ROMUALD HAZOUMÈ

Romuald Hazoumè is one of Africa’s foremost contemporary artists and recipient of the prestigious Arnold Bode Prize at documenta 12. The artist’s astute and sardonically political oeuvre is realised in a diverse range of media, including multimedia installation, sculpture, video, photography and painting. Using the ubiquitous plastic petrol can as his iconic signature, Hazoumè undertakes monumental installations which act as metaphors of African place, history and identity. The petrol canisters bring to mind the Beninese men and women who ferry contraband gasoline between Nigeria and their Beninese consumers.

October Gallery held Hazoume’s first solo exhibition at the gallery in 2005. In 2007, October Gallery collaborated with the British Museum to present the work La Bouche du Roi, a monumental installation, which acted as a powerful tribute to those who suffered the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade. It toured to Hull, Liverpool, Bristol, Newcastle, Coventry; and the Horniman Museum (London). Hazoumè’s work has been exhibited in major international galleries and museums across the globe including the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK; the Centre Pompidou, Paris; and the Louis Vuitton Foundation, Paris, France; and ICP, New York, USA. In 2018, Hazoumè was included in the Kyotographie International Photography Festival, Kyoto, Japan.

His works are in prominent public and private collections around the world, including the permanent collections of the British Museum, London, UK; QAGOMA, Brisbane, Australia; National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., USA; MoMA, New York, USA; the Pigozzi Collection, Geneva, Switzerland; and Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, France.