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About Us

Who We Are​

Made For You, Made With Love

Bolingo is a culture-at-scale technology company aimed at empowering African creativity.

Bolingo.com was born out of love, a sense of community and an expression of creativity. Our vision and mission draw their inspiration from our values of empathy, heritage, creative expression, freedom-of-beingness, and chief among them, LOVE.

Core Values: Love, Empathy, Heritage, Creative Expression and Freedom-of-Beingness
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Our Vision

To change the way African Art is valued and sold, everywhere and for everyone.
Bolingo was founded on the belief that holding onto and discovering one’s heritage is a great source of identity, purpose, self-appreciation, wisdom and understanding. That the cultural economics of African heritage, identity, ingenuity, and creativity remains grossly undervalued with an astronomical path for growth.

Our Mission

To provide affordable provenance and reliable curation of excellent African art, music, & film that also creates job opportunities and a dependable income for artists, musicians, and filmmakers.
Bolingo focuses on making acquiring high-value African and Afro-inspired art a simple process by giving people easy access to a digital platform.

What We Believe

At Bolingo, we know the love and dedication that goes into creating art, as such, our prices reflect this labour of love

The artists who work with us get an absolute fair share of the proceeds from the sales, meaning whenever you purchase at Bolingo, you show your love for rare talent and bring more beauty and diversity into our world.

We want our artists to grow and for you to enjoy the best prices. This is why we give 50% of the piece profit to the artist and the other half goes into running the business. 

We work with our artists on getting the best price for their art. Of course, we listen to you, our customers, to cater to your needs. This way, it’s Love’s Labour’s Won and not Love’s Labour’s Lost. #sharethelove.

We curate highly talented artists, ranging from concept photographers to fine artists

We are currently only doing prints. Our customers are able to buy prints of the various works to be delivered within 3-5 business days in our delivery zones.Our artists come to us, and we go to them. So, what happens once there is a meeting of the minds? 

Well,
  • Artists sign contracts and their works added to the storefront
  • We market and sell them to customers
  • We keep a 50% commission and pay artists the rest
It’s that simple. However, there is a lot of time that goes into ensuring that the artist retains creative control, and intellectual property rights, not to mention has a say in the pricing of the pieces. We don’t leave anything to chance, this way we create an enabling ecosystem for the artists not just to survive, but to thrive.

Why African Art?

African Art is the third space in art history whose character and limitations are at variance with art history’s discriminatory discourses of modernity and its imposition of the modern artist-subject as a white, Western European male.

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The world has been fascinated by African art for ages. Colonialists took a deep interest in African art when they arrived in Africa centuries ago, and many works were plundered. Hence the numerous collections that are still on display in museums around the globe. This art mostly consisted of conceptual representations of everyday life, such as African culture and the extraordinary diurnal lives,  frequently showing the riches of the natural surrounds. Many of the important religious and ceremonial works of art in this collection have never been returned to their original caretakers

However, if so many collectors have a passion for it, why has it been criminally undervalued for so long? We must consider the forces at play on the African continent to respond to this topic. It’s not that we are not cultured, indeed, we are, vastly. One of these countervailing forces is poverty. 

Given the severity of poverty, it is unlikely that Africans would choose art over food, yet if history is anything to go by, we rose above the trepidations and vicissitudes of a turpid imperial past to produce beautiful art. This has caused a void that artists must fill on their own because there is no active middle class to support them. Nevertheless, things are changing. Our mission at Bolingo is to capture the glory days of a wealthy cultural heritage and the promise of a brighter future.

Indeed, there is a rising acknowledgement of African artists. Increased auction sales serve as a sign that African artists are becoming more popular in the international art market. These artists are still a small part of the industry, though. Despite all the excitement, the global art market still only includes a modest amount of modern African work.That said, the prospect of African art remains a positive one, steeped in the massive talent in the continent.   

An undervalued market, and the cultural zeitgeist happening an example of which is the popularity of the Afrobeats genre of music on the global scene.African art is in vogue right now. Never before has there been such a consistent and focused focus on modern and contemporary African art. The demand for African art has increased considerably over the past few years both domestically and abroad. In particular, there has been tremendous global attention. African art is far too frequently ignored and devalued in a setting of a rapidly expanding market. A genuine disquiet for the vast group of enthusiasts and collectors of African art.
 
In the past ten years, and more significantly the past five years, a sizable number of African works of art even those from the early 20th century have made their public debuts. Yes, there is a glaring knowledge gap regarding these works. Bolingo is at the heart of this revolution, positioned to power the inexorable nascence of this market.