News
11.07.2022
REIFFERS ART INITIATIVES PRESENTS "LA PROCHAINE FOIS LE FEU" BY ALEXANDRE DIOP, UNDER KEHINDE WILEY'S MENTORSHIP, FROM 10.19 TO 11.19.22
Reiffers Art Initiatives, an endowment fund for young contemporary creation and cultural diversity, is pleased to announce the exhibition "LA PROCHAINE FOIS, LE FEU" by Alexandre Diop, under Kehinde Wiley's mentorship, at the Acacias Art Center, from October 19 to November 19, 2022.
As the winner of the second Reiffers Art Initiatives mentorship, the French artist from Senegal pursued an in-depth dialogue with his mentor Kehinde Wiley for six months. In the eyes of this young artist, Kehinde Wiley, author of a portrait of Barak and Michelle Obama, represents a model of black success. What they have in common is Dakar, where Wiley created Black Rock, a residence for artists, and where Alexandre Diop spent his childhood summers, but also the dialogue with the masters, as with the contemporary world.
"LA PROCHAINE FOIS LE FEU"
deepens the artist's reflections on the themes of identity and the representation of black bodies. Both Wiley and Diop work to present them in majesty with virtuosity and subtlety. His visions are usually inspired by an emotion, suffering or rage. He almost always paints bodies, which are outlined against a neutral background, while others merge into dense, almost suffocating compositions.
deepens the artist's reflections on the themes of identity and the representation of black bodies. Both Wiley and Diop work to present them in majesty with virtuosity and subtlety. His visions are usually inspired by an emotion, suffering or rage. He almost always paints bodies, which are outlined against a neutral background, while others merge into dense, almost suffocating compositions.
Alexandre Diop speaks of "object-images": the creation of his works begins with the gathering of salvaged materials during long urban walks in abandoned places near where he lives. He then fills his backpack with pieces of metal, wood, fabric or plastic that are strewn about the wastelands, which he sometimes cuts up with a cutter or scissors. Back in the studio, instead of a brush, he uses a hammer and nails on large wooden boards which he then covers with paint.
The title of the exhibition is borrowed from the American writer James Baldwin, who represents for him a figure in the defence of minority rights through reconciliation. Fire is also life, the fire of the first men, which Alexandre Diop sometimes uses in his works to obtain singular effects.
"After the inaugural edition of the mentorship in 2021, which brought together Rashid Johnson and his young talent Kenny Dunkan, this new collaboration looks very promising.
An artist as internationally recognized as Kehinde Wiley is an exceptional source of inspiration for Alexandre Diop and I am looking forward to the depth of the exchanges that will arise from this mentorship.
The upcoming exhibition in October will be the fruit of this dialogue and will fit in perfectly with our mission: to initiate exchanges, between artists, between generations, between cultures.
- Paul-Emmanuel Reiffers, Founder of Reiffers Art Initiatives.
"LA PROCHAINE FOIS LE FEU"
An exhibition by Alexandre Diop, from October 19 to November 19, 2022
Acacias Art Center - 30, rue des Acacias, 75017 Paris
About Reiffers Art Initiatives
Created in 2021 by Paul-Emmanuel Reiffers, Chairman and Founder of Mazarine, a communications group specialising in fashion, luxury and culture, Reiffers Art Initiatives is an endowment fund for young contemporary creation and cultural diversity.
The mission of the endowment fund, whose international artistic committee is made up of well-known personalities from the world of art and culture, is to expose and give visibility to the emerging figures of tomorrow's contemporary art. Thus, Reiffers Art Initiatives initiates several actions each year: a mentoring exhibition between a young talent and an internationally renowned artist at the Studio des Acacias during Paris + by Art Basel and a group show in the spring, accompanied by a prize to highlight a young talent of the emerging French scene.
About Kehinde Wiley
Kehinde Wiley (b. 1977, Los Angeles) is a world-renowned visual artist, renowned for his hyper-realistic depictions of contemporary African-American and Afro-diasporic figures that subvert the hierarchies and conventions of European and American portraiture. Working in painting, sculpture and video, Kehinde Wiley challenges and reorients art historical narratives, raising complex socio-political issues that have long remained taboo.
In 2018, Wiley became the first African American artist to paint an official portrait of the US President (Barack Obama) for the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery. Wiley is a recipient of the U.S. Department of State Medal of Arts, the W.E.B. Du Bois Medal and the French distinction of Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He holds a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute, an MFA from Yale University and honorary doctorates from the Rhode Island School of Design and the San Francisco Art Institute.
He has had solo exhibitions throughout the United States and abroad and his work is included in the collections of more than 60 public institutions worldwide. Kehinde Wiley is the founder and president of Black Rock Senegal. He lives and works in Dakar, Lagos and New York.
About Alexandre Diop
Alexandre Diop works on each of his works by thinking of rhythms, sounds and silences, with a share of violence as in the words he writes daily. He is inspired in particular by rap, a culture that is close to him. Born in Paris in 1995, he moved to Berlin at the age of 18 - he says that his great-grandfather was a soldier for Germany in 1914, and his grandfather enlisted for France in 1939. Involved in the city's underground scene, he began by playing in clubs and producing musicians. He also founded a collective, the Mouton Noir, which organises exhibitions and events.
Then he naturally turned to painting. As a child, he drew little but used to see books on ancient art, from Giotto to Dürer, and paintings that his Senegalese father brought back from his travels on the African continent. Documentaries and readings on Francis Bacon, Bernard Buffet, and Jean-Michel Basquiat completed his journey. Alexandre Diop is self-taught. The South African artist Robin Rhode, his studio neighbour in Berlin, played the role of protector and initiator to the world of galleries and contemporary art. Later, Alexandre Diop moved to Vienna to show his work more widely.
He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna under the tutelage of Daniel Richter. Diop situates his artistic approach between painting and sculpture, being particularly interested in the materiality of the elements used, most often found in his everyday environment: metal, wood, textile, latex, paper, animal fibres, burnt fragments, gouache, glue, oil, pencil, pastel, leather, rope, varnish, nails, plaster, old car parts, rust, books, photographs etc. The artist has already exhibited in Italy, Austria and the United States and his work is already present in several international collections. Diop will be exhibited at the Rubell Museum in Miami during Art Basel Miami 2022.
