Museum director Koyo Kouoh forefronts care and Pan-African ideals at Zeitz MOCAA.
Sungi Mlengeya, Constant 3, (2019), acrylic on canvas PHOTO BY DILLON MARSH. COURTESY OF AFRIART GALLERY AND ZEITZ MOCAA
Koyo Kouoh’s life’s work has been to forefront contemporary from Africa and its diaspora. The founder of the renowned nonprofit Raw Material Company Dakar, Senegal, Kouoh took the role of executive director and chief curator of Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA) in Cape Town in 2019. Voted within ArtReviews’ most influential global art professionals, Kouoh’s vision is bolstered in the United States by the museum’s American Friends program, which has support from renowned filmmakers Liesl Tommy and Roger Ross Williams, Miami philanthropist Sarah Arison and Jorge and Darlene Peréz, among others. Capitalizing on this fervor, Locust Projects and Oolite Arts bring Kouoh’s unique voice to their renowned curatorial seminar series on April 3. Miami magazine speaks to Koyo about her ideals and global ambitions.
What do you mean when you say America is a State of Africa?
Considering the incredibly profound and sustained influence of African culture in American society, stemming from the history we all know, I believe that all black people are connected through the wealth of African influence as well as through the plight of anti-black racism. My practice is inspired by my belief in the importance of Pan-African ideals that understandably have evolved in today’s contemporary societies where Blackness plays a defining role. It is from that perspective that I look at Afro-diasporic countries where the legacy of the transatlantic slave trade has left an indelible mark. I am, of course, cognizant of the multiplicity and plurality of each context—and don’t want to dilute cultural, regional and historical specificities of Blackness.
Installation view, ‘When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Painting’, (2022), Zeitz MOCAA PHOTO BY DILLON MARSH, COURTESY OF ZEITZ MOCAA
Can you explain your “philosophy of care”?
As an exhibition maker, one is invested in storytelling and cares for artists and artworks as well as for audiences. My initial curatorial practice has been predominantly inspired and driven by process-based conceptualism and communal practices that recall the negro-African notion of total art. It is an understanding of artistic expression interplaying with daily life, where practice oscillates between making work and providing room to enable social and political connections for the public that is generative. Examples include late Senegalese artist Issa Samb and Filipino artist Kidlat Tahimik, and closer to the U.S., Joe Minter, Alfredo Jaar, Linda Goode-Bryant and recently departed William Pope L.
Installation view, ‘When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Painting’, (2022), Zeitz MOCAA PHOTO BY DILLON MARSH, COURTESY OF ZEITZ MOCAA
Zeitz MOCAA is growing rapidly. What are you looking forward to this year?
Our traveling exhibitions are a manifestion of the institutional consideration and credibility that Zeitz MOCAA has grown over the past few years. Our retrospective of the work of South African artist Tracey Rose traveled to Queens Museum in New York in 2023 and opened at Kunstmuseum Bern on February 22. Our landmark exhibition, “When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Painting,” opens at Kunstmuseum Basel on May 24 and will travel to BOZAR in Brussels and Konsthal Liljewachs in Stockholm in 2025. This is an unprecedented achievement for a museum that is still very young.
Photography by: Photos Courtesy: Zeitz MOCAA
