Ange-Frédéric Koffi: the process, the meaning and the movement
Entitled Territoire des perceptions- Sérénade des formes, Ange-Frédé- ric Koffi’s first solo exhibition at Cécile Fakhoury Gallery - Abidjan is a crossroads or an opening angle to better choose their own path towards the horizon whose depth cannot be predicted. It could be seen as a synthe- sis of the artist’s work since 2015 and a prelude to his future exhibitions. The search for the right path to the right place to live never leaves the artist’s gaze, who has no desire to get lost in a world without a compass.
About forty photographs, a series of silkscreen prints and a few objects make up the exhibition. But one wonders where the inside is and where the outside is. Where does one cross the threshold of the exhibition room? Where to cross the border? The space seems continuous. The off is part of the in, so much so that what could be considered a threshold is also an element of the arrangement.
Some of the titles offered are in Dioula, a language commonly spoken in Côte d’Ivoire.
Sira Ban Yôrô (Where the road ends). When the road ends in a dead end, nature is always present and the tree watches over the land on both sides. Water connects and separates a world that could have been uneventful. In reality, such a world, without cracks, without wounds, does not exist, since every world is first and foremost a story and a multiplicity of stories, and therefore a receptacle for the unexpected. Humans come up against dead ends. The sky covers the horizon to better separate the distant, unreachable space.
Kabakrou 2 (The Stone). Here, the liquid element extends horizontally as far as the eye can see. But where does this unexpected rock come from, posed like a work of art or an insoluble problem in the middle of a body of water that does not resemble it? Nature is astonishing and questioning, even when recomposed by an artist’s eye. However, doesn’t this photo tell, in its own way, the story of the world’s egg, the source of all life, in many cultures? Both arid and peaceful, the stone egg is bathed in a liquid that nourishes it at every moment.
Yiri Yéleenman (The Luminous Tree). This photo seems to be emblematic of this work which composes and recomposes from lived experiences to better sketch out artistic proposals to narrate who we are. What stories, small or large, inhabit us? What experiences do we all share, in the interval between life and death? The photographer tells me a beautiful story about this photo. At the moment when, distressed by the idea of losing his grandfather and aware of the fragility of everything, this tree lit by artificial light appeared to him, in the middle of the city, between cars and buildings, as the symbol of life that resists.
Thus, this artistic quest beckons us at every step, so that we do not lose the Ariadne’s thread, that of time, even if the planned journey may end in a dead end, as in a labyrinth, as near the sea, the dead end that migrants know so well.
But the thread, in another sense, as a weaving material, makes it possible to create the fabric of the world, in which every artist dreams of finding his place. Because the world is first and foremost a weaving, an interweaving of various threads, there can be no art without tirelessly reworking this fabric - both symbolic and real - recreated in words, in tangible, audible, visible materials, and in colors. The artist looks for threads with the right tone or color, for a new connection with another thread to build his world and find his way in it. But each thread is surrounded by its strengths and weaknesses, by its positive or negative energies that must be recognized. Thus, to photograph is first of all to spot not what has already been seen, but rather what could give meaning to the unexpected.
Attentive to the details of things and beings, Ange-Frédéric Koffi captures positive energies. He perceives the obstacles in this world where we fall, adrift on a hopeless ground. In the photo entitled Azimut, the reddish earth is gradually becoming bare, visible under a few trees that still resist the violence of the weather and the impact of human activities. Green vegetation for who knows how long, on an arid ground that stretches to the unreachable horizon that guides every walk.
However, all hope is not lost. A dead leaf has not yet said its last word before it disap- pears. In fact, it does not die. It metamorphoses and takes on another appearance. Other adventures await it. Even stranded in the middle of the city, at the mercy of all the winds, after losing its characteristic green color, it still has the energy to turn a luminous yellow to give it a final beauty.
The photographer proposes points of encounter between earth, stone, water, and sky or between tree and light while composing his motifs - city, house, nature - like pieces of music, to signal to humans who cohabit with all living things. His gaze per- ceives a multiplicity of details that shape his world. He captures fleeting moments. He brings together isolated elements to make a coherent whole. He addresses the living who are willing to share a piece of the road with him...