Le Fou Postcolonial Insane
Guy Woueté (Belgium / Cameroon)
2019
DRC, land of youth for some, cemetery of dreams for others. An antinomic phenomenon that according to Guy Woueté, makes crazy. But what does madness mean in the postcolonial context of Africa today? Without clinical care, abandoned to their fate, executioners and victims of their environment, the fools invited by the artist sing independence and freedom. Starting from a series of performative actions conducted in Lubumbashi putting body, voice and objects in abyss, Woueté produced photos and videos. The words and the audible sounds in these last ones are from the everyday life and are embodied by performers in public spaces Lushois. Through them, Guy Woueté seeks a hand-to-hand with the city and lives in the public sphere, whose potential allows him to address the political space of the unspoken concerning human follies. The vibrant energy lurking in the resilience of everyday life, is its window to the local reality. Le Fou Postcolonial Insane offers a possible phantasmagoria of our future stuck in the state of madness.
Through the process of recording the real, collages, montages and performative processes, Guy Woueté creates objects and situations that are part of a network of multiple meanings. Evoking the North South axis of the world, his works open a narrative of social issues and aesthetic. Guy Woueté works here and elsewhere in Europe and Africa. Through the diverse realities that he faces, he breaks borders by bridging spaces, time, stories and identities. He collects moments and things of human experience that blend in installations, videos, sculptures, photos, collages and the artist’s books. Guy Woueté’s oeuvre always encompasses elements of social criticism and the questions of migration and the symbols of domination in the age of globalization.
Guy Woueté (°1980, Douala) works in Antwerp and Douala. He studied sculpture and painting in Douala and was a resident at the Rijksacademie in Amsterdam. He graduated from the University of Paris 8 (2014) as well as from the Erg School of Arts in Brussels (2016). His work has been shown worldwide, a.o. at Addis Foto Fest (2018); the Biennales of Dakar (2018) and Havana (2009); the International Film Festivals of Toronto (Images, 2013), Montréal (Film Black, 2012), Rotterdam (2010), Kampala (2007); Six Videos by Guy Woueté, Deutsches Filmmuseum, Frankfurt-am-Main (2014); Coming People, S.M.A.K. Ghent (2018); The Generational: Younger than Jesus, New Museum, New York (2009).
Guy Woueté’s participation in the biennale is funded by Flanders State of the Arts.
