Ange-Frédéric Koffi: Territoire des perceptions, Sérénade des formes

Galerie Cécile Fakhoury presents the first solo exhibition of Ange-Frédéric Koffi in Abidjan entitled Territoire des perceptions, Sérénade des formes, from January 26 to March 31, 2023.

Between image and object, the research of the Ivorian visual artist Ange-Frédéric Koffi builds an intimate and poetic geography that seeks to capture the state of grace of the journey. Moments of pause in a continuous displacement, his works have a temporality both furtive and meditative. Somewhere between the Ivory Coast, Senegal and Niger, the works in the exhibition capture what could have been only a reflection, a movement, a promise.

In this first solo exhibition in Abidjan, a print can be suspended, unrolled, or jerked as feelings or memories sometimes are. By giving his photographs these extra characters that take them to the border of disciplines, Ange-Frédéric Koffi tells with sweetness and melancholy his experience of the West African territory and the construction of its history.

The exhibition space becomes a living space, like a house, a wallpapered interior where memories are transformed into objects: bedroom, screen, curtains. The photographs unfold in constellation on the walls in a variety of formats, they weave a web of images and temporalities where the human figure passes at the wheel of a car, a motorcycle, as if they appeared at the window. Often they were taken from the passenger’s seat.

Born in Korhogo, having lived part of his childhood on the African continent, in Asia and in Europe, he graduated from the Cantonal School of Art in Lausanne.

One cannot help but look at Ange-Frederic Koffi’s work in the light of a certain Ivorian school of photography in which the relationship to urban space and architecture is essential. But, shaped by his cross-border background, he draws on international references such as the particular connection to the French artist Marc-Camille Chaimovicz with whom he shares the desire to blur the lines: between art and design, between image and textile, or this way of mixing the intimate with a global vision whether political or social.

cecilefakhoury.com