In this summer exhibit, the LouiSimone Guirandou Gallery brings together two young Ivorian artists: Obou and Obodjé.
Both studied at the Collège Moderne du Plateau, in Abidjan (Côte d’Ivoire). Obou continued his studies at INSAAC, where he earned his diploma under the direction of Pascal Konan. For his part, while pursuing an accounting degree, Obodjé worked independently to develop his own artistic style.
These artists join together here to share their own personal visions of the world and of the city in which they live: Abidjan. Both, each in their own way, were marked by the post-electoral crisis of 2011. Obou remained in Abidjan, first in his neighborhood, Locodjiro-Jerusalem, and then in Niangon, where he experienced insecurity and immersed himself in the day-to-day of the overcrowded city. Obodjé, on the other hand, sought refuge in his native village, an extended stay that, as a result of those he met and all he experienced there, developed into a sort of initiation.
For this exhibit, Obou gives voice to the density of the crowds, of the saturated built-environment and the urban congestion so evocative of our continent’s metropolises. In an amazing symmetry, Obodjé invites us to enter the forest, equally dense and saturated by the presence of the many spirits he evokes. City and forest respond to each other in this swirling opacity, where urban center and forest become dance, and density, life.
Amédé Mulin
