PUMA ANNOUNCES SUPPORT OF THE 2009 JOBURG ART FAIR IN COLLABORATION WITH THE CREATIVE AFRICA NETWORK

April 2009

Herzogenaurach, Germany, March 2009 - The Sportlifestyle company PUMA is pleased to announce it will support the 2009 Joburg Art Fair, South Africa, in collaboration with Creative Africa Network (CAN). An initiative of puma.creative, CAN is a virtual platform with global reach, connecting the creative world within and outside of Africa, giving visibility to the talents working in contemporary art, film, architecture, design, and the performing arts.

CAN's social networking website, www.creativeafricanetwork.com, allows individuals and institutions to create their own profiles. CAN also includes a cultural directory and is updated weekly with news of events, biennales, art and book fairs, music and film festivals, awards, reviews, calls for artists, and other opportunities, providing professional information valuable to high-profile and emerging artists and cultural liaisons.

The CAN project was developed by Dutch curator Macha Roesink, director of Museum de Paviljoens; Zimbabwean curator Raphael Chikukwa; French-Cameroonian art critic and editor Christine Eyene; and South African curator Mark Coetzee, who serves as program director for PUMAVision and chief curator of puma.creative. The website was designed by Mediamatic, the Amsterdam-based leading new media and network company.

The CAN Ambassador Initiative is a live platform that facilitates the participation of well-known and emerging artists, curators and arts organizations at major international art events, and provides the resources and support to enable these art-minded people to enhance their networks and develop the relationships that will further their work and the goals of their institutions. To celebrate the launch of Creative AfricaNetwork, PUMA will sponsor CAN Ambassadors at the Joburg Art Fair. The Ambassadors will include:

Reginald Bakwena, Coordinator, Thapong Visual Art Centre, Gabarone, Botswana
Pauline Burmann, Chair, Thami Mnyele Foundation, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Silvia Cubina, Director and Chief Curator, Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach, U.S.A.
Antoni Folkers, Director, ArchiAfrika, Utrecht, Netherlands
Aleya Hamza, Curator, Contemporary Image Collective (CIC), Cairo, Egypt
Goddy Leye, General Coordinator, Art Bakery, Bonendale, Douala, Cameroon
William Miko, Independent Curator, Lusaka, Zambia
Brooke Minto, Assistant Director, Miami Art Museum, Miami, U.S.A.
Edit Molnár, General Director, Contemporary Image Collective (CIC), Cairo, Egypt
James Muriuki, Curator, Museum of Modern Art (RaMoMA), Nairobi, Kenya
Robino Ntila, Independent Curator, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Jimmy Ogonga, Director, Nairobi Arts Trust / Centre for Contemporary Art of East Africa (CCAEA), Nairobi, Kenya
Didier Schaub, Artistic Director, doual'art, Douala, Cameroon
Trevor Schoonmaker, Curator of Contemporary Art, Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, U.S.A.
Bisi Silva, Curator, Centre for Contemporary Art (CCA), Lagos, Nigeria
Voti Thebe, Deputy Director, National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe
Berend van der Lans, Director, ArchiAfrika, Utrecht, Netherlands

"PUMA is honored to support the Joburg Art Fair, and honored to support the spirit and creativity of the artists and representatives present here." says PUMA Chairman and CEO Jochen Zeitz. "The PUMA brand experiments with the new, joining together creative spirits with major figures of the sports and fashion worlds - figures such as Usain Bolt, Samuel Eto'o and designer Hussein Chalayan, now the creative director of the PUMA Sport Fashion collections. In view of our longstanding commitment to creativity and service, it feels a natural step for PUMA to participate in this important project on the African continent.

PUMAVision is PUMA's way of uniting all initiatives that come under the heading 'Corporate Social Responsibility' and giving them a coherent direction and framework. It comes from a vision of a world that is better than the one we know now - a world that is safer, more peaceful and more creative. Through the programs of puma.safe (focusing on environmental and social issues), puma.peace (supporting global peace), and puma.creative (supporting artists and creative organizations), that vision becomes practical reality."

The first puma.creative project was the support of the exhibition 30 Americans in collaboration with the Rubell Family Collection in Miami, Florida. Other ventures included the Hussein Chalayan retrospective at the Design Museum in London, England, and support of Creative Africa Network (CAN). As part of our commitment to a more creative world, PUMA will continue to support artists, art projects, and exhibitions globally through puma.creative.

Back to Press Releases