In this new series created for Art Basel Paris, Carl- Edouard Keïta continues his exploration of the visual, cultural, and popular archives of Côte d’Ivoire. He is particularly interested in the works of Ivorian and African filmmakers such as Timité Bassori and Désiré Ecaré, whose films constitute invaluable archives of gestures, bodies, clothing, interiors, and the social transformations of post-independence Africa. Drawing on these images, as well as on motifs from popular culture, Carl-Edouard Keïta develops a personal pictorial language that he places in dialogue with the histories of Cubism and Dadaism.
As in cinema, his paintings employ framing, fragmentation, and montage: they bring together different temporalities and references within a single composition, exploring the circulation of forms, the construction of narratives, and the
ways in which collective memory continues to shape the present.
Operating between Abidjan, Dakar and Paris, Galerie Cécile Fakhoury has developed a program rooted in the African continent while placing the practices of its artists within broader, transnational histories of modern and contemporary art. Through exhibitions, research, publications and long-term support of its artists, the gallery seeks to foreground artistic narratives that complicate established art-historical canons and challenge fixed geographical categories. The presentation of Carl-Edouard Keïta at Art Basel Paris reflects this approach, bringing Ivorian visual histories into conversation with the multiple circulations and exchanges that have shaped twentieth-century modernism and continue to inform contemporary practice.
