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"The traditional Africa with its ancient glory will die", the famous ethnologist Leo Frobenius wrote in 1921, to continue: "But a new will arise. Our task will be to develop respect for the culture of a fast growing young generation of black people". Exactly 75 years after Frobenius in Europe it is gradually taken note of the new African literature and art. One of the few Germans, who fought for this development for years, is the Fürth-based doctor, gallery owner and art collector Bernd Kleine-Gunk.

His pioneering work is currently by two extraordinary exhibitions documented. On the grounds of Fürth's Euro-Med Clinic, a large part of the private collection of Kleine-Gunk is exhibited. The by the art collector founded "ZAK Gallery" shows in addition some more important works by leading painters and sculptors from various African countries.

When looking at this fascinating but also strange paintings and sculptures the Europeans should always keep in mind that these are the products of a huge cultural change and new beginnings. In ancient Africa, there were very artfully made cultic and secular objects, an art in modern European sense, however, was unknown. The beautiful utility item had its place in traditional festival and daily life of the African peoples. Painting and sculpture as a luxury item that only served to give aesthetic pleasure and rising cultivation of home decor, would have been something utterly ridiculous and meaningless for the ancestors.

So it is not surprising that a modern artist by many people is still as a fool and silly person sneered at outsider in African society. Only when he can refer to the recognition by European and North American collectors and curators, he is in his home - reluctantly - being taken seriously. The most prominent representatives of that "youth full" post-colonial African art, of which Frobenius once dreamed, owe (grotesquely) their fame largely to members of the former colonial peoples.

For the majority of the artists showcased in Fürth, this is also true. The absolute "star" of the African art scene, the Nigerian Twins Seven Seven, was originally discovered by Ulli Beier, who later became director of the "Iwalewa house" in Bayreuth; Richard Onyango from Kenya is an artistic foster child of the Italian painter Sarenco. The art works by Seven Seven and Onyango provide not only the optical centre of the two exhibitions in Fürth, their paintings also mark the two contrary programmatic positions of contemporary African art.

Seven Seven tries with his ornamental drawings and painted relief a creative progression of traditional African forms and contents. Onyango, however, has developed an ahistorical, based on European film posters and magazine photos (deeply unAfrican) variant of the "realistic" panel painting.

Somewhere between these two extremes lies another exhibition priority area: sculptures from Zimbabwe in wood, stone and iron scrap. When at the beginning of our century European artists have drawn inspiration from traditional African art, they have similar hybrids created as today - from the opposite perspective -, the sculptors Martin Mushoma, Isaia Manzini and Bernard Matemera. Their - in the best sense fantastic proliferating - creations show vitality and at the same time a sophisticated style, which should reinforce partial doubts in the definition of art and the expressiveness by local artists.

In contrast to the often quite insipid and nerveless esoteric products of Western art, the exhibits of the show in Fürth reflect the spirit of a society that has not forgotten how to hope for a better future. African artists like Joel Oswaggo or Zachariah Mbutha from Kenya documented not least the (often-painful) processes of learning along the way.