Abdoulaye Konaté is one of the artists on 1: 54 Contemporary African Art Fair New York, May 14 until May 17 2015.
Composition No 16, 2014.
About:
Abdoulaye Konaté was born in Diré, Mali, in 1953 and lives and works in Bamako, Mali. He first studied painting at the Institut National des Arts in Bamako and then at the Instituto Superior des Arte, Havana, Cuba, where he lived for seven years before returning to Mali.
Composition No 10, 2014.
Today, his work primarily takes the form of textile-based installations which explore socio-political and environmental issues, as well as showcasing his aesthetic concerns and formal language. The artist questions the way in which societies and individuals, both in Mali and beyond, have been affected by factors such as war, the struggle for power, religion, globalisation, ecological shifts and the AIDS epidemic. Employing material native to Mali, namely woven and dyed cloths which are sewn together, the artist creates large-scale abstract and figurative compositions. Konatérefers to the West-African tradition of using textiles as a means of commemoration and communication, balancing global political and social reflections with a reference to his own local and cultural history.
Composition No 15, 2014.
In 2008, Konaté was nominated for the Artes Mundi 3 prize, Cardiff. He has received several awards, including the prestigious Léopold Sédar Senghor Prize at the Dak’Art Biennale in Dakar (1996), the Officier de l’Ordre National du Mali (2009) as well as the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres de France (2002). He is the Founding General Director of the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers Multimédia Balla Fasseké Kouyaté in Bamako.
Installation View, Blain Southern Gallery Berlin, 2015.
Konaté’s work has featured in numerous international exhibitions. Major group shows include documenta 12, Kassel (2007), Africa Remix. Contemporary Art of a Continent,international tour including the Stiftung Museum Kunstpalast, Dusseldorf; Hayward Gallery, London; the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, and the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, (2004-2007), and more recently The Divine Comedy, Heaven, Hell, Purgatory revisited by Contemporary African Artists at the Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt (2014) and the SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia, USA (2014-2015), travelling next to the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institute, Washington, USA(2015). He will also participate in the 19th Contemporary Art Festival Sesc_Videobrasil in São Paulo, Brasil. Currently Konaté’s work ison view at the Norrköping Art Museum in Sweden.
(text Blain Southern Gallery Berlin)
Bosnie, Rwanda, 1995.