Roméo Mivekannin

The artist Roméo Mivekannin draws his inspiration from photographic archives and iconic paintings emblematic of the history of Western art. From Jean-Léon Gérôme's Vente d'esclave (1873) to Gustave Manet's Olympia (1863) and the first photographic portraits of the colonial monarchies of the second half of the 19th century, Roméo Mivekannin focuses particularly on the ambiguous representations of black figures, sources of both fascination and fear, sometimes anonymised, eroticized or objectified and intended for the almost exclusive eye of a male and Euro-centred viewer. The artist's works, black acrylic paintings on canvases tinted by repeated elixir baths, are thus the place to question a marked iconography inherited from the systems of human trafficking and domination that slavery and colonization were. Drawing a continuous direct line between past and contemporary history, the artist chooses to take up the facts of these historical representations and subvert their primary narrative in order to construct, somewhat ironically, his own vision of common narratives. ...

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. ...