In Palermo exhibition of Frédéric Bruly Bouabré, one of the fathers of contemporary African art

Held from April 28 to May 28, at the Riso. Regional Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Palermo, the exhibition Frédéric Bruly Bouabré | Cosmogonie, the first review in Sicily dedicated to one of the founding fathers of contemporary African art as well as one of the most fascinating artists of our time, namely Frédéric Bruly Bouabré (Zépréguhé, 1923 - Abidjan, 2014), curated by Cristina Costanzo with coordination by Maddalena De Luca.

“Welcoming high-profile exhibitions,” says Maddalena De Luca, the director of the Riso Museo Regionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea della Sicilia, "dedicated to leading figures on the international scene and in the global scenario of our time is a priority objective of the museum, where, moreover, just recently the theme of archiving was addressed as one of the categorical imperatives of contemporary art practice. Bouabré’s art, his encyclopedic collection Connaissance du monde, stimulates, in this sense, and suggests interesting perspectives of research and critical interpretation."

The exhibition project, promoted by the 091 Art Project gallery and sponsored by theEmbassy of Côte d’Ivoire in Italy, presents the works of Frédéric Bruly Bouabré, celebrated in 2022 by MoMA New York with the retrospective Frédéric Bruly Bouabré: World Unbound and repeatedly present at the Venice Biennale, not only in the Ivory Coast Pavilion of the most recent edition but also in Massimiliano Gioni’s Palazzo Enciclopedico.

“The idea of dedicating an exhibition to Frédéric Bruly Bouabré,” says gallery owner Costantino Ferrara of 091 Art Project, “was not among our initial intentions, although we have been following and studying his research for a long time. What gave us the input were the acquisitions of more than fifty of his works in which themes addressed by the artist throughout his career are present: from the Alphabet bété to legends, from brotherhood among peoples to the deep friendship that bound him to Alighiero Boetti.”

Frédéric Bruly Bouabré worked as a civil servant in the French West African National Security Administration and arrived at his original figurative language following a “solar vision” that earned him the identity of Cheik Nedro, “the one who does not forget.” From this moment on, he dedicated himself to the mission of passing on the oral culture of the Bété community, and more broadly African, to future generations through his figurative inventories. Thus was born Connaissance du monde, a work of monumental character created in pen and colored pencils on postcard-sized cards, an unprecedented visual encyclopedia always in the making. Also of extraordinary interest is his Alphabet bété, a transcription system of the Bété language consisting of 448 monosyllabic pictograms. In 1989 he took part in Magiciens de la Terre, which was followed by his presence in numerous exhibitions at major international institutions such as the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and the Tate Modern in London. He also participated in Documenta 11 curated by Okwui Enwezor.

“The exhibition,” says curator Cristina Costanzo, researcher of History of Contemporary Art at the University of Palermo, "aims to offer a critical lunge on the production of Frédéric Bruly Bouabré through a corpus of more than 60 works spanning a wide chronological span, from 1994 to 2008, and representative of his research entrusted to the recurring topoi, such as the sun, flags and legends, that mark his highly original imagery. His installations of various formats with a strong verbo-visual component that reflect on the history of humanity, to which Frédéric Bruly Bouabré entrusts his vision of art as a process of universal knowledge, will be presented for the first time in Palermo. Also on display will be a tribute, dated 1994, by Frédéric Bruly Bouabré to Alighero Boetti."

On the occasion of the exhibition Frédéric Bruly Bouabré | Cosmogonie will be presented the catalog of the same name published by Unipa Press, with contributions by Maddalena De Luca, Michele Cometa, Cristina Costanzo, Emmanuelle Spiesse, Giulia Campanella, and photographs by Iole Carollo.

For all information, you can visit the official website of the Palermo Regional Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art.

In Palermo exhibition of Frédéric Bruly Bouabré, one of the fathers of contemporary African art

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