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Romuald Hazoumé
Exit Ball
We know that the results of the votes by the ballot boxes do not
correspond inevitably to the popular will In Africa or elsewhere.
It happens sometimes that the people share intense moments
provided by planetary events. The Olympic games or the football
World Cup can rub out for a while the hardships of life. It happens
sometimes that one brutally feels the effects of laws that did not exist
before these planetary events…
In 2010, South Africa will host the football World Cup. Africa, as well
as the whole world, is preparing to live incredible moments.
Therefore, it is unlikely that the vote of unpopular laws abducts the
front page from the sport results. But it is not impossible after all
these rejoicings that the people bear the brunt of the ball and feel the
effects of these new laws.
Exit Ball is about that. It is the giant balloon of the next World Cup, it
is our planet, it is also the people illustrated by the tops of cut out
cans that made the reputation of Romuald Hazoumé and it is also this
large ball which could remain through the throat.
Exit Ball talks about the world, its hopes, the solidarity of the people,
but also of overpopulation, political perversity, and the local and
planetary problems.
Exit Ball, it is also the title of his first personal exhibition at aliceday.
Exit Ball will include a choice of eleven original photographs.
The artist took the risk over the last years to follow the conveyors of
Kpayo who cross the border of Nigeria to supply Benin with unnatural
gasoline. Hundreds of liters are conveyed on pirogues, motorbikes,
moped, scooters, bicycles, in cans, these same cans Romuald
Hazoumé appropriates to bring them back to Europe in the form of
masks sublimes. In Exit Ball, they will show the beauty and the dignity
of the African woman. In all circumstances, they are elegant and keep
smiling. “Women are the ones who give balance to the brutality of the
system...” quotes Romuald Hazoumé.
Since the entire exhibition Exit Ball is related to this traffic of fuel
cans, it was necessary that Romuald Hazoumé, in conformity with his
culture, “makes the Fa” (divine geomancy, earmark of Êvé, Fon and
Yoruba, his origin). I remember, in 1994 during his first exhibition at
the Saatchi gallery in London, Romuald Hazoumé had made this
spectacular ceremony in order to obtain the authorization to “ let go
the masks”.
Today, Hazoumé prefers to give room to Orishas (Gods) in another
manner by presenting three symbols, three paintings that authorize
the making of the exhibition Exit Ball.
André Magnin
Exhibition from September 15th to October 24th, 2009.
Tuesday to Saturday from 14:00 to 18:00 and also by appointment.
BIOGRAPHY
Born 1962
Lives & works in Porto Novo (Bénin)
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2009
Made in Porto-Novo, October Gallery, London,UK.
Exit Ball, aliceday, Brussels, Belgium
2008/09
La Bouche du Roi, Horniman Museum, London
2007
La Bouche du Roi, British Museum, London, touring to Ferens Art
Gallery, Hull, Merseyside Maritime Museum, National Museums
Liverpool, Liverpool, Bristol’s City Museum & Art Gallery, Bristol,
Laing Art Gallery, Tyne & Wear Museums, Newcastle, and in 2008/09
to the Horniman Museum, London, UK.
Romuald Hazoumé, Art & Public, Geneva, Switzerland
2006
Romuald Hazoumé: La Bouche du Roi, Musée du Quai Branly, Paris,
France
2005
Romuald Hazoumé, Fondation Zinsou, Cotonou, Republic of Benin
Romuald Hazoumé: La Bouche du Roi, Musée du Quai Branly, Paris,
France
ARTicle 14 - débrouille-toi, toi- même!, October Gallery, London, UK,
touring to the World Museum, Liverpool, UK (2006)
2002
Romuald Hazoumé: La Bouche du Roi, The Menil Collection, Houston,
Texas,USA
Romuald Hazoumé, Centre Culturel Français, Turin, Italy
2001
Romuald Hazoumé, Galerie Olivier Houg, Lyon, France
1999
Romuald Hazoumé: La Bouche du Roi, Centre Culturel Français,
Cotonou, Republic of Benin
Romuald Hazoumé, Galerie Art & Public, Geneva, Switzerland
Romuald Hazoumé, Galerie Gut Gasteil, Prigglitz, Austria
Romuald Hazoumé: Vor-Sicht, Dany Keller Galerie, Munich; travelled
to Museum für Konkrete Kunst, Ingolstadt, Germany; and The
Project, New York, USA
1997
Romuald Hazoumé, Galerie 20 x 2, Arnheim, Netherlands
1996
Romuald Hazoumé, Gelbe Musik Galerie, Berlin, travelled to Dany
Keller
Galerie, Munich and Firma Harlekin Art, Wiesbaden, Germany
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2009
3rd Moscow Biennale for Contemporary Art: Against Exclusion,
Garage Center for Contemporary Culture, Moscow, Russia
Africa Arte Contemporanea, Milan, Italy
PERSONA, Royal Museum for Central Africa, Brussels, Belgium
“Who's betting on the 47?” NKV Nassauischer Kunstverein,
Wiesbaden, Germany
Art Dubai with October Gallery, Dubai, UAE
Joburg Art Fair with October Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2008
U-TURN, Quadriennial for Contemporary Art, Copenhagen, Denmark
Angaza Afrika – African Art Now, October Gallery, London
Art Dubai with October Gallery, Dubai, UAE
Joburg Art Fair with October Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2007
documenta 12, Kassel, Germany Prix Arnold Bode
UN/FAIR TRADE, Neue Galerie, Graz, Austria
Uncomfortable Truths – the shadow of slave trading on contemporary
art & design, Victoria and Albert Museum, London; touring to Salford
Museum and Art Gallery, Salford, and Ferens Art Gallery, Hull, UK
From Courage to Freedom, October Gallery, London, UK
2006/07
100% Africa, Guggenheim, Bilbao, Spain
2006
De ida y vuelta. África, La Casa Encendida, Madrid, Spain
Snap Judgements: New Positions in Contemporary African
Photography,
International Center of Photography, New York, NY, USA. - Miami Art
Central, Florida, USA touring to Mexico, Canada and Europe
2005/06
African Art Now: Masterpieces from the Jean Pigozzi Collection,
National
Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, USA
2005
Arts of Africa, Grimaldi Forum, Monaco
African Art Now: Masterpieces from the Jean Pigozzi Collection,
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas
2004/06
Africa Remix, museum kunst palast, Düsseldorf, Germany; Hayward
Gallery, London, UK; Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; Mori Art
Museum,
Tokyo, Japan; Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden
2003
Armour: The Fortification of Man, Biennale de Fort Asperen,
Netherlands
Magic Markers: Objects of Transformation, Des Moines Art
Center,Iowa;
travelled to Musée Bellerive, Zurich; and Musée d'Art de Lausanne,
Switzerland
2002
African Market, Ivan Dougherty Gallery, University of New South
Wales,
Sydney, Australia
40Jahre: Fluxus und die Folgen, Kunstsommer Wiesbaden, Germany
2001
TRADE, Nederlands Fotos Institut, Rotterdam &
Fotomuseum,Winterthur,
Switzerland
XXXV Prix International D'Art Contemporain de Monte Carlo, Salle
des
Arts, Monte Carlo, Monaco
Œil pour œil, Le Rectangle Centre d'Art Contemporain, Lyon, France
2000
Lyon Biennal, Lyon, France.
Sieben Hügel, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, Germany
Romuald Hazoumé, Paul Pfeiffer, Duke University Museum of Art
Durham, North Carolina, USA
Partage d'exotismes: 5e Biennale d'Art Contemporain de Lyon,
France
Man + Space, Kwangju Biennale, Korea
Dinge in der Kunst des XX Jahrhunderts, Haus der Kunst, Munich,
Germany
Construction in Process VII: This Earth Is a Flower,
The International Artists
Museum, Bydgoszcz, Poland
Art Basel 2000, Galerie Art & Public, Basel, Switzerland
1999
Spaceship Earth, Art in General, New York, USA
Paradise 8, Exit Art, New York, USA
Liverpool Biennal: International Festival of Contemporary Art,
Liverpool,UK
1992
Out of Africa: Contemporary African Artists from the Pigozzi
Collection,
Saatchi Gallery, London, UK
AWARDS
2007
Arnold Bode Prize, documenta 12, Kassel, Germany
1996
George Maciunas Prize, Wiesbaden, Germany
BIBLIOGRAPHY
2006
Romuald Hazoumé. Exhibition catalogue. Published by Fondation
Zinsou, Cotonou, Benin
2005
Romuald Hazoumé. Exhibition catalogue. Published by Fondation
Zinsou, Cotonou, Benin
La Bouche du Roi. Exhibition catalogue. Published by the Menil
Collection, Houston, Texas, USA
African Art Now: Masterpieces from the Jean Pigozzi
Collection.Exhibition catalogue. Edited by André Magnin. Published
by Merrell
2004
Africa Remix. Exhibition Catalogue.
1999
Romuald Hazoumé " Vor-Sicht " by Peter Volkwein. Exhibition
catalogue,
Städtische, Galerie Ingolstadt. Bilingual text: German, French
1998
7. Triennale der Kleinplastik: Zeitgenössische Skulptur. Europa
Afrika. Exhibition Catalogue : Romuald Hazoumé by André Magnin.
Text in German
Benin- Benin, Tussen Gisteren Morgen . Romuald Hazoumé by Frits
Bless.
Exhibition catalogue, Van Reekum Museum, Apeldoorn. Text in
Dutch
Exit Ball
Plastic & steel
210 cm diam
2008
Exhibition view
aliceday 2009
Nana wax
Plastic & wax
45 x 56 x 16 cm
2009
Miss des Moines
27 x 20 x 10 cm
Plastic & steel
2003
Waxomaniaque
Plastic & wax
45 x 40 x 27 cm
2009
Dirt devil
Plastic & cloth
26 x 17 x 20 cm
2009
Airbag
Photography
74 x 49 cm
2009
La Roulotte
photography
120 x 80 cm
2004
Bidon armé
Photography
74 x 49 cm
ed 1/9
2004
Homme vivant
Natural pigments &
cowdug on canvas
158 x 222 cm
2009
Exhibition view
aliceday 2009