«Damned if they leave and damned if they stay: better, at least, to have gone, and be doomed in the boat of their dreams»
For documenta 12, Hazoumé has installed a new art work: Dream (2007), a boat which is made of black oil cans is just in front of a picture showing an idyllic beach. But the people are forced to leave their homeland. They flee to where everything is supposedly better. But Hazoumé wishes to stay. The oil cans represent the passengers who travel in such boats. Even individual signatures are legible. Here Hazoumé stakes a claim to universal validity, no matter how corrupt African countries may be.
Currently showing at documenta 12 in Kassel, Germany, Romuald Hazoumé is one of Africa's leading visual artists. He has worked with many media throughout his career, from discarded petrol canisters, oil paint and canvas, to large-scale installation, video and photography.
Romuald Hazoumé was born in 1962 in Porto Novo, Republic of Benin, and now lives in Cotonou and works in Porto Novo. His work has won widespread critical acclaim, and he has recently exhibited his major installation "La Bouche du Roi, a re-creation of a slave ship made from petrol canisters, in solo shows at the British Museum, London, the Menil Collection, Houston, the Musée Quai Branly, Paris, and participated in the exhibitions "100% Afrique" at the Guggenheim Bilbao and in "Uncomfortable Truths", an exhibitions which addresses the ways in which the legacy of slavery informs contemporary art and design, at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London
©Photo: Haupt&Binder
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