Ivory Coast 2024
Africans deported to the Americas and elsewhere transformed their despair into an act of absolute resilience: the blue note.
Title: The Blue Note
Commissioner: Illa G. Donwahi
Curator: Simon Njami
Artists: Franck Abd-Bakar Fanny, Jems Koko Bi, François-Xavier Gbré, Sadikou Oukpedjo, Marie-Claire Messouma Malambien
The exhibition recounts the nation’s journey post-independence, rooted in a deep commitment to pan-African ideals and the belief that a national flag should not be locked into a fixed identity but around a common language.
In Venice, the common language is art and each group or individual adapts it through idiomatic forms which are not always easy to translate, but which can be understood in these singularities. This is the language that artistic creation seeks to capture in its attempt to express the unspeakable.
Africans deported to the Americas and elsewhere transformed their despair and the loss of the “mother tongue” into an act of absolute resilience: the blue note, which allowed them to express this particular color that was missing from the Western system.
OPENING TIMES:
ADDRESS
San Trovaso Art Space, Dorsoduro, 947, Venice, Metropolitan City of Venice, Italy
