Image: Koyo Kouoh at a public panel, 2011. Source: Wikimedia Commons.
Koyo Kouoh: Reshaping Contemporary Art Through an African Lens
In the soft light of a Dakar afternoon, where the Atlantic breeze carries salt and possibility across the Senegalese capital, a revolution was quietly taking form. Not with proclamations or manifestos, but with exhibitions, conversations, and the careful curation of spaces where African artists could finally speak on their own terms.
The art world lost one of its most visionary voices this spring with the passing of Koyo Kouoh, curator extraordinaire whose bold vision transformed how we experience African and diasporic art. In the moments before her unexpected death in May 2025, Kouoh stood at the pinnacle of curatorial achievement—newly appointed as the first African woman Artistic Director of the prestigious Venice Biennale. Her story is one of intellectual courage, institutional transformation, and an unwavering commitment to placing African artistic expressions at the center of global conversations.
The Curator as Radical Architect
Walking through one of Kouoh's exhibitions was to enter a carefully constructed narrative space—one where art transcended mere display to become an instrument of dialogue and challenge. Her philosophy was artist-centered yet unapologetically political, treating exhibitions not as neutral containers but as powerful interventions in ongoing conversations about power, identity, and representation.
"I treat Africa as a mindset rather than a fixed geography," Kouoh once explained, inviting viewers to inhabit that space mentally regardless of origin. This perspective emerged from her postcolonial critique and feminist frameworks, creating exhibitions that functioned as intellectual landscapes where visitors could confront colonial legacies and imagine new possibilities.
When she founded RAW Material Company in 2008 in Dakar, Kouoh transformed an idea into physical reality—creating what would become one of the continent's most vital spaces for artistic experimentation and critical thought. What began as a mobile initiative grew into a permanent center known for fearlessly addressing taboo subjects and political urgencies through art.
Provocations and Perseverance
Perhaps nothing illustrates Kouoh's curatorial fearlessness better than "Precarious Imaging: Visibility and Media Surrounding African Queerness," the 2014 exhibition that boldly explored LGBTQ representation in Senegal—a country where homosexuality remains illegal. When religious fundamentalists vandalized the space and government officials ordered the exhibition closed, the incident revealed both the risks and necessity of Kouoh's approach. Art, in her hands, was never decorative but deliberately disruptive—designed to "remind us of the real controversies that art brings to the surface."
This willingness to engage with difficult conversations extended beyond Africa's borders. In 2016, Kouoh turned her postcolonial lens toward Ireland with "Still (the) Barbarians," an ambitious examination of Ireland's status as "the first and foremost laboratory of the British colonial enterprise." The exhibition placed Irish historical experiences in dialogue with global colonial legacies, creating unexpected connections between seemingly disparate histories.
A Century of Black Figuration
Against a backdrop of white-walled galleries in Cape Town's Zeitz MOCAA, where Kouoh served as Executive Director from 2019, her magnum opus took form. "When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Painting" gathered over 200 works by 156 Black artists from 26 countries in what critics called "the largest and most comprehensive exploration of Black self-representation, cultural expression and history to date."
The exhibition vibrated with a sense of reclamation, its very title suggesting the power of self-definition after centuries of being defined by others. Organized into evocative thematic sections—Joy and Revelry, Repose, Sensuality, Spirituality, and Triumph and Emancipation—the show presented not just art objects but a "litany of remarkable histories" that had too often been excluded from the global art canon.
The rain-soaked windows of the former grain silo that houses Zeitz MOCAA seemed to frame this historic gathering perfectly—a space transformed, much as Kouoh transformed institutions throughout her career. By bringing these works together, she wasn't simply curating an exhibition but writing a new chapter in art history, one that placed Black subjectivity at its center.
Building Beyond Borders
Kouoh's influence extended well beyond exhibition galleries. As an institution builder, she approached cultural infrastructure as its own form of creative practice. At RAW Material Company, she created programs that nurtured young artists and curators; at Zeitz MOCAA, she stabilized a fledgling institution and connected it more deeply with its local context.
"Building out institutions on the continent is a matter of urgency," she once asserted, recognizing that sustainable art ecosystems require more than occasional exhibitions. Her vision was holistic—exhibitions needed publications, seminars, residencies, and educational components to create lasting impact.
This approach took her across continents, from her curatorial role at Documenta to creating "Dig Where You Stand," an intervention at the Carnegie International that prompted the American institution to confront its colonial legacy. Each engagement became an opportunity to assert that African artists deserved equal footing in what she called the "Whole World" of art.
The Poetics of Resistance
There was always poetry in Kouoh's resistance. When she curated "Body Talk: Feminism, Sexuality and the Body in the Work of Six African Women Artists," she didn't merely showcase feminist art—she articulated a specifically African and Black feminist perspective, one where women's bodies became "tools, representations, and fields of investigation" for broader political engagements.
For Kouoh, art's power lay not in direct political action but in "elevating consciousness and creating space for reflection." Her exhibitions rarely offered moral conclusions, instead presenting multiple perspectives that invited visitors to make their own connections. This intellectual generosity, combined with curatorial rigor, made her exhibitions both challenging and accessible.
A Legacy in Motion
As the sun sets over the Atlantic, casting long shadows across Dakar's streets, Kouoh's absence is felt profoundly. Yet her influence remains vibrant in the institutions she transformed, the artists whose careers she championed, and the curatorial approaches she pioneered.
The artists whose work she elevated—Tracey Rose, Otobong Nkanga, Abdoulaye Konaté, Johannes Phokela, and many others—continue to shape global contemporary art. The curators she mentored carry forward her vision of art as a site of intellectual engagement and social transformation. And the conversations she started—about decolonizing art institutions, centering marginalized narratives, and treating Africa as a conceptual space rather than a geographic container—continue to reverberate throughout the art world.
Kouoh's vision lives on in every exhibition that challenges Eurocentric narratives, in every institution that prioritizes artist-centered approaches, and in every curator who understands their work as a form of critical engagement with history and power. As she once said, "art has already done a lot if it can elevate consciousness and build some social value." By that measure, Koyo Kouoh's legacy is immeasurable.
Through the frame of history, her curatorial vision will continue to shape how we see ourselves, how we understand our past, and how we imagine our future—proving that sometimes the most revolutionary acts are those that change not just what we see, but how we see it.