Prof. Monika Grütters [Foto: Christof Rieken]
Prof. Monika Grütters MdB
The German Minister for Culture and Media
For the website of the art project “Art for Africa”
Art can contribute to understanding and feeling (Empathy) with people suffering from hunger, drought, disease and a lack of educational opportunities in a variety of ways. Art can show faces and stories behind sober numbers. Art can make the invisible visible. Art can open up ways of understanding through linguistic and cultural barriers. Art can broaden the boundaries of the imaginable – and thus also the limits of our empathy.
People in Africa need our empathy – and especially concrete help. The art alliance “Art for Africa”, which I like to support, shows that art can also mobilize forces for this. I would like to sincerely thank the participating artists for their great commitment and the willingness to promote humanitarian projects in West Africa through sales revenues.
I wish them all the best for their common cause of alleviating need and opening up future perspectives!
Prof. Dr. Heribert Prantl
Heribert Prantl is a German legal practitioner, journalist and author. He is leading the domestic policies department at the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” in Munich, and has joined the editors-in-chief in 2011.
“In the name of humanity: Save the refugees” is a journalist’s argumentative paper. His plead against the Mediterranean becoming a graveyard, and for more humanity, also pushed him to work as an ambassador for “Art for Africa”.
He wrotes to us: “The work are doing is quite wonderful, and I am ready to say that officially on your homepage …”
We are looking forward to our collaboration.
Dr. Ephiphane Kinhoun
Dr. Epiphane Kinhoun was born in Ouagbo, Benin. After having studied philosophy and theology and having graduated in philosophy at the UAC, Benin, he decided to join the Jesuite order in 2003. Further phases of his education were Jesuite faculties in Kimwenza (Kongo), Sarh (Chad), and the UCAO (Ivory Coast). He completed his doctorate in philosophy at the university in Munich.Dr. Kinhoun is currently teaching at the faculty of social sciences and management at the UCAC, Cameroon.It is a special concern of his is to reform education in Africa fundamentally:Orientation along the value measures of Africa – less along those of the western world. He considers “Art for Africa” a chance to be supported in the construction of a reformed educational system in Africa. Education and consciousness of African values are important keys to fighting mass mortality in the Mediterranean.We will accompany and support his educational work with our artistic projects.
Excerpt from the address given by the President of the Administrative Court of Stuttgart, Mrs 
Huber-Schraft, On the occasion of the opening of the ART for Africa exhibition in Stuttgart:
Dear friends, ladies and gentlemen,
I sincerely welcome you all to the opening of the exhibition “Art for Africa” - art against hunger with the subtitle “art in a unique combination with humanitarian concerns”. We are presented by an artists’ association of 18 artists from Holland, Switzerland, Austria and Germany (…).
The pictures displayed here serve a so-called good purpose. Hunger, poverty, impoverishment and all related serious consequences, the artists exhibiting here lead to an action of solidarity.
The proceeds are meant to help people. Solidarity is first a basic principle of human coexistence. It means the feeling of people to belong together and expresses themselves in mutual help and the advocacy for each other. Solidarity is deeply human-oriented. Humanity includes, among other things. The demand for equality of all people of every origin and the consideration of the dignity of man, both basic principles of the Basic Law. Humanity is the normative concept underlying human rights and fundamental rights. Both humanity and solidarity are closely linked to the virtue of willingness to help, as lived principles. In this sense, solidarity boundaries go beyond. A basic concern of the Syrlin Kunstverein is to strike a cross-border bridge. This closes the circle.
I will read to you the following text:
“Solidarity is a spontaneous reaction of those who recognize the social function of property and the universal determination of goods as realities that are older than private ownership. The private possession of goods is justified by the fact that they are guarded and multiplied so that they serve the common good better; Therefore, solidarity must be lived as the decision to give the poor back what he is entitled to. “
You may have guessed the author: It is no less than Pope Francis, from whose apostolic writings evangelii gaudium I have quoted.
And so I wish this exhibition that the hunger for art and the hunger for solidarity in the manner suggested by the artists may be linked. I am very much looking forward to this exhibition and I am very excited about what awaits us.
