Pascale Marthine Tayou, cameroonian visual artist, reveals his ivorian experience in an in-situ-installation at Galerie Cécile Fakhoury in Abidjan, in cooperation with Galleria Continua.

At first, the exhibition invites the public to be filled with wonder, by facing excessiveness, a profusion of objects and a visual surprise. Then, each details is to be examined. Each artwork has to be seen closer, in order to understand the whole installation. We enter the heart of a forest of coconut trees and walk along a path created by the artworks : Tayou’s famous Poupées Pascale, Classroom Walls, Garden Houses, light-coloured calabashes installations-sculptures, Néons Graffitis…

In this exhibition, Tayou brings together works that have been presented all around the world to an international audience, and works that have been realized with local craftsmen and women. In this cosmopolitan universe, which reflects a afro-globalized generation, the artist illustrates the spirit of Abidjan, the «  Pearl of the lagunas  ».

Pascale Marthine Tayou explores people’s everyday life and bears a new perspective on objets. He praises what is forgotten, what is left aside, or what is burn. He uses this material, colorises it, breathes life into it and enhances it by revealing its beauty and its sense. With this installation, perceptions are turned around, calabashes are twisted, fetishes are tied upside down, while raw trunks carry high some cristal dolls, his sketching books becomes a neon sign.

On this beach, one can’t get some rest, we are in action, attracted to every corner of the exhibition. When you are in the center you are dragged to look up, in a landscape that is not quiet, where spirits are pushed, spirits from the coconut tree forest, but also the narrow-minded spirits, and complacent spirits too.

PASCALE MARTHINE TAYOU was born in Nkongsamba (Cameroon), 1966. He began his career as an artist in the 90s, when he changed his name, taking a double feminale name  : Pascal (e) Marthin (e). His first exhibitions in Cameroon where quickly followed by exhibitions in Germany, in France and in Belgium, the country where he actually lives. His work is intentionally mobile, unseizable, far from all pre-established schemes, heterogeneous.

He is closely linked to the idea of travel and contact with the other, so spontaneaously that he seems to be casual/ objects, sculptures, installations, drawings and videos produced by Tayou have a current feature in common  : They concern a person that moves across the world and who explores the question of the global village. Tayou has contributed to a number of major international exhibitions and art events, such as Documenta 11 (2002), Triennial of Turin (2008)  and the Biennials of Kwangju (1997 and 1999), Santa Fe (1997), Sydney (1997), La Havane (1997 and 2006), Liverpool (1999), Berlin (2001), Sao Paulo (2002), Munster   (2003) Istanbul (2003), Lyon (2000 and 2005), Venice (2005 and 2009). He has shown his work in museums around the world as at the Tate Modern (2009). He had had solo shows at the MACRO (Rome, 2004 and 2013), S.M.A.K. (Ghent, Belgium, 2004), MARTa Herford (Herford, Germany, 2005), Milton Keynes Gallery (Milton Keynes, UK, 2007), Malmö Konsthall (Sweden, 2010), Revue Noire (Paris 2011), Mudam (Luxembourg, 2011), La Villette ( Paris, 2012) and KUB (Bregenz, 2014). Pascale Marthine Tayou has been represented by GALLERIA CONTINUA for ten years.

GALLERIA CONTINUA opened in San Gimignano (Italy) in 1990, the result of the initiative of three friends: Mario Cristiani, Lorenzo Fiaschi and Maurizio Rigillo. Occupying a former cinema, GALLERIA CONTINUA established itself and thrived in an entirely unexpected location, away from the big cities and the ultramodern urban centres, in a town – San Gimignano – steeped in history, timeless, magnificent. In keeping with the constantly evolving nature of the gallery and its desire to address as wide a public as possible, in 2005 Galleria Continua opened a new exhibition space in Beijing, China, the aim being to promote international contemporary art in a nation where it is little seen and to encourage new forms of cultural exchange. On October 21 2007, GALLERIA CONTINUA inaugurated a new peculiar site for contemporary creation in the Parisian countryside. Guided by the rhythm of the seasons, Les Moulins hosts many times a year projects and exhibitions of monumental art works by artists from the five continents. GALLERIA CONTINUA represents several artist including Ai Weiwei, Kader Attia, Daniel Buren, Chen Zhen, Anthony Gormley, Subodh Gupta, Anish Kapoor, Moataz Nasr, Michelangelo Pistoletto…

Opened in September 2012 and located in Abidjan in the Ivory Coast, CECILE FAKHOURY GALLERY’S mission is to promote contemporary art in the African continent by developing a locally based dynamic structure. Its space of 600m2, entirely dedicated to contemporary artwork, is a place for discoveries, exchanges, and encounters. The gallery will showcase individual and collective exhibitions, some of which will be itinerant to help connect the continent to the rest of the world and reach a worldwide audience as well. At the heart of this approach is the desire of universality and sharing. Strongly rooted in their respective identities and stories, the artists represented by the gallery distinguish themselves through the use of a language that abolishes the barriers while rejecting geographical stigmatization. The dialogue created by the gallery’s artists aim to be firmly contemporary, strong, passionate, and sometimes engaged. Observers of the world they live in, these men and women take a lucid and sharp look at our society and record its history while participating in the living memory of their country and redefining their link to the world.

Artists represented by the gallery: Aboudia, Nestor Da, François-Xavier Gbré, Vincent Michéa, Cheikh Ndiaye, Virginia Ryan, Paul Sika

http://cecilefakhoury.com