Koyo Kouoh, one of many main figures of the artwork world and a fierce supporter of African creatives, died on the age of 57.
A Camerochi curator, Kouoh had been on the peak of his profession.
He ought to have change into the primary African girl to guide the Venice Biennale of subsequent yr, probably the most prestigious up to date artwork occasions on the earth, and led one of many best up to date artwork museums in Africa.
The reason behind Kouoh’s sudden dying has not but been public. The curator died in Switzerland, in response to reviews.
The South African artist Candice Breitz described Kouoh as “magnificently clever, infinitely energetic and formidably elegant”.
Otobong Nkanga, a Nigerian visible artist, outlined the deceased curator a supply of warmth, generosity and brilliance “.
Even the Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni spoke of Kouoh’s impression, saying that his disappearance “leaves a void on the earth of latest artwork”.
Kouoh’s colourful life started in 1967, when she was born in Cameroon, a Central African nation with a wealthy creative heritage.
He grew up within the largest metropolis within the nation, Douala, earlier than shifting to Switzerland on the age of 13.
There, he studied firm and banking administration however, in a basic second, he selected to not pursue finance as a profession.
“I’m mainly disinterested in revenue,” he defined in an interview of 2023 with the New York Times.
Rather than constructing on his diploma, Kouoh assisted migrant ladies as a social employee and commenced to immerse themselves within the artwork world.
In 2021, Kouoh was invited by French President Emmanuel Macron to a convention on the return of African artifacts (AFP/Getty Images)
He gave delivery to his son in Switzerland within the 90s, an expertise that he described how “deeply transformative”. He would proceed to undertake three different youngsters.
Tired of life within the Swiss metropolis of Zurich, Kouoh returned to Africa in 1996.
He labored as a curator within the Senegalese capital Dakar, earlier than founding the corporate of uncooked supplies, a big unbiased creative hub.
Just final week and 6 years in his position as director of the Zeitz up to date artwork museum in South Africa, Kouoh mirrored on his love for Dakar.
“Dakar did me what I’m as we speak,” he mentioned to Financial times.
“It is the place the place I turned an grownup professionally, the place I actually turned a curator and a producer of exhibitions … Now I’m in Cape Town however, mentally, I reside in Dakar. It is the one place for me.”
When Kouoh took the very best work in Zeitz, the biggest up to date artwork museum in Africa, the establishment was in disaster.
The founding director Mark Coetzee had been suspended in 2018 following personnel indignant accusations and subsequently resigned.
Kouoh has been extensively credited to having reworked the fortunes of Zeitz, guiding him by way of the scandal, in addition to the Covidic pandemic.
“For me, it has change into an obligation to save lots of this establishment,” he mentioned The world of art: what happens if …?! podcast.
“I used to be satisfied that Zeitz’s failure, if he had failed, would have been the failure of all of us African artwork professionals on the sector, one way or the other not directly.”
Kouoh took the helm of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in 2019 (AFP/Getty Images)
As director and curator of Zeitz, Kouoh supervised a collection of acclaimed exhibitions, even after we see one another: a century of black figuration in portray. The present, which brings collectively works by black artists of the final century, is presently on show in Brussels.
In a press release that introduced Kouoh’s “sudden” dying, Zeitz expressed his “deep ache” and mentioned that, out of respect, the museum would have been closed “as much as additional discover”.
In his interview with the Financial Times final week, Kouoh challenged the concept dying would finish his efforts.
“I imagine in life after dying, as a result of I come from a ancestral black schooling through which we imagine in life and in parallel realities,” he mentioned.
“There is not any” after dying “,” earlier than dying “or” throughout life “. It would not matter a lot. I imagine within the energies – residing or dying – and in cosmic drive.”
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(Getty Images/BBC)
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