2022 was a big year for Alexandre Diop, the Franco-Senegalese artist now living in Vienna, Austria. Under the mentorship of Kehinde Wiley, his first exhibition in Paris "La prochaine fois, le feu" opened during the art fair Paris+ by Art Basel, in October. Following a four-month-long residency at the Rubell Museum Miami at the beginning of the year, he filled the venue with his work for a solo show in December, just in time for Art Basel Miami Beach. Presently, five of his "roaring monumental canvasses" are on view at the Rubell Museum DC, displayed in the vast luminous foyer at the entrance of the building, a renovated high school, part of a project aimed at revitalizing the neighborhood.
First impressions are lasting. Surrounded by Diop's works I remember being overwhelmed by the dense imagery filling the vast space. I could not figure out the subject of the works other than it seemed epic, and I got closer to Mondo Carne (2022). The huge painting (103x191 in.) describes an apocalyptic world through gruesome scenes featuring flailed bodies, skulls, screaming, disfigured faces... a pile of human misery. One cannot avoid thinking of Basquiat when looking at the painting which also includes barely legible writing in French meaning "stop this masquerade, there is enough to eat for everyone" (according to the wall text). The disturbing picture we are looking at seems from another time or another world, and yet, is inspired by the daily struggle of entire populations to survive, as "you enjoy your $2-dollar extra shot in your venti Starbucks Coffee". Made with traditional oil paint, oil stick, pastel, acrylic, charcoal, gouache on canvas, the raw, visceral composition is a violent, gruesome start to the show.
L'incroyable Traversée d'Abdoulaye Le Grand, Troisième de la Lignée (The Incredible Crossing of Abdoulaye the Great, Third in Line to the Throne), 2022, tells the mythical story of Abdoulaye, obviously the artist. Initially a scenario for a movie, the fable relates the journey of the hero who interacts with different characters, some good, others bad. Black and white, good and bad, a crossing between two worlds alludes to the river Styx of the Greek mythology. Cerberus becomes a monster tamed by Abdoulaye riding the beast. The story built with themes embedded in our psyche unfolds from left to right and the white background of the triptych allows the silhouettes of the personages to stand out in lively postures. Looking at the details of the elaborate graffiti-like composition reveals the very personal technique of the artist who arranges refuses found in the streets, dumps and various indescribable places, using hammers and staplers to tack them to the wooden canvas.
Diop starts gathering material like a sculptor and produces scenes worthy of a painter like the next triptych, a colorful composition titled L'Histoire du Monde-Le Temps et l'Espace (The History of the World-Time and Space), 2022. The ambitious subject is tackled with gusto by the artist who manages to add a dash of humor. If Eve, the temptress and the cause of our downfall is present, the monkey on the lower right takes over the work about the past. The wise observer has a pensive gaze and a sardonic grin as he scratches his head. This is the miracle of art: how to render such an insightful expression with pieces of colored paper. The word "loco" nearby, like in a cartoon, conveys his thoughts as he looks at the history of mankind. The location for the present is in Miami as per an upside down banner on top of the second panel. The claustrophobic accumulation of images, scribbles, dribbles, snippets of advertisements, with a partly decomposed portrait of Warhol (at least his wig), alludes to a confused, stressful world filled with anxiety. A lost breasted-man occupies most of the third tableau about the future as thriving monkeys keep watching the world led by cartels and its final apocalypse.
Following these visionary, mythic, violent works, the two nudes side by side on the facing wall feel out of place. Honi soit qui mal y pense (Shame be (to him) who thinks evil of it), 2022 and Le Mensonge d'État (The Lie of the State), 2021 are replicas (Diop's style) respectively of the famous Grande Odalisque (1814) from Ingres and Olympia (1863-1865) from Édouart Manet. Every detail is carefully reproduced: fan, blue drapery, long spine, elongated arm. The face appears to be a mask with the same detached expression. Idem for Olympia and her erotic posture, the orchid in the hair, the black servant. I could not find the cat, and the bunch of flowers is replaced by a text "Cheikh Anta Diop, Civilisation ou Barbarie". It refers to the Senegalese historian, anthropologist , physicist and politician with the same surname than the artist. Looking carefully to each portrait, there are more scribbled messages. To quote the artist about his works: "there’s really a lot for me to talk about every time I discuss these pieces".
Not a painting, not a sculpture, not a tapestry, not a graffiti, not a bas-relief, ... Diop has mastered a unique technique, using objects as his palette, hammers and staplers as his brushes. He also sometimes leaves his own blood and spit as he works fast and furiously on his canvasses. The scion of an ancestral Senegalese family, he has a vision of history mixed with an anti-establishment view permeating through his work. Not quite thirty years old, the artist is looking forward to a bright future, and has many projects and ideas: "There are so many things I want to do. For me, this is really just the beginning of my career. I want to develop and not repeat the same things...I think the act of painting or sculpture is to recreate [oneself] as a human... It’s also not always about art, it’s also about life. What I feel. What I see." The future will tell what is next for the multidisciplinary artist full of promises. Hopefully he does not get too close to the fire and burn his wings, like Icarus who melted his getting to close to the sun.
photographs by the author:
Mondo Carne (2022)
L'Histoire du Monde-Le Temps et l'Espace (The History of the World-Time and Space) detail, 2022
Honi soit qui mal y pense (Shame be (to him) who thinks evil of it), 2022
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