ART FAIR - ART X LAGOS
4 - 6 November 2022
The Federal Palace
Lagos, Nigeria
We are pleased to announce our first participation at seventh edition of the ART X LAGOS Contemporary Art Fair held at the Federal Palace. On this occasion, we will be presenting a solo booth by senegalese artist Alioune Diouf.
Born in 1964 in Dakar, Senegalese artist Alioune Diouf comes from a family of Serer origin. He received a traditional Koranic education while his artistic education was done in the open air, by directly observing the world around him and in contact with a large community of artists. In 1989, he met the painter, sculptor and poet Issa Samb (alias Joe Oukam), an emblematic figure of the Senegalese art world, who invited him to join the famous courtyard of 17 Jules Ferry. He became a member of Laboratoire Agit'Art, one of the first and most important artists' collectives founded in 1973 by Youssouf John, whose key members were Issa Samb, Youssoupha Dione, Djibril Diop Mambéty and El Hadji Sy.
In 2017 Alioune Diouf initiated a series of small format textile works while still residing in the famous courtyard of the Laboratoire Agit’ Art - one of the most important and historical artist collective of Africa in the postindependence era. These figurative works with vivid and earthly monochrome backgrounds feature human or zoomorphic figures, animals or plants embroidered with scraps of fabric, collected by the artist, to which he added natural pigments and acrylic paint throughout the last years. Embroidery, present in many of Alioune Diouf's works, is an art that occupies a primordial place in Senegal and thus evoke a reference to traditional West African clothing. Alioune Diouf's characters are represented standing most often, and almost always in profile, as if they were straight out of an ancient Egyptian work. The titles are simple and descriptive (the architect, the sailor) or anchored in the Senegalese universe with numerous references to Islam, presenting themselves as illustrations of daily life (the baye fall, the Saint-Louisienne). While some have a more universal scope: freedom, energy, sharing, and resonate as allegories in reference to the Serer philosophy of unity and coherence.
