Assoukrou Aké

Assoukrou Aké is a multidisciplinary artist, who freely explores different plastic forms ranging from installation to sculpture, including engraving and textile works, to develop what he calls 'a healing story'. By confronting his personal history with 'the big story', Assoukrou is interested in what binds them together, attempting to take an empathetic and distanced look at the shadowy aspects of collective history, in order to overcome the singularities of each person to reach a mixed critical space where the fragments of individual lives could make sense again and create new solidarities. Assoukrou Aké's universe is made up of multiple references, interweaving African mythology and iconography from the Age of Enlightenment, sacred allegories, classic European literature, secular rites and press photography. It often embodies a tragic dimension, establishes an atmosphere of grandeur and evokes epics, great adventures, conquests – or their failure. Through the plastic repetition of traditional or classic forms and the subversion of contexts and hierarchies of material, Assoukrou Aké ultimately composes an art of translation, of transposition, in order to be able to confront the mutations of violence and invent a new common language, discoverer of the world and the answers that are intrinsic to it. ...

Galerie Cecile Fakhoury opened its doors in Abidjan, Ivory Coast in September 2012. In May 2018, the gallery inaugurated its second space in Dakar, Senegal and a showroom in Paris, France. Shortly after, in March 2020, a new project space dedicated to emerging artists from Africa opened in Abidjan. In October 2021, Galerie Cecile Fakhoury inaugurated another gallery, opening in the 8th arrondissement of Paris on Avenue Matignon. The gallery promotes contemporary art from Africa and the Diaspora by providing visibility to the artistic diversity and creative spirit from the continent. Through its programming of solo and group exhibitions, participation in international art fairs, biennales, and collaboration with international galleries, Cecile Fakhoury is a leading force putting contemporary African art on the global map. The artists represented by the gallery are distinguished by their cultural identities and stories, they create a new language that crosses geographical boundaries and familiarities. They are observers of the world they live in, critics of society, and committed to their positions living within complex histories. In turn, they ask us to reconsider our own relation to the world. ...