Barthélémy Toguo
1967 - Present
Barthélémy Toguo (b. 1967 in Cameroon) lives and works in between Paris and Bandjoun. He trained at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Abidjan, Ivory Coast; the École Supérieure d'Art in Grenoble, France; and the Kunstakademie, Düsseldorf, Germany. In his installations, performances, photography, and watercolour paintings, Barthélémy Toguo explores the regulated flow of people, merchandise, and resources between the developing world and the West. “Men or women are always potential exiles, driven by the urge to travel, which makes them ‘displaced beings’,” he has said. His monochromatic watercolour paintings act as a travel diary, with human-like forms transforming into animal shapes or abstract creatures—formally exploring the notion of border through the mixing of identities. There is a provocative and satirical aspect of Toguo’s practice, in which art and critique are inextricably linked.
Text © the artist and Deutsche Bank, 2018