From the early 1990s, a movement of aesthetic globalization profoundly changed the art world – at least its geopolitics.
Contemporary African art asserted itself as a living reality, but not without reluctance: a frozen image of its traditional forms, especially since they were strongly linked to the history of modern Western art, continued to emerge.
impose itself in the heads. First of all, we clearly saw two main access routes to the vitality of the African scene being constituted: the first was embodied in the ironic figurative painting of Chéri Samba, the second in the poetry of photographic documentation, through Seydou Keïta or Malick Sidibé.
If a foundation like the one created by the Zinsou family exists, bringing together major artists in today's art, it was the result of patient work and great stubbornness. [...] Through the spectacular development of an art infrastructure in Africa (from the biennials of Dakar and Bamako to the emergence of foundations and exciting collections), we can now see the rise

power of the imagination and African forms on the world art scene.

And it is today an “institution to institution” relationship that Montpellier Contemporain has established with the Zinsou Foundation. What brought us

to invite this remarkable Beninese institution, it is the possibility of accessing an African view of Africa, and of entering into dialogue with this view. At a time when regionalist impulses are putting on new ecological clothes to justify isolationism, or brandishing the carbon footprint to close borders, it is important for the Hôtel des collections to celebrate the militant activity of the Zinsou Foundation, firmly anchored in its Beninese context while addressing the whole world.

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Nicolas Bourriaud
General Manager of MO.CO., extract from the preface to the catalog