Contemporary African art has a new exhibition space in Paris. Having first worked at the auction house Piasa, then Artcurial, Christophe Person has just opened his gallery in the heart of the fashionable Marais district, at 39 Rue des Blancs-Manteaux, in the fourth arrondissement.
The gallery comprises some 100 square meters to “show the work of artists from the [African] continent who deal with topics related to identity, gender, the environment, migration of people and goods, North-South relations… I want to value these talents who create works that are particularly relevant in the current context,” said the gallery owner.
‘Exploring the intimate’
Thanks in particular to the financial support of Jean Claude Gandur, art collector and Swiss patron, Mr. Person was able to realize this project that he has been nurturing for a decade, when he left the world of finance to train at Christie’s, in London. The 2015 Venice Biennale, the first international 1-54 fairs dedicated to contemporary African art in the British capital, the dynamics linked to the installation of new international galleries in Paris, and the increasing visibility given to artists from the continent encouraged him to launch this project.
For this first exhibition entitled “Explorer l’Intime,” (“Exploring the Intimate”) two young Cameroonian artists were chosen after a prospecting trip to the country made by Mr. Person in July: Manga Lulu Williams and Wilfried Mbida. The first, born in 1994, lives in Cameroon’s southwest region, one of the two English-speaking areas in latent war with Yaoundé since 2017. The second, born in 1990, is based in Douala, the country’s economic capital.
Mr. Williams followed a classical academic training for three years at the Institute of Fine Arts in Foumban (western region), a city considered by Cameroonians as the site of arts, from which he graduated in 2018. He studied photography, psychology, anthropology and art history.
As a result of the conflict, he was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, as many people in the area also were: “I was devastated by the events, to see how people were falling apart because of the grief caused by the arrest or death of their loved ones.” He then committed to reaching out to them and wished through his art to “become the voice of those who are breathless.”
His paintings very often represent a central character, frontal and outside. The artist wishes to show “the resilience of certain communities. Despite the torture, many people have decided to stay put.” In the painting All Eyes on Us, the character wears a black down jacket, a color that could cost him his life because of its ban establised by separatists: “We lived through a period where the simple fact of wearing this or that color indicated who we were and could mean the end of an individual’s life.”
The metaphor of a preserved garden
Ms. Mbida offers a more peaceful pictorial narrative. A graduate of the Institute of Fine Arts in Nkongsamba, some 150 km north of Douala, she then obtained a master’s degree in fine arts, with a concentration in painting. She developed a keen sense of detail and perspective. Sensitive to the Essani funeral rite of the Beti people, where her father comes from, the artist wonders: “When the rite ends, what does the home of the deceased look like after his departure for the afterlife? What is the feeling of these people who have lost a loved one?”
Inspired in particular by the works of Danish artist Vilhelm Hammershoi and American painter Edward Hopper, Ms. Mbida wishes to emphasize the calm, silence and serenity of interior spaces. Very attached to her family and friends, she has a benevolent view of the society around her.
Obsessed with the notion of authenticity, she works from scenes that she photographs herself, “to capture the angles that touch my sensitivity. I need to freeze these moments where people are simply in their daily lives, in their life stories.” For Ms. Mbida, the home is a metaphor of the heart, of a preserved garden, with a few touches of color on a soft and peaceful backdrop.
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These two visual artists and their different artistic practices have touched Mr. Person, who wishes to “exhibit artists from the continent who have the ability to bring relevant points of view on the state of the world, because many of them split their lives between Africa and the West. I want to showcase creative work, regardless of trends and fads. I will present art that disturbs, that can carry a message that does not necessarily suit us, and hope to show works that can transform our way of perceiving the world.”
“Explorer l’Intime,” by Manga Lulu Williams and Wilfried Mbida, at the Christophe Person gallery, 39 Rue des Blancs-Manteaux, 75004 Paris. Until January 7, 2023, Wednesday through Saturday, from 2:00 to 7:00 pm.
