Thibaut Bouedjoro-Camus: Bonne nouvelle

Bonne nouvelle is the first solo exhibition of the painter Thibaut Bouedjoro-Camus in Côte d’Ivoire. Born in France (Reims) to French and Ivorian parents, Thibaut Bouedjoro-Camus brings together in his painting intimate and collective questions that take as their backdrop meticulously constructed spaces, anchored in the strata of a space-time where Abidjan and Paris are mixed.

Tools for understanding and investigating oneself in the midst of the movements of a broader history, the works of Thibaut Bouedjoro address cross-cutting themes that question the trajectories of people and pivotal objects, Thibaut Bouedjoro-Camus comments on the history of the Ivory Coast through the prism of his dual culture.

Thus, one finds in the exhibition a mixture of references to characters such as Marie Koré (political activist and leader of the women’s revolt of Grand-Bassam in 1949), Louis-Gustave Binger (French colonial administrator) or William Wade Harris (Liberian evangelist and creator of the Harriste church). Just like these characters that Thibaut puts in perspective with their contemporaries in his works, objects such as the Djidji Ayokwé (a drum of the Ebriés that is the subject of a restitution request) seem to channel the intensity of past and present conflicts, and become the subjects of works not devoid of humor, sometimes flirting with the absurd, bordering on satire.

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