STANDING PINE

STANDING PINE is pleased to present a solo exhibition by Abdoulaye Konaté from Saturday 6th March to Saturday 10thApril for the first time in Japan. He was born in 1953 in Dire, Mali and currently lives and works in Bamako, Mali. He first studied painting at the Institut National des Arts in Bamako and then at the Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana, Cuba, where he lived for several years before returning to Mali. He has created works by textile with various colours and motifs which are figurative, abstract or a combination of both, based on the African tradition and culture and they refer to political, social and environmental issues that he has been interested in. He has been renowned as one of the most important artists in the African contemporary art scene. He has participated in different Biennials including Venice Biennale (Venice, Italy), Documenta (Kassel, Germany), and Dak’art Biennale de l’Art Africain Contemporain (Dakar, Senegal). His works has been shown at many prestigious international cultural institutions such as Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, US), Smithsonian Museum (Washington, US), Centre Pompidou (Paris, France), Mori Art Museum (Tokyo, Japan), Arken Museum for Moderne Kunst (Copenhagen, Denmark) and Afrika Museum (Berg en Dal, Netherlands) and are present in many major public and private collections all over the world. In 2020, he joined a group exhibition “Global(e) Resistance” at Centre Pompidou, Paris and he presented his monumental and site-specific installation, four story high textile piece, adorns the museum’s interior wall in the BMW Atrium at Zeitz MOCAA in Cape Town and has achieved lots of attention in the global art scene. This exhibition features his recent pieces, dated from 2018 till 2020, and one historical piece: Les boutons d’amour, dated 2005.

Abdoulaye Konaté started to use fabric as the material for his art in the 90’s and has created works look like wall tapestries, which are made from Malian cotton. They are created based on the West African tradition that textiles are means of communication and he reacts to all kind of problems and issues, inside and outside of his country such as war, immigration, abuse of power, terrorist attacks and genocide, dangerous infections like AIDS and the lack of awareness of it, etc. In “Les boutons d’amour”, on the upper side of this pure white textile appear the Red Ribbon, universal symbol of awareness and support for people living with HIV. This artwork is devoted to raise consciousness about the AIDS pandemic, and Abdoulaye Konaté's words about it are more actual than ever today: « All dangerous pandemics as Plague, Tuberculosis, Leprosy and AIDS caused serious dramas to society. I strongly believe that any sick person, without any distinction, needs for love more than anyone else. »

Abdoulaye Konaté’s latest works can be defined as a symphony of colours, a wide deep research through symbol and essence. Rather than evading from the African colourism, Abdoulaye Konaté blissfully embraces this world pigmentation, unveiling a wide Baudelairian universe. White, black and red. They're magnetar poles connecting the inner substance of every ancient symbolism about colours. In Africa the colour is a religious symbol, full of significances and power. The antithesis of black and white, the darkness and light, the absence and knowledge, the earth and the sky are always balanced with the brightful red, the blood flowing in every human being. In Africa white is the colour of the dead, but his function is to “defy” death, a good omen. Black is the chaos, is the origin, but being origins means being cradle of generation, cradle of possibilities, nest of fertility. Red is power, is blood and its overflowing life. Is the symbolic pulse of every existence, memory of tribal sacrifices and prophecies. Additionally, indigo blue is a fundamental part of Abdoulaye Konaté chromatic research, the blue in all of his shades represent a very important colour. It is the national colour of Mali, symbolizing the country itself, and the colour of the Tuaregs, a Berber ethnic group in Africa, also as sea and rivers, water as medium for life. Yellow as sun and prosperity recalls also the golden desert, the Sahel, and green is nature and hope as well.

Abdoulaye Konaté’s colours redetermine a new utopian space, where opposing emotions confuse themselves in a harmony of opposite, an abstract symphony that possesses «the diffusion of infinite things», as mentioned in a poem “Correspondances” by Charles Baudelaire. Colour is only one of the infinite enchanted symbols in Abdoulaye Konaté’s universe.

Les boutons d'amour, 2005, Textile, 246,5 × 163,5 cm

Composition en rouge touareg serie n.3, 2019, Textile,  209x149cm

Brésil (Guarani), 2015
installation view from Viva Arte Viva, Biennale di Venezia, Arsenale, Venezia, 2017

Installation view from Abdoulaye Konaté, Manége, Dakar Biennale, 2014

Bosnie Angola Rwanda 1996, textile, Installation view From Documenta 12, Kassel 2007

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ABDOULAYE KONATÉ

BIOGRAPHY

Born in 1953 in Diré, Mali, Abdoulaye Konaté stu- died painting at the Institut National des Arts in Bamako and then at the Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana, Cuba. He is the founder and currently General Director of the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers Multimédia Balla Fasseké Kouyaté in Ba- mako, Mali. He currently lives and works in Bama- ko.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS (SELECTED)
2021 Abdoulaye Konaté Solo Exhibition 'The Diffusion of Infinite Things’
         STANDING PINE, Nagoya, JP
2018 Abdoulaye Konaté, Richard Koh Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur, ML
2017 Solo Show, Musee Mohamed VI, Rabat, Morocco
2016 Primae Noctis Art Gallery, Lugano, CH
         Primo Marella Gallery, Milan, IT
         Arken Museum for Moderne Kunst, Copenhagen, DK
2015 Abdoulaye Konaté, Norrköping Konstmuseum,Norrköping, SW
         Abdoulaye Konaté, Primo Marella Gallery, Milano, IT
         Southern Panoramas, 19th Festival Contemporary Art Festival, San Paolo, BR
2013 The World in Textile, Afrika Museum, Berg En Dal, NL
         Primo Marella Gallery, Milan, IT
2012 ESADHar - L’Ecole Supérieure D’Art & Design, Le Havre, F
         Project Window, Iniva, Rivington Place, London, UK
         Fondation Festival sur le Niger, Ségou, RMM
         Tentures Teintures, Maison de la Revue Noire, Paris, F
2011 La Toile de Abdoulaye Konaté, Galerie National de Dakar, Dakar, SN
2010 Exposition Rétrospective, Biennale de Dakar, Dakar, SN
2009 Textile, Forum für Kunst, Heidelberg, D
          Le Temps de Danse, Galerie Saro, Las Palmas, E
1992 Musée National du Mali, Bamako, RMM
         Musée de l’IFAN, Dakar, SN
1983 Le Petit Salon National, Havana, C
1976 Maison du Peuple, Diré, RMM

GROUP EXHIBITIONS (SELECTED)
2018 African Metropolis. An imaginary City, MAXXI, Rome, IT
         Ravelled Threads, Sean Kelly, New York, USA
         Pulling Thread, Norval Foundation, Cape Town
2017 VIVA ARTE VIVA, 57a Biennale di Venezia, IT
         La Sfinge Nera: dal Marocco al Madagascar, Primo Marella Gallery, Milano, IT
         Il Cacciatore Bianco (The White Hunter), Frigoriferi Milanesi, Milano, IT
         Afriques Capitales, Grand Halles de la Villette, Parigi, FR
         Vers le Cap de Bonne-Espérance, Lille, FR
2016 Still (the) Barbarians. EVA International Ireland’s Biennale, Cleeve’s Condensed Milk Factory,
         Limerick City, IRL
         Abdoulaye Konaté et le Mali, Effage, Dakar, SN
         Afterwork, Para Site Honk Kong, HK; tours to Kuala Lumpur, MY
2015 Streamlines: Oceans, Global Trade And Migration, The Hall For Contemporary Art,Hambourg, D
          Lumières D’Afrique, Palais Chaillot, Paris, F
          ART_TEXTILE, The Whitworth, The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
         19th Contemporary Art Festival Sesc_videobrasil, Southern Panoramas, Sao Paulo, BR
         Streamlines: Metaphorical and Geopolitical Interoretations of the Oceans, Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, D
         International Kunst und Fotografie, Hamburg, D
         Obsession, Maison Particulière, Brussels, B
         Katrine Helmersson and Abdoulaye Konaté., Norrköping Konstmuseum, Norr köping, S
2014 The Divine Comedy: Heaven, Hell, Purgatory revisited by Contemporary
         African Artists: Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, D, SCAD, Savannah
        (2014-2015) US, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institute, Washin gton, US (2015)
2013 Métamorphoses, Musée Bargoin, Clermont Ferrand, F
         Marker 2013, Madinat Jumerirah, Dubai, UAE
         Decorum, Musée de Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, F
         International Sculpture Route Amsterdam Art Zuid 2013, Amsterdam, NL
2012 Hollandaise, SMBA, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, NL
         We face forward: Art from West Africa today, Whitworth Art Gallery,
         The University of Manchester, UK
         Raw Material Company, centre puor L’Art, le Savoir et la Societé, Dakar, SN
         Hollandaise, RAW Material Company, Dakar, SN
2011 Mixités, Les chantiers de la Lune, La Seyne-sur-Mer, F
         Dégagements... La Tunisie un an aprés, Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris, F
2010 Art Actuel d’Afrique,Collégiale Saint-André, Chartres, F
          Textile ou fragment de l’histoire d’une collection, Fondation Blachère, Apt, F
2009 Africa? Una Nuova Storia. Complesso del Vittoriano, Rome, IT
          Bienal de La Habana, Havana, C
2008 Artes Mundi, National Museum, Cardiff, IRL
2007 Africa Remix, Museum Kunstpalast, Dusseldorf, D
         Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, F
         Hayward Gallery, London, UK
         Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, JP
         Universes in Universe, Documenta 12, Kassel, D
2006 The Unhomely, Phantom Scenes in Global Society, Bienal Internacional de
         Arte Contemporáneo de Sevilla, E
         Dak’Art 7ème Biennale de l’Art Africain Contemporain, catalogue, Dakar, SN
2003 Musée de design et d’arts appliqués contemporains de Lausanne, CH
          Le Palais des Beaux-Arts de Bruxelles, B
2002 Musée de Picardie, Amiens, F
1998 Routes of Passage, Johannesburg Biennale, Johannesburg, ZA
         Former West, 24th Biennale Sâo Paulo, Sao Paulo, BR
        7th Treinnale der Kleinplastik, Stuttgart, D
1997 Die Anderen Modernen, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, D
1996 The Other Journey, Kunsthalle Krems, Krems A
1995 Recontres Africaines, Caixa General de Deposito, Lisbon, P
         African art of our time: an inside story, Setagaya Museum, Tokyo, JP
1994 Recontres africaines, Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris, F
1986 Artistes Maliens et Soviétiques au Palais de la Culture, Palais de la Culture, Bamako, RMM
1984 Biennale de La Havane, Institut Supérieur des Arts, La Havane, C
1978 Jeunes Peintres du Mali,Institut National des Arts, Bamako, RMM

PRIVATE AND PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Metropolitan Museum, New York, US
Smithsonian Museum, Washington, US
Uli Sigg Collection, Schloss, CH
Fondation Guy & Myriam Ullens, Geneva, CH
Foundation Blachère, Apt, F
Collection of Stichting Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, NL
Afrika Museum, Berg en Dal, NL
Tiroche DeLeon Collection, Jaffa, IL
Vehbi Koc Foundation, Istanbul, TR
Arken Musem, Copenhagen, DK
Golinelli Collection, Bologna, IT
Collection de la Banque des Etats de l’Afrique Occidentale, Dakar, SN
Fundação Sindika Dokolo, ANG
Maison Particulière, Bruxellles, B
Gare do Oriente, Lisbon, P
Collection du Musée National du Mali, Bamako, RMM
Collection du Musée Bargoin de la Ville de Clermont-Ferrand, F
Collection du Palais Présidential du Mali, Bamako, RMM
Dak’Art, Biennale de l’Art Africain Contemporain, SN

AWARDS
2009 Officier de l’Ordre National du Mali, RMM
2008 Prix passeport - Créateurs sans Frontieres, F
2002 Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Mali, RMM
          Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres de la République Francaise, F
1996 Leopold SedarSenghor Prix, Dak’Art Biennale, Dakar, SN
1986 Mention aux Journées des Etude Scientifiques
         Universitaire de l’ISA de La Havane, C
1985 Premier Prix National de peinture du Salon 13 Marzo de l’Université de La Havana, C
1983 Diplome de reconnaissance de l’Institut Supéerior des Arts
         de La Havane à l’occasion de la Semaine de la Culture Cubaine, C
1982 Mentionauxjournéesd’EtudesScientifiquesUniversitairesdel’Institut
         Supérior des Arts de La Havane, C
1976 Premier Prix du “Lion’s Club International”, Bamako, RMM