture that flourished in the second millennium BCE.
[11][1] Among other resources, the material culture of ancient Nubia used gold, ivory, ebony, incense, hides or precious stones, and necklaces or bracelets have been found in tombs of royal families.
"[15][note 3] Another example of cultural influence from Nubia during Ptolemaic rule in Egypt is a marble head of a Nubian young man, probably made in the Eastern Mediterranean Region, and now exhibited in the Brooklyn Museum in the US.
[16] In medieval Nubia (c. 500–1500 CE), the inhabitants of the Christian kingdoms Makuria, Nobadia, and Alodia produced distinct forms of architecture, like the Faras Cathedral, sculptures, and wall paintings, of which more than 650 have been published in modern scholarly texts.
Other cultural developments were reported by foreign visitors such as Frédéric Cailliaud[22] and relate to the architecture of towns and mosques, the manufacture of weapons like throwing knives or kaskara swords[note 4] – and the slave trade.
[25][note 5] From the beginning of the 19th century onwards, drawings or photographs, taken by foreign visitors, constitute some of the earliest records for the traditional arts of different ethnic and social groups, such as architecture, dress, hairstyles, jewellery or scarifications.
In the early 19th century, Egyptians, British and other foreign inhabitants of Khartoum had expanded the city from a military encampment to a town of hundreds of brick-built houses.
[44] Referring to an early group of graphic artists and painters of the late 1940s in Khartoum, the overview on 'Modern art in Sudan', published in 2009 by scholars Werner Daum and Rashid Diab, mentions the 'Art of the Coffee Houses' (fann al-maqāhi).
[note 6] The decisive period for the emergence of the 'Khartoum School of Modern Art', however, started in the mid-1950s, when the first Sudanese figurative artists returned home after their postgraduate studies in England.
"[47] After graduating in Khartoum, many of the students studied in London, where they were introduced to the products of different cultures, including African and Islamic arts exhibited in British museums and galleries.
The absence of a tradition in painting and sculpture left room for exploring indigenous cultures with a fresh vision and gave rise to new trends in contemporary Sudanese art.In 1995, the Whitechapel Gallery in London presented the exhibition Seven Stories about Modern Art in Africa as part of the festival africa95.
Clémentine Deliss, the main curator, stated that the exhibition invited "the audience to experience a small part of the conceptual and aesthetic manifestations of the visual arts in Africa during the second half of the twentieth century.
[48] In 2016, the Sharjah Art Foundation, United Arab Emirates, presented a commemorative exhibition entitled 'The Khartoum School – The Making of the Modern Art Movement in Sudan (1945–present)', including paintings, photographs and sculptures of Sudanese visual artists, such as paintings by Hussein Shariffe and Ibrahim El Salahi or photographs by Rashid Mahdi and Gadalla Gubara.
[56] In 2016, the Tate Modern art gallery in London presented the exhibition 'Ibrahim El-Salahi: a visionary modernist' with 100 works, spanning more than fifty years of the artist's international career.
[58] The Victoria and Albert Museum in London holds some of his works, with his ibreeq, a modern version of a traditional Sudanese coffee pot, presented online.
[59] Hussein Shariffe (1934–2005), a painter, poet, filmmaker and lecturer at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Khartoum, was a Sudanese intellectual and artist, active from the late 1950s to the 1990s.
His sculptures, made of materials such as concrete, fibreglass or steel, are abstract and minimalist, but still citing animals, landscape, and architecture that relate to Sudan and the Afro-Islamic culture of his youth.
Upon his return to Sudan, he responded to the different ways of interpretation by his local audience and turned to more recognizable forms of expression, like women set "in absolute nothingness".
[87] In 2018, his paintings were presented along with works by Kamala Ishaq and Ibrahim El-Salahi by Saatchi Gallery, London, in an exhibition called Forests and Spirits: figurative art from the Khartoum School.
[95][96] In November 2020, students of the College of Fine Arts at Sudan University of Science and Technology (SUSTEC) exhibited a memorial sculpture representing the slogans of the Revolution: Freedom, Peace And Justice.
[101] Amna Elhassan, one of these young artists featured, has since embarked on an international career, with a solo exhibition in 2022 at the renowned Schirn art museum in Frankfurt, Germany.
[108][109] After having fled from Khartoum to Nairobi due to the war in Sudan, founder of Downtown Gallery Rahiem Shadad co-curated an exhibition of Sudanese artists titled Disturbance in the Nile in 2023.
Presenting artworks by Rashid Diab, Reem Aljeally, Eltayeb Dawelbait, Waleed Mohammed, Yasmeen Abdullah and Bakri Moaz, it was shown first in Cologne, Germany, then in Lisbon, Portugal, and in March 2024 in Madrid, Spain.
[110][111] Popular art forms such as cartoons and comics, published in print or online, also have found growing attention and respond to current events, such as the international COVID-19 pandemic.
[114] In the 20th century, photo stories about the Nuba people in the southern part of Sudan taken by photographers George Rodger[115] and Leni Riefenstahl,[116] as well as by photojournalists covering human crises have shaped the international image of the country.
[120][121] Following the outbreak of the 2023 war in Sudan, many artists suffered like other Sudanese in the most affected areas from destruction of their homes and studios, shortages in basic utilities, disruption of transport and financial services.
[123] Already in July 2023, the Sudanese regional cultural organisation "The Muse multi studios" had conducted an enquiry to "understand the situation of artists in these circumstances in order to shed light on their social, familial, and financial conditions."
[126] In 2024, he co-curated a group exhibition titled Disturbance in the Nile, including works by Rashid Diab, Mohammed A. Otaybi, Reem Aljealy and others for galleries in Lisbon, Portugal, and Madrid, Spain.
