Venetian Biennale in Black
One of the most respected African curators, born in Cameroon Koyo kouohthe first African, invited to lead the Venice Biennial of Venice in the coming year, one of the world’s most prestigious events of contemporary art, died suddenly. She said goodbye to the age of 58 in Switzerland, and recently she is expected to diagnose cancer.
The Venetian Biennale announced that they were deeply offended and shocked, adding that with passion, intellectual accuracy and vision, it devoted herself to the design and development of the 61. Art Biennial. The board of directors of the Biennial appointed her as a curator last December. The presentation of the future title and topic was planned 20 in May in Venice. The upcoming artistic biennial will be between April and November 2026.
She was born in the Central African country with a rich artistic heritage. She grew up in the largest city in the country, Doual before moving to Switzerland at 13. She studied business administration and banking there, but at a crucial moment she decided not to be interested in her, began to help migrants as a social worker and began to dive into the art world. In 1996, she returned to Africa. She worked as a curator in the Senegalese capital Dakar, and founded RAW Material Company, an expansively independent artistic center. It was a place where she grew up professionally, where she really became curator and organizer of exhibitions.
Since 2019, she has been the Executive Director and the main curators of the Zeitz Contemporary Art Museum (Mocaa) in Cape Town, South Africa. The institution was in crisis, and her duty became to save her. « If the project collapsed, it would be somehow indirect failure of all of us African art experts in this field, » she said.
As a director and curator, she organized a number of renowned exhibitions, including When We See US: A Century of Black Figuration and Painting. The exhibition, which brings together works of black artists from the last century, is currently on display in Brussels.
