Soro Kafana

Soro Kafana's favourite material is wood, with which he discusses and communicates. If his work can sometimes seem like a struggle, an ordeal, nothing is imposed on wood. Soro Kafana negotiates with the material, consults with it, its forms and the experience it carries. By confronting the wood he gets from a tree, he confronts himself, the otherness that exists within him, thus questioning his identity, between ancestral African traditions and cultures from elsewhere. In Soro Kafana's work, the presence of the double is not disturbing. Rather, it takes the form of a suggestion for introspection, a humble recognition of the eternal evolution of things, a humility that the artist learns every day in contact with the trees, the great sages of the forest. ...

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. ...