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Wiin. La prophétie des abeilles Camille Tooubi x Laurent Védrine
Opening Saturday September 14th
Art Space
Archive
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Everything stood still Francis Agemo
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Everything stood still Francis Agemo
Atlantic is proud to present «Everything stood still», an exhibition by the Nigerian painter and sculptor Francis Agemo.
For his third exhibition in Benin, the artist has chosen his most-liked support: wood. But this time he works in a new different way. Same as many other African artists, Agemo finds his material around him, it is in the streets and in building sites that he collects wooden boards. He puts them together to create «paintings» made of different elements that he sculpts and carves meticulously whenever the boards do not convey the desired effect, or if he wishes to accentuate a certain characteristic. He takes advantage of their unusual shapes, perforations or fractures.
Into the future, 2024, Aluminium and acrylic on wood panel, 150 x 3 cm
I thought I could, 2024, Aluminium and acrylic on wood panel, 150 x 3 cm
Once together, 2023, Aluminium and acrylic on wood panel, 150 x 150 x 3 cm
Hidden truth (beast), 2023, Aluminium and acrylic on wood panel, 150 x 150 x 3 cm
Wooden boards were a practical choice, they are everywhere and easy to access. Agemo sees yet another advantage in them: they can be detached and therefore the works can be easily transported. Common sense becomes a concept. Another highlight is yet a found material: aluminum cans. The combination of wood and metal recalls the early work of El Anatsui, Ghanaian artist based in Nigeria well-known for his large-scale bottle caps tapestries.
Agemo cuts pieces of aluminum that he nails to the boards, blending its metallic industrial colors with acrylic. He thus creates his own palette. If in his early paintings, colors were vibrant, dazzling, joyful and associated with portraits or daily life scenes, this is no longer the case in the new series he presents in Ouidah. Agemo explains, «I toned down colors to highlight wood’s organic hues, subtleties, and grain. My intention was to bring natural beauty to light, and this makes my pieces more powerful».
This sort of aesthetic sobriety does not result from artistic experimentation but from a personal journey. Francis Agemo’s works are no longer about the village, traditions or ancient rituals but rather about Lagos, a city he often visits which population is estimated in 20 million people. A city where wealth mixes with poverty, millionaires cross path with hustlers (street-smart boys in search of modest jobs and a better life). The artist is concerned for these young people left on their own because the parents themselves are trying to find a way to survive. Money! « There’s a lot in Nigeria but not for everyone. For a year now, we’ve had a new government, we’ve gone from one political party to another but nothing has changed for the people, life was hard and it’s still hard! », summarizes the artist. Hence the title « Everything stood still ».
Thinking of the next, 2023, Aluminium and acrylic on wood panel, 150 x 150 x 3 cm
Citizen, 2024, Aluminium and acrylic on wood panel, 80 x 65 x 3 cm
Citizen (5), 2024, Aluminium and acrylic on wood panel, 80 x 60 x 3 cm
Suffering and happy, 2024, Aluminium and acrylic on wood panel, 300 x 200 x 3 cm
His message has become social and political, and his art is both a claim and a denunciation: corruption, neglect, growing and increasingly shocking inequalities in a rich, oil-producing country where insecurity is rife and kidnappings are commonplace. Agemo has a power generator in his studio which is essential in cities where power blackouts are frequent. “No constant energy supply, kidnappings, crime, security problems and many other things ruin people’s lives, there is no point in pretending the opposite, we live in darkness”. Nevertheless, his works convey some sort of lightness. As we study them, figures emerge and blend in the surrounding abstraction. Same as the people left out and ignored by society. Francis Agemo wants to make them real. «It is important for me to shine a light on them because we don’t see them; I want them to be visible because they are now invisible».
Francis Agemo was born in Nigeria in 1986. He lives and works in Badagry, a coastal town near Lagos. He is a self-taught painter. He studied Art at Delta State University where he majored in Sculpture in 2008. His work has been exhibited particularly in London, Zanzibar and Morocco at the Marrakech Montresso Art Foundation where he takes part in a residency program since 2022.
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Esther and Cyprien Esther Mahlangu & Cyprien Tokoudagba - Curated by Jeremy Demester
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Esther and Cyprien Esther Mahlangu & Cyprien Tokoudagba - Curated by Jeremy Demester
Esther and Cyprien
Walls speak.
The act is a major one: the transition from wall to canvas. These artists have decided to convey their cultures beyond borders. Painting leaves the temple or the family home; works on canvas will be the messengers. Like flying carpets, they will cross continents.
The paint breaks away from the original support to become the painting object, leading us to consider the philosophical and historical density of this thin pictorial layer. This is the very essence of the Ndebele and Fon cultures. A condensed extract from the lands and villages where these artists and their arts were born. Fragile and immense in meaning at the same time, temples and houses stand the test of climates, and murals all the more so.
This is the expression of both artists’ desire to preserve and protect. They have both crossed the boundary of tradition by detaching their works from their original contexts, a fact that can only be assimilated through experience in the field and encounters with other peoples. It’s no small gesture to extract a part of one’s heritage and offer it to the world. There’s a real sense of purpose here, of serving the common good, of educating the eyes and minds of people far removed from their own culture and traditions.
These painters, both traditional and contemporary, have decided to communicate and share their visions with the world. They have opened the way for us, encouraging us to consider time as a material, and painting as the message.
The walls crumble while the works remain. Silent and wise guardians, the paintings watch us and teach us the humble desire to write a non-verbal story as close as possible to the experience of a human life.
- Jeremy Demester
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Ouidah d’hier et Ouidah d’aujourd’hui Georges Adéagbo
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Ouidah d’hier et Ouidah d’aujourd’hui Georges Adéagbo
Georges Adéagbo is presenting a new and unique work specially produced for the opening of the Atlantic art space in Ouidah, in collaboration with Stephan Köhler, Kulturforum Süd-Nord. Adéagbo used to live in Ouidah, a city where his family has been established for several generations. Ouidah d’hier et Ouidah d’aujourd’hui is therefore a major installation in his career: for the first time, he is digging deep into his intimacy with the exceptional city.
Georges Adéagbo shares his knowledge of the history and legends of Ouidah, while recalling his own memories. A meeting place between the dead and the living, Ouidah is a city where the past continually exerts its influence over the present, where time studies our actions. To each person seeking answers to the questions posed by time, Georges Adéagbo’s installation offers sources and echoes, present contingencies as well as lessons to be learned from the past, a forest of clues from which we can eventually emerge with a finer knowledge of the world and of ourselves.
Ouidah d’hier et Ouidah d’aujourd’hui, 2022
«Men and things, both intertwined, make history.» Arlette Farge, Le peuple et les choses, 2015
Georges Adéagbo is an artist, philosopher, and storyteller. At 80 years old, he moves from continent to continent to present his installations, always elaborated specifically for the exhibition space and the country hosting them. Georges Adéagbo began gathering objects and writings and arranging them to create installations in 1971, in Cotonou. His collections of forgotten or abandoned objects began during solitary walks in the streets of Cotonou and on the beach, after which he created small installations in the courtyard of the family plot. His work remained confidential until 1993, when Jean-Michel Rousset, the assistant to the exhibition curator André Magnin, came to visit him by chance. Six years later, in 1999, Georges Adéagbo was the first African artist to be awarded a jury prize at the Venice Biennale for his installation Venise d’hier, Venise d’aujourd’hui..! L’histoire du lion at the Campo dell’Arsenale. This event also marks his first collaboration with Stephan Köhler, who became the coordinator on all his exhibitions.
Georges Adéagbo’s installations are direct evocations of his life, as it is given to him, and as he receives it. He creates his works using found objects and works by other people, gathering books, newspapers, records, sculptures, or clothes and then arranging them meticulously in a frieze, on the floor and on walls. The apparent simplicity of the process helps us understand what is truly essential: that things are there, and that it is up to us, when they cross our path, to pay attention to what they can teach us and to adjust our gaze to what is too often overlooked. Georges Adéagbo is our guide in this exercise in reading, leaving traces of his own meditations in his installations, in the form of messages, proverbs, oracles and hypotheses written by hand in deconstructed French.
In each book, object, and silent image, answers to the riddles that make up the world are hidden. By placing them side by side and letting their formal or semantic relationships form a composition, Georges Adéagbo allows these pieces of the world to enter into dialogue and shape a narrative. In doing so, he produces a form of reality which is an alternative to the discursive logic inherited from the West: a visual and linguistic practice that places the world and empirical speculation at the forefront, instead of the artist and his own rationality. As he is a great storyteller and organizer, Georges Adéagbo can ask questions and leave the answers to the objects he encounters – the formula “art is in nature..!” returns like a refrain in several of his installations.
Georges Adéagbo’s life, marked by solitude and suffering, naturally led to his becoming a recognized artist. Self-taught, he has maintained great freedom of expression in the world of conceptual art. He willingly explains his work on space, deciphers the messages conveyed by his groups of objects, and directly imparts to us his own history, dreams and convictions. His installations are not separate from his life: every day, Georges Adéagbo searches, classifies and orders documents and objects that sustain his reflection on the world. The familiar and the erudite, the fantastic and the functional are reconciled in his work, without hierarchical categorization. Georges Adéagbo invites us to take time to reread the world with an untarnished curiosity. Serene images illustrating a calendar can stand alongside sculptures from the Western Middle Ages and present-day Benin: as in life, time takes on an elastic and relative quality, cultures mingle, languages intertwine. We reflect on universal ideas – religion, art, love, filiation, knowledge – by exploring what is in front of us, and by choosing the things that will bring us answers. Such availability to the world is what makes Georges Adéagbo’s work so radical: by challenging the logical systems of a dominant Western culture and deconstructing the language of the former colonizer, he offers us an open system where we can think freely.
George Adéagbo, Ouidah d’hier et Ouidah d’aujourd’hui, Atlantic
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Ouidah d’hier et Ouidah d’aujourd’hui Georges Adéagbo
Biography
Georges Adéagbo was awarded the DAAD Prize in 2006, as well as the Finkender Prize in 2017 and the Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship in 2020. Together with Stephan Köhler, founder of Kulturforum Süd-Nord Cotonou-Hamburg, the artist presents his works in major institutions such as Kindl, Berlin (2021) ; Maison Tavel, Musée d’art et d’histoire, Geneva (2021) ; Warburg-Haus, Hamburg (2019) : Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen (2018) ; Kunsthaus Hamburg (2017) ; Israel Museum, Jerusalem (2016) ; Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2014) ; MAK, Vienna (2009) ; Palazzo Vecchio, Florence (2008) ; Ludwig Museum, Cologne (2004) ; Toyota Municipal Museum of Art, Toyoto (2000) ; MoMA PS1, New York (2000) or Le Quartier, Centre d’art contemporain, Quimper (1997).
Georges Adéagbo’s works are held in various museum collections, including the Centre Pompidou, Paris; Centre national des arts plastiques, Paris; Musée d’Art et d’Histoire, Geneva; Sammlung zeitgenössischer Kunst der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Berlin; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia; Toyota Municipal Museum of Art, Toyoto; KIASMA, Helsinki; Ludwig Museum, Cologne; and Israel Museum, Jerusalem, among others.
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Écoutez l’histoire ! Xwénouhô Nougnouin KIFOULI DOSSOU
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Écoutez l’histoire ! Xwénouhô Nougnouin KIFOULI DOSSOU
Atlantic is pleased to present Kifouli Dossou’s exhibition « Écoutez l’histoire ! Xwénouhô Nougnouin ». Dossou has been sculpting Gelede masks since he was 8 and has become the most inventive and talented of all mask sculptors. In his work, more than in anybody else’s, the sacred meets the profane, the spiritual befriends reality. Art that is heritage becomes contemporary art.
Gelede is an ancient voruba cult that continues to be performed in certain parts of Benin and is listed as UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage. These masks leave the family convents for important events such as weddings, births, deaths, annual celebrations. In these ceremonies, that take place during the day or at night, masks are worn by initiates performing dances and ritual chants. This is a secret society, and the only one where women play an active role. The Gelede portrays a yaruba woman’s face, with almond-shaped eyes and scarifications. These masks have simple or more complex sculptures built on top representing animals, characters destined to tease a rival clan and, more recently, everyday life scenes or community concerns destined to educate and create awareness.
Kifouli Dossou knows this tradition very well. Born in Cové in 1976, he lives and works in this small city where the Gelede cult lives on. The smell of wood in his courtyard welcomes the visitor, his elder son sands a future mask: the new generation is in the making. In the Dossou family it is all about transmission: the father made wooden toys, the uncle the Geledes, the oldest brother Amide, as well (NB: this talented artist, who passed away in 2013, took part in the 1989 acclaimed exhibition Magiciens de la Terre in Paris).
Today, Kifouli Dossou magnifies and transcends heritage through fine craft and the talent of his hands, able to create meticulously chiseled pieces out of a wood block or a tree trunk. At first, struck by the realism, beauty, sense of detail and the humor of his work we could almost overlook the sculptural performance. But he is not only an incredible skilled artist, he gives a modern twist to these representations, he innovates, and cuts loose from certain conventions.
Thus, he allows himself to create «epa» masks (imposing column masks) without the usual central equestrian figure. His epa masks tell stories and deliver messages. This is the case of two majestic pieces inspired by the city of Ouidah, and created for the exhibition.
With «Let’s nurture intelligence», he observes the Kpassé market, main exchange place in Ouidah (former trading post for palm oil and, on a more sinister note, for human beings during slave trade). Sales women, buyers, thieves, all of them mix together, and yet, each one has its own place. Kifouli Dossou, also speaks of the city’s religious tolerance that is often considered as an example. The Python Temple, a voodoo shrine devoted to this sacred animal, is located right across from the Immaculate Conception basilica. The story tells us that worshippers welcomed missionaries and offered them the land to create their basilica and even helped them build it. For this «epa» the artist makes sure to place pythons at the base of the mask so as to suggest that their ancestors’ spirituality is foundational.
His works are part of the Zinsou Fondation and the Pigozzi Fondation, amongst others. The exhibition runs from Saturday 3rd June to Sunday 17th September 2023.
Kifouli Dossou, Oiseaux, 2021, Bois Mélina sculpté dans la masse, 25 x 19 cm
Kifouli Dossou, Sans titre, 2022, Bois Mélina sculpté dans la masse, 101 x 15 x 14 cm
Kifouli Dossou, Les voleurs, 2023, Peinture à l’huile, 38 x 26 cm
Kifouli Dossou, Marché Kpassé, 2023, Bois Mélina sculpté dans la masse, 190 x 40 cm
Kifouli Dossou, Les études et le Palu, 2022, Peinture à l’huile, 45 x 26 cm
Kifouli Dossou, La Basilique et les pythons, 2018, Bois Mélina sculpté dans la masse, 182 x 50 cm
Kifouli Dossou, La forêt, 2023, Bois Mélina sculpté dans la masse, 70 x 35 cm
Kifouli Dossou, Le Fâ, 2018 Peinture à l’huile, 136 x 40 cm
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ASHÈ ISHOLA AKPO
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ASHÈ ISHOLA AKPO
Ishola Akpo, Ashè X, série traces d’une reine, 2023
Atlantic is pleased to present Ashè, a solo exhibition by Beninese multidisciplinary artist Ishola Akpo. Addressing our relationship with time, territory and power, Ishola Akpo’s work unfolds in photographs, collages, installations, and embroideries that the artist organizes into series, with an overt documentary approach. In Yoruba, ashè designates a force enclosed in things, that a ritual can awaken: with the present exhibition, the artist confronts us with the power of traces that History has left in our modernity, a power effective even when these traces are already almost erased.
First and foremost, this question manifests itself in intimacy. The installation Ashè, which lends its name to the exhibition, is made up of over a hundred plates known as Kpanou, that are traditionally given to brides as dowries by their husbands’ families, and used by women as percussion instruments during celebrations, to perform the Kpanouhoum rhythm. The echo of this music reaches us, with a subtle dissonance: attached to the edges of the plates like bells, pennies of CFA Francs and Euros attract our attention. This crockery, a symbol of domestic heritage as well as a witness to the durability of a tradition in contemporary, post-colonial daily life, has been devalued. The enameled metal plates are nowadays made in China and have lost much of their material value. Embodied in less durable objects, tradition gives way to economic and political constraints that fracture identities; yet tradition endures, and still resonates at the very heart of the home.
The composite reality of our present is linked to our understanding of history. Three recent collages from the series Traces d’une reine introduce Ishola Akpo’s years long questioning of our relationship with the ancestral past. The artist glues and sews women embodying the queens and queen-mothers of Africa on ancient prints from the colonial era, depicting the courts of African kings. Often absent from the archives, erased from narratives, anonymized, these queens held powers that were decisive for the protection of their kingdoms, and therefore for the perpetuation of their cultures. Their powers were political and military, but also linked to the supernatural world of spirits. By reconstructing the image of their power, Ishola Akpo includes these women in the collective African narrative, and formulates a new and radical approach to history; for in this narrative, the artist does not conceal the superimposition of the eras he evokes: on the contrary, his meticulous red-thread embroidery signals the link that must be established between the stratifications of time.
A unique print of the collage Défilé des troupes, 2023, is presented in dimensions comparable to those of a history painting. The queen’s monumental stature contrasts with a deep perspective, where, under the gaze of wealthy colonists, military preparations are taking place. But the queen faces us - her gaze confronts us, head-on. Her face is familiar, imbued with dignity, as if inhabited by a heroic spirit. To what time does this queen belong ? To the pre-colonial past, which she embodied for her contemporaries ? To the colonial era, which she faced ? Or, to our contemporary era, the one in which her image is appearing ? Roland Barthes wrote that photographed people become spectres, forever inhabiting a suspended moment in time. Ishola Akpo’s queens have this fragile existence, made of words and paper; but they have lived through the ages. They bear witness, before our very eyes, to the undiminished power of collective narratives, when they can be transmitted, shared, and reappropriated.
In 2024, Ishola Akpo, will represent Benin at the 60th Venice Biennale alongside Moufouli Bello, Chloé Quenum, and Romuald Hazoumè. The artist is currently presenting the monographic exhibition “Léedi” at the Fondation Donwahi in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, from September 22 to November 18, 2023.
- Marguerite Hennebelle
Ishola Akpo, Ashè X, série traces d’une reine, 2023, Collage and sewing on archival paper, 30 x 45 cm
Ishola Akpo, Défilé des troupes, série traces d’une reine, 2023, Collage and sewing on archival paper, 30 x 45 cm
Ishola Akpo, Guerrieres du walo, série traces d’une reine, 2023, Collage and sewing on archival paper, 45 x 30 cm
Ishola Akpo, Fleurs de la Reine Guerrière, 2023, Installation mixte media, 210 plates, 250 x 245 cm
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Legends from W A to X, 2020 Joël Andrianomearisoa
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Legends from W A to X, 2020 Joël Andrianomearisoa
Atlantic is pleased to present the exhibition Legends from W A to X by Joël Andrianomearisoa (b. 1977 in Antananarivo, Madagascar). This series is a single chapter of ten unique works.
The artist and ATLANTIC will dedicate all proceeds from the exhibition to the Cercle des Ami.es de la Fondation Zinsou, to support the Foundation’s various initiatives, including free access to the Museum and its activities for the benefit of Beninese people, such as the Atelier des Petits Pinceaux.
Each artist’s series represents an intimate chapter in the novel that is written with each new project. A chapter that could be read as an independent short story. If, at first, we recognize the artist’s classic figures of style, such as the black textile alliterations that punctuate the canvases, we are struck by the audacity of the choice of textiles, which contrast violently with the series that precede it, such as Les Herbes folles du vieux logis. The loincloth that underlies the construction of the work can be read as a poetic anacoluthe.
The artist breaks with colorful abstraction and embraces the motif. But the motif here is not what it seems: the sweet potato leaf or the swallow cannot be read in terms of what they seem to represent. The artist works with the essence of the loincloth and with what gives it its importance in West African societies: its symbolism and the text that underlies it. In this respect, the Dutch textile is merely the medium for the emotion, poetry or violence embodied in its motifs. Finally, we thought we’d broken away from abstraction, but here we find it again in the decorrelation between the presence of the motif and its importance, which lies not in what we see but in the symbolism it contains.
By using a textile so far removed from his own practice, the artist seems to be paying homage to a territory that embodies more than the limits of its geography, and stands as a symbol of a continent. These ten works are not anchored in Africa by the Dutch loincloth that gives them their materiality, but by a fine understanding of society’s most important codes, the homage to the women who built this heritage and to those who materialize the work - in the motifs of this fabric, the women of Cotonou and those of Madagascar seem to meet - but also the question of the roots and anchoring of the artist, who evolves in a space traversed by the violence of history, seeking to bring to light the emotion, poetry and nostalgia that have long been denied to him. he layers of textiles are like the many pages of a thick novel, like the pieces of loincloth piled up on the steps of the Tokpa staircase, like a mille-feuilles of stories and legends. The textiles step out of the frame, as if these legends were to be freed from the usual formalism of paintings.
Joël Andrianomearisoa, Legends from W A to X, 2020, 50 x 40 cm
Joël Andrianomearisoa, Legends from W A to X, 2020, 130 x 90 cm
Joël Andrianomearisoa, Legends from W A to X, 2020, 50 x 40 cm
Joël Andrianomearisoa, Legends from W A to X, 2020, 260 x 180 cm
Joël Andrianomearisoa, Legends from W A to X, 2020, 130 x 90 cm
Joël Andrianomearisoa, Legends from W A to X, 2020, 50 x 40 cm
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Les 7 Jumeaux David Adebay, Raoul Ahoungnimon, Sadikou Arafat, Bénédicte Dovonou, Kpanou Glorieux, Agbodedj Hamidath & Adelakoun Honorat
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Les 7 Jumeaux David Adebay, Raoul Ahoungnimon, Sadikou Arafat, Bénédicte Dovonou, Kpanou Glorieux, Agbodedj Hamidath & Adelakoun Honorat
ATLANTIC IS PROUD TO PRESENT THE GROUP EXHIBITION « LES 7 JUMEAUX » A SET OF PAINTINGS THAT ARE MUCH MORE THAN CREATIVE WORKS. THESE PIECES CONTRIBUTE TO THE ARTISTS’ SOCIAL INCLUSION AND TO CHANGING THE WAY WE SEE THEM.
Louis Oké-Agbo’s therapy center in Porto-Novo is a unique place where art is a means to helping people with mental illnesses and disabilities. He is an artist and photographer from Benin who opened the center in 2017. The center cares for women and men affected by psychological and behavioral problems as well as disabilities. In this courtyard arranged as a studio and opening onto one of Tokpota’s streets -a working-class neighborhood in Porto Novo-the patients dance, play percussions, take photographs, draw and paint. It is a place for total freedom of expression cared for by volunteer workers, artists, psychologists and art therapy specialists.
At the moment, the center welcomes 17 patients. This shows that in spite of a very low budget it delivers care, provides wellbeing and treats with respect those who are considered as crazy and, as such, are rejected and sometimes marginalized. In Benin madness is not considered as an illness but rather as a punishment from a god or goddess to someone who broke a social rule or to someone who disrespected a spiritual entity, it may also be considered as a state resulting from a voodoo god incarnated in a human being and therefore society will see them as different.
Bright colors, simplified figures seldom on their own and often in contact with each other, revisited voodoo images… In their works David Adebayo, Hamidath Agbodedil, Bénédicte Dovonou, to mention a few, seem to liberate raw, vital emotions; perhaps this is because until now they had not been able to speak about those emotions. Their work touches us, questions us, draws our attention. This is why they are considered artists.
Louis Oké-Agbo devotes himself to these men and women considered outcasts because he «felt that through art, I could help them». Photography helped him to keep afloat, he was the eldest of a poor family of twelve children. Ten years ago, when he started taking pictures of mad people in the streets -which was the beginning of his own art therapy project-he begun to gain awareness of his own flaws. Today Louis Oké-Agbo and the center’s residents share more than time and attention together, they share the place art has in their lives.
The money resulting from sales will be allocated by Atlantic to Vie et Solidarité, the NGO that manages the center.
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Les 7 Jumeaux David Adebay, Raoul Ahoungnimon, Sadikou Arafat, Bénédicte Dovonou, Kpanou Glorieux, Agbodedj Hamidath & Adelakoun Honorat
Off-Site
Workshop Art Therapy Center Porto Novo Les 7 Jumeaux
Workshop Art Therapy Center Porto Novo Les 7 Jumeaux
Louis Oké-Agbo’s therapy center in Porto-Novo is a unique place where art is a means to helping people with mental illnesses and disabilities. He is an artist and photographer from Benin who opened the center in 2017. The center cares for women and men affected by psychological and behavioral problems as well as disabilities. In this courtyard arranged as a studio and opening onto one of Tokpota’s streets -a working-class neighborhood in Porto Novo- the patients dance, play percussions, take photographs, draw and paint. It is a place for total freedom of expression cared for by volunteer workers, artists, psychologists and art therapy specialists.
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Venice Biennale 2024 Ishola Akpo, Moufouli Bello, Romuald Hazoumè & Chloé Quenum
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Venice Biennale 2024 Ishola Akpo, Moufouli Bello, Romuald Hazoumè & Chloé Quenum
Exhibition view, “Everything Precious Is Fragile”, Venice Biennale 2924 © Jacopo La Forgia
For the first time in its history, Benin will be participating in the 60th International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia, from 20 April to 24 November 2024.
Titled “Everything Precious Is Fragile”, the exhibition explores the extensive history of Benin through the themes of the slave trade, the figure of the Amazon, and Vodun spirituality. Entitled “Everything Precious Is Fragile” this exhibition will explore the rich history of Benin, touching on themes such as the slave trade, the Amazon motif, spirituality, and the Vodun religion. It also delves into the contemporary realm with the Gèlèdé philosophy, focusing on “rematriation” a feminist interpretation of restitution that advocates not only the return of objects but also Beninese philosophy and ideals predating the colonial era.
Exhibition view, “Everything Precious Is Fragile”, Venice Biennale 2924 © Jacopo La Forgia
Curator, Azu Nwagbogu, and his curatorial team - curator Yassine Lassissi and scenographer Franck Houndégla - have selected four major artists to represent Benin for this 60th edition: Chloé Quenum, Moufouli Bello, Ishola Akpo, and Romuald Hazoumè.
Led by Azu Nwagbogu, they aim to convey a narrative of African feminism, with an emphasis on Beninese feminism. As José Pliya, the commissioner of the Benin Pavilion, states, “Benin will then be, in the words of Léopold Sédar Senghor, at the great ‘rendezvous of giving and receiving’.”
Exhibition view, “Everything Precious Is Fragile”, Venice Biennale 2924 © Jacopo La Forgia
This participation marks Benin’s commitment to actively promoting its artistic and cultural scene. It aligns with the recent return in 2021, of 26 royal treasures looted during the French colonial conquest of the Danxomè kingdom. In the wake of this event, the exhibition “Art du Bénin d’hier et d’aujourd’hui, de la restitution à la révélation” (Benin’s Art of Yesterday and Today, from Restitution to Revelation) presented in Cotonou, and now touring several countries around the world, paved the way for Benin’s presence at the 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia.
The Benin Pavilion at the Biennale Arte 2024 is presented by the Agence de Développement des Arts et de la Culture (ADAC) on behalf of the Ministry of Tourism, Culture, and the Arts.
© Jacopo La Forgia
© Jacopo La Forgia
© Jacopo La Forgia
AGBARA Women Ishola Akpo
AGBARA Women Ishola Akpo
Artist’s monograph with reproductions of works, exhibition views, and an essay.
“Tracing the history of African queens, confronting us with the absence of images and narratives, and a history that has been erased and transformed.”
Softcover with 1 flap, Swiss binding, full color & black/white, 96 pages, 22 × 30 cm, French/English
Éditions Fondation Zinsou, Collection Archives du Présent
ISBN 978-2-9580110-8-6
Issued to accompany Ishola Akpo’s representation of Benin at its inaugural participation in the Venice Biennale Arte. Published by Fondation Zinsou, with Contemporary A, Sabrina Amrani Gallery, and Atlantic Art Space.
Artists
Ishola Akpo
Ishola Akpo
Born in Côte d’Ivoire to Beninese parents in 1983, Ishola Akpo lives and works in Cotonou (Benin). He explores the cultures of communities in Benin, taking a particular interest in identity issues. As a multimedia visual artist, Ishola Akpo plays on the tenuous connections between tradition and modernity.
Ishola Akpo weaves contemporary humanistic narratives, drawing on family stories or forgotten historical figures. The artist places the female figure at the heart of his work, highlighting her key role in societal transformations. In 2014, he presented the series “L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux” (“The Essential is Invisible to the Eyes”). In it, Ishola asserted his personal history, illustrating his grandmother’s dowry while emphasizing the weight of intangible heritage. This project led him to explore social changes, question their foundations, and examine our ability to understand the past while building the present in this perpetually changing world.
Like a historian, he intertwines personal and cultural narratives, analogue and digital formats, recent and ancient representations, and large and small scales of magnitude. In Ishola Akpo’s work, time collapses. Past and present converge in a fusion of horizons. For his series «Agbara Women» (2021), he invites women from his circle to recreate the portraits of queens and other powerful women of the African continent. He places women back in a prominent role as social regulators. They are “Great Royals”: forgotten queens of history whom he rehabilitates and brings back to the collective memory.
In 2022, Ishola Akpo expanded this body of work by initiating a new series, “Traces of a Queen”, drawing on archives to bear witness to the kingdoms of Benin and other African countries. Using the portraits of contemporary queens as a background, he embellished their images with red thread. This creation informed his proposal for the Benin Pavilion at the Venice Biennale.
The work of Ishola Akpo has been exhibited, among others, at the COBRA Museum (Netherlands – 2022), Les Rencontres de Bamako (Mali Biennale - 2022), the MO.CO Museum (France – 2021), the Museum of Immigration History (Palais de la Porte Dorée, Africa 2020 – Paris), Weltkulturen Museum Frankfurt (Germany), Lagos Photo Festival (Nigeria, 2023), and the Zinsou Foundation (Benin – 2019 and 2023).
In 2024, Ishola Akpo represented Benin at the 60th Venice Biennale alongside Romuald Hazoumè, Moufouli Bello and Chloé Quenum.
Exhibition view, Ashè, Atlantic, October 27 - December 31 2023
Ishola Akpo, Défilé des troupes, série traces d’une reine, 2023, Collage and sewing on archival paper, 30 x 45 cm
Ishola Akpo, Guerrieres du walo, série traces d’une reine, 2023, Collage and sewing on archival paper, 45 x 30 cm
Ishola Akpo, Ashè X, série traces d’une reine, 2023, Collage and sewing on archival paper, 30 x 45 cm
Ishola Akpo, Fleurs de la Reine Guerrière, 2023, Installation mixte media, 210 plates, 250 x 245 cm
Exhibition view, Ashè, Atlantic, October 27 - December 31 2023
Moufouli Bello
Moufouli Bello
Born in 1987, Moufouli Bello is a Beninese visual artist, she lives and works between Cotonou (Benin) and Bruxelles (Belgique). After training as a lawyer, she initially pursued social law, journalism, photography, and writing. Her interest in identity issues led her to study ideological structures and examine how religion, tradition, culture, politics, and technology impact and shape our societal model and identity.
Her artistic practice came to the fore in 2012 with her participation in the “Standing Man” exhibition organised by Fondation Zinsou in Benin. In 2016, she was awarded the residency French Institute / Cité internationale des Arts residency in Paris, where she continued her “Papyrus” project exploring identity issues and signs of ethnic and community belonging. In 2017, she participated in three major projects: “Amazons” (Le Centre, Abomey Calavi), “Le grand festin” (“The Great Feast”, Galerie Mario Mauroner, Vienna), and «Afrique au cœur» (“Africa at Heart”, Villa Abd-el- Tif, Algiers). The following year, Moufouli Bello took part in several projects including “Homo planta” of Fondation Blachère in France.
In 2019, she was selected at the Fresnoy – National Studio of Contemporary Arts, where she delved deeper into her art with digital and video mediums. Her project “Lissa, a conversation with God” examines the social violence induced by monotheistic religions and the messianic fantasies surrounding artificial intelligence. “Window With a View”, which she created in her first year, is a work addressing the shipment of radioactive waste from Europe to Africa. It earned her an ADAGP award in France and a selection for the exhibition “L’Afrique vue par ses photographes, de Malick Sidibé à nos jours” (“Africa Seen by its Photographers, from Malick Sidibé to the Present Day”) at the Mohammed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in 2021.
She continues her research as part of a doctorate in Arts and Social Sciences at ENSAV La Cambre, focusing on the impact of art as a tool for creating new territories of rights.
In 2024, Moufouli Bello represented Benin at the 60th Venice Biennale alongside Romuald Hazoumè, Chloé Quenum and Ishola Akpo.
Everything Precious is Fragile, Moufouli Bello, details “Egbe Modjisola”, 2024
Moufouli Bello, Beautiful SILLY FLOWERS, 2021, Acrylic on canvas, 150 x 170 cm
Moufouli Bello, LITTLE BIG SISTER, 2022, Acrylic on linen, 180 x 170 cm
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