"Afrotropes, des imaginaires en mouvement" questions the history of IFAN Cheikh Anta Diop's Théodore Monod Museum of African Art, establishing a dialogue with the visual and filmic works of the artists featured in the exhibition. Engaging with Huey Copeland and Krista Thompson's notion of the Afrotrope, defined as the forms and images that have emerged within Afro-diasporic cultures and identities, we look at the circulation, reconfiguration and reminiscence of artistic and cultural practices within the Black Atlantic. We are also continuing the reflection begun with the exhibition Un.e Air.e de Famille, presented at the Musée d'art et d'histoire Paul Eluard in Saint-Denis, France, as part of the Africa2020 Season, on the aesthetic and cultural crystallizations that took place in the twentieth century through the European avant-garde's view of African art and culture, and which, in many respects, permanently fixed the Western view of what is known as "African art".
The history of the Musée Théodore Monod d'art africain and its collections - of objects and documents - form the starting point for the exhibition, whose ambition is both to reveal the violence constitutive of the "museumization of African cultures" and to reverse the double dialectical movement of colonial violence and the appropriation of objects.
In the present time, it's a question of composing a past and future history, the commonality of a family history, which on both sides of the Black Atlantic, from Africa to Europe, via the Americas and the Caribbean, takes shape in the history of the museum, the circulation of objects, images, as in the works and films that are presented in the exhibition.
With the artists:
Eliane Aïsso (Benin)
les soeurs Chevalme (France)
Caroline Déodat (Mauritius/France)
Adji Dieye (Italy/Senegal)
Elise Fitte-Duval (Guadeloupe)
Katia Kameli (France/Algeria)
Marie-Claire Messouma Manlanbien (Ivory Coast/France/Guadeloupe)
Josèfa Ntjam (France/Cameroon)
Owanto
Thania Petersen (South Africa)
Tribute to Théodore Dakpogan (Benin)
Film program with films by Mathieu Abonnenc, Moustapha Alassane, Alain Gomis, Nora Philippe, Alain Kassanda, Aboubacar Samb Makhram, Nii Kwate Owoo, Paulin Soumanou Vieyra, etc.
The journal accompanying the exhibition includes texts by Emmanuelle Cadet and Issa Dia (Alter Native association), Jesse Mc Carthy (Harvard University), Nadia Yala Kisukidi (Université Paris 8), Farah Clémentine Dramani-Issifou & El Hadji Malick Ndiaye (exhibition curators).
Cultural programming in collaboration with the Fédération des ciné-clubs du Sénégal, the Centre Yennenga and KIMPAVITA.
