Chimeras

In 2016, the Fondation Blachère exhibited its collection of contemporary sculptures from Africa at the Palais des Papes, Petit Palais, Musée Calvet and Musée Lapidaire, a major first for our corporate foundation and the start of a dialogue between Avignon town hall and today's African visual arts. The aim of these exchanges: to learn about contemporary art being made on the other side of the Mediterranean, and to attract a new audience through the geography of the works. Every year, our foundation welcomes just over 20,000 visitors. Most of them have been trained by us, because the works that come to us from Africa are beautiful, intelligent and sensitive.

This year we will be presenting two works in the Cordeliers chapel: Rusty world and Chimère.

Over the last few decades, Fally Sene Sow has observed and witnessed the rapid, disproportionate growth of his city, the daughter of the madness of modern man in his uncontrolled and uncontrollable desires. The Rusty World depicts the tipping of a world towards a chaotic megalopolis that has brought about its downfall.

Chimère is a sculpture made of sun-scorched sheet metal representing two irreconcilable animals, a hyena "Bouki" riding a vulture in full flight. The representation of bestiary is a recurrent theme in the work of Mauritanian artist Oumar Ball. In the course of a discussion, he draws on his memories to tell you about his childhood spent in the Fouta Toro region on the banks of the Senegal River, and evokes with tenderness and infinite modesty his grandmother who lulled him with initiatory Fulani tales.

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