Exhibition extended at the ASC Library: African barbershop boards

The exhibition of African barbershop boards from Mali, Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Cameroon and the former Zaire in the ASC library has been extended until 25 April 2014.
These non-verbal brightly coloured messages were collected over the last forty years by Esger Duintjer in Africa's big cities. The craftsmen use industrial paints and lacquers on walls, hardboard, plywood, metal sheets and used canvas flour bags. Most of them are autodidactic and anonymous, although some are known by their chosen artist's name or the name of their collective workshop. Of all the advertisements in Africa's urban centres today, the barbershop boards are certainly the most prolific, the strangest, the funniest and the silliest. The walls of every barbershop and hairdresser's salon are decorated with a mass of pictures from magazines and newspapers and the hand-painted boards are usually in the entrance or outside on the sidewalk.

Most of the boards are for sale; prices between € 200 - € 350.

See bibliography of 'Haardracht- en reclameschilders'

During the exhibition Rob Floor's book African Signs will be for sale at the reduced price of € 15,-.

Mail contact person Esger Duintjer: esgerduintjer@hotmail.com