Madame Zo: Bientôt je vous tisse tous

For its inaugural exhibition, Bientôt je tisse tous vous, Fondation H invited curators Bérénice Saliou (Director, Documents d’Artistes La Réunion) and Prof. Dr. Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung (Founder, SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin, and Director, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin) to look at the work of the artist Zoarinivo Razakaratrimo, known as Madame Zo, an icon of the Madagascan art scene (1956 – 2020).

An exceptional weaver, Madame Zo devoted her life to the art of weaving, an ancestral tradition that is still very much alive in Madagascar, where the lamba, a fabric of wild silk or cotton, accompanies every moment of life, from birth to death. From this usual and spiritual object, Madame Zo has drawn the very essence, first through design and fashion objects, at a time when her workshop was one of the most active in Africa, along with that of Aïssa Dione in Senegal, then by transcending the rules of this highly codified art. Complexifying her technique to the extreme and freeing herself from the limits imposed by the fabric or the format, she developed her own artistic language.

Madame Zo’s weavings are of unusual shapes and sizes, thanks to the looms she made herself. They integrate several hundred different materials such as newsprint, magnetic tapes, electronic components, copper, bones, medicinal plants, industrial foam, rubber, wood shavings or perishable foodstuffs… They form an important body of abstract works whose meshes enclose significant details and language games that can be deciphered like an enigma revealing a vision of Madagascan society and a poetic and committed reading of the world.

The monographic exhibition Bientôt je tisse tous vous gathers about a hundred works, fruits of two decades of creation. They occupy 900m2 of exhibition space at the Fondation H in a lively, sculptural and organic dialogue, highlighting the major themes of Madame Zo’s work. From “oraliture” to “cinétiss”, the threads carry messages and evoke memories. Bientôt je tisse tous, in the words of the artist, holds the promise of infinite experimentation.