Meschac Gaba

Born, 1961 in Cotonou, Benin

From the archived Documenta 11 website : www.documenta12.de//archiv/d11/data/english/index.html

“Meschac Gaba began studying art in Zossou Gratien’s workshop in Cotonou. During the early 1990s, Gaba started reflecting on the devaluation of currency by incorporating bills in a series of two-dimensional works. The tension between economic power and colonization would inform all of Gaba’s work from 1997 onward, organized as successive sections of an imaginary Contemporary African Art Museum. The Gaba Museum is at once a criticism of the museological institution as conceived in developed countries, as well as the utopian formulation of a possible model for a non-existent institution. It is about founding a structure where there isn’t one, without loosing sight of the limitations of existing models that belong to a certain social and economic order based in the harsher realities of domination. On successive occasions, Gaba has shown various rooms from his museum.”

»  Documenta 11- Frieze Review 1

Review relating to an exhibition, 2002

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Catalogue relating to an exhibition, 2002

»  Documenta 11_Platform 5 : Exhibition / Short Guide

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