Co-curated by Jean-Yves Marin, former Director of the MAH and Artistic Adviser to CBH, and Ousseynou Wade, former Secretary General of the Dakar Biennale and a leading voice in African art, the exhibition breaks free from colonial-era geographical constraints, spotlighting the continent’s artistic exchanges across borders. “African artists have long moved, influenced, and inspired one another across nations — far beyond administrative frontiers, arbitrary lines devoid of cultural meaning,” explain the curators. “This show highlights the power of those transnational dialogues, weaving together history, memory, and creation.”

Featuring works by over 80 artists from 21 African countries, including, alongside Zinkpè and Muholi, Amoako Boafo, El Anatsui, Yinka Shonibare, Abdoulaye Konaté, JP Mika, Omar Ba, Thandiwe Muriu, Cassi Namoda, Maku Azu, and Ayanfe Olarinde. Together they embody a bold, forward-looking vision of the continent’s cultural expression.

The exhibition unfolds across seven thematic chapters: emergence, spirituality, between two worlds, everyday life, intimacy, the timeless, and affirmation — inviting visitors on an evolving journey through aesthetic, cultural, and temporal questions.

“This exhibition is both the culmination of a passionate endeavor spanning several years, and an invitation to discover the plurality of African artistic narratives, representing a century of creativity that remains too seldom seen in Switzerland,” says Simon Benhamou, CEO of CBH. “What moves me in this art is its richness, its diversity — and above all, its spontaneity, which jolts us. It reveals a vibrant Africa, freed from clichés and resolutely forward-looking.”


Install image below: courtesy of Dylan Perrenoud/CBH.

ABOUT Zinkpè’s sculpture, Generous (2021)
Drawing inspiration from diverse cosmologies and driven by universal themes, as well as the rich historical and cultural traditions of his native Benin, Dominique Zinkpè’s works construct a new iconographic imaginary. Rooted in his culture and proximity to Vodún, his creations embody a magical realm, straddling the delicate balance between human and animal, the tangible and the ethereal. His large-scale sculptural assemblages comprise hundreds of individually carved wooden statuettes recalling the Yoruba tradition of Ibéji dolls. When a twin dies in infancy, these figurines are believed by family members to embody the deceased’s spiritual energy.

ABOUT Muholi's Somnyama Ngonyama (Hail the Dark Lioness) series
Somnyama Ngonyama, the ongoing self-portraiture series Muholi began in 2012, is, among many other things, about refusing the exoticising gaze. The images are acts of resistance, referring to personal stories, colonial and Apartheid histories of exclusion and displacement, as well as ongoing racism. This prolific project responds to the near invisibility of Black women and non-binary bodies as subjects of representation in the history of Western painting and portraiture prior to the 20th century. Muholi turns the camera on themself to explore the politics of race and representation, and to challenge the often-harmful representations of Black people. Using materials and objects sourced from their surroundings and shot in different locations around the world, the artist experiments with different characters and archetypes.