Barthélémy Toguo is well-acquainted with FIFMA. In 2012 he was invited to talk about his career path, his work as an artist and ceramist, along with the showing of the documentary film Barthélémy Toguo in Sèvres. In 2018, he honours us with his return on the 20th anniversary of the festival to preside the jury for the 11th competition.
Born in Cameroon in 1967, Barthélémy Toguo pursued an academic education at the École nationale des beaux-arts (National School of Fine Arts) in Abidjan before discovering contemporary art and more experimental practices in 1993 at the École supérieure d’art in Grenoble. In 1998, he joined the prestigious Kunstakademie of Düsseldorf. From the end of the 1990s, the works of Barthélémy Toguo were noticed by several critics and curators: Hans Ulrich Obrist in 1999 for Migrateurs (ARC, Paris), Jean-Hubert Martin in 2000 for Partage d’exotismes (Biennale de Lyon) and Pierre Restany in 2001 for Political Ecology (White Box, New York). In 2011, at the Manufacture de Sèvres, he undertook the decoration of vases conceived by designer Pierre Charpin.
Barthélémy Toguo is constantly expanding the spectrum and size of his creations, delving into photography, video, installation, printmaking, performance … producing works which freely mesh a variety of techniques. The work of Barthélémy Toguo transmits his preoccupation, facing the world’s evolution and its current upheaval, through his imaginary world and his fresh takes on old myths. In 2015, Barthélémy Toguo was invited to participate in the Venice Biennale, All the World’s Future. In 2016, Barthélémy Toguo was among the four artists nominated for the Marcel Duchamp Prize and, for this occasion, he presented an installation at the Centre Pompidou from October 2016 to February 2017.