From Water to Art with Barthélémy Toguo
Unprecedented and masterful works…
Barthélémy Toguo presents his new exhibition “Water is right” at the Lelong & Co gallery in Paris until 7 October 2023. The works were created during an artist residency at the Picasso Museum in Barcelona. He invites us to immerse ourselves in a world where fish and birds coexist, amidst paintings, sculptures, amphorae and ceramics.
From Water to Art with Barthélémy Toguo
Unprecedented and masterful works…
Barthélémy Toguo presents his new exhibition “Water is right” at the Lelong & Co gallery in Paris until 7 October 2023. The works were created during an artist residency at the Picasso Museum in Barcelona. He invites us to immerse ourselves in a world where fish and birds coexist, amidst paintings, sculptures, amphorae and ceramics.
It all began with a childhood memory. I recalled my daily routine, when I would get up very early in the morning to fetch water from far away, to drink and wash the dishes at home, back in Cameroon, before going to school. I also thought of the multicoloured pots and buckets in which I carried the precious liquid. Since I’ve been living in France, these images come back to me regularly. It is these hardships that have led me to appreciate the importance of water in our lives even more.
The installation I created in 2015 at the invitation of Peter Gabriel at Charlton Park in England, for the World of Music Arts and Dance (WOMAD), speaks to this past: I gathered dozens of buckets in various colours, suspended from pillars, which were intended to hold water to grow geraniums. For my exhibition at the Musée du Quai Branly, I created the work ‘Water Matters’. I displayed bottles from all over the world and a painted figure who receives them and then offers them in return. A symbolic way of distributing this resource to everyone.
In recognising the scale of the current problem of drinking water shortages in many parts of Africa and the world, I decided to transform the exhibition space into an aquatic environment. I love the shape of fish and invent imaginary ones. It is whilst thinking of the sea that I often draw the blue dotted lines in my works. I then imagine rains and oceans transforming a scene or landscape into a marine world. I am awestruck by the fluidity of water, which represents a gentle, non-violent world; its colour is undeniably beautiful. These depths also harbour their dangers, but it is clear that this substance offers greater visual gentleness than a rock. The same applies to the sense of touch. The dream of falling into water rather than onto a rock evokes a greater sense of serenity. (@galerie Lelong & Co).
An internationally renowned contemporary Cameroonian artist….
Born in 1967 in Mbalmayo, Cameroon, his multidisciplinary work—painting, drawing, performance, installation, sculpture and video—has garnered enormous interest in recent years. He began his artistic training in the Ivory Coast at the École des Beaux-Arts in Abidjan, then in France, where he decided to deepen his knowledge of sculpture. He continued his studies at the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf, where he diversified his means of expression. He thus expresses himself through various media and is today regarded as a master of watercolour painting. A socially engaged artist,
Barthélémy Toguo tackles themes such as identity, civic and political awareness, migration, exile, social inequalities and the environment. Deeply concerned about the place of art in Africa, in 1999 he founded the Institute of Visual Arts in Bandjoun, north of Douala, which became Cameroon’s first arts organisation. This foundation, inaugurated in 2013, hosts artist residencies and welcomes artists and researchers from around the world. In 2004, Barthélémy Toguo’s work was recognised through the solo exhibition *The Sick Opera* at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris.
This was followed by other major exhibitions such as “Global Resistance” at the Centre Georges Pompidou in 2020 and, in 2021, at the Musée du Quai Branly as part of the exhibition “Désir d’humanité”. He also had the privilege of presenting a monumental temporary installation beneath the pyramid of the Louvre Museum in 2022. Some of his works can be found in the collections of private and public institutions in Europe and the United States.