On the occasion of Paris Art Week, Galerie Cécile Fakhoury will be devoting a solo exhibition to Senegalese artist Cheikh Ndiaye in its parisian space.
An established figure on the African and international scene, his paintings and installations are constructed through visual interpretations of anthropology and architecture, and recount the social and cultural history of West African cities. Currently presented as part of the Busan Biennale, his work has been exhibited at the Venice, Havana and Dakar Biennales, as well as at the Maréchalerie (Versailles) and the Prada Foundation in Milan.
In the post-colonial cities of West Africa, cinemas were among the first buildings to be transformed and reappropriated for a variety of purposes, becoming places of worship, supermarkets or garages. Cheikh Ndiaye has seized on this object-witness to tell the story of West African societies and question their complexity.
The modernist facades of cinemas painted by Cheikh Ndiaye punctuate the urban geography of the world, even outside major urban centers. Beyond this physical geography, the luminous, nostalgic signs superimpose another geography, that of the immense evocative power of cinema (Eldorado, Nova York, Ritz). It is this sensitive history, the construction of imaginations and memories, that the artist recounts.
The exhibition also features works inspired by the work of Senegalese and African filmmakers such as Djibril Diop Mambety and Ousmane Sembène, and Western filmmakers such as the Nouvelle Vague. By making direct references to the history of cinema and the great figures who have shaped it, Cheikh Ndiaye instills in his works the possibility of apprehending the complexity of our history, in works like memory capsules - Memory Devices.
