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Barthélémy Toguo lives between Bandjoun (Western Province of Cameroon) and the 20^th arrondissementof Paris. Always on the move since the early 1990’s, he is now internationally well-known for his paintings, installations and performances. M. Toguo constantly searching for humanity in an inhumane and complicated world. Not an easy task.

You were born in Cameroon in 1967. You first solo exhibition was held in Grenoble [France] in 1994. When did you first felt that you were an artist?

Barthélémy Toguo: It all started in high-school, I immediately felt that after graduating I would become an artist. There was no doubt it would be my future job. During my childhood I saw gigantic trucks carrying cacao and wood through the city. I was fascinated by this flourishing economy: local markets, forest exploitation and transports to the ports. At the age of 10, I started to draw these scenes, movements and fluctuations. I couldn’t stop capturing this non-stop ‘play’, this permanent open-air theatre. Meanwhile I discovered great painters such as Francisco de Goya, Carl Gustaf Tessin, Titien or Rembrant.

Your approach of art is multidisciplinary, mixing painting with photography, videos and sculptures. Is it a way to acquire artistic freedom?

I had the chance to start with a very classic and academic formation at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts d’Abidjan in Ivory Coast. But I wasn’t able to create at all in this peculiar environment. At the École Supérieure d’Art de Grenoble in France the artistic approach was way more intellectual, sensitive. Then I acquired the professional side of art in Düsseldorf surrounded by great figures of contemporary art. This artistic freedom I have results from this multidimensional learning. According to me it’s also related to a personal will to discover the world and other human beings.

This approach is also quite physical. A piece of art of yours is without any doubt a performance…

The body has a key role in my work. Beyond my physical energy the goal is to create an emotional relationship between the artist and the audience. That’s why I use the preparation methods and the movements of athletes. My upstream physical and choreographic work is quite long to make sure I succeed on stage: use energy to create emotion. For example, just standing still with both arms in the air like a tree or a bottle is already a call to muscles as well as the whole structure of your body. To control your own verticalityduring 15 minutes is a real performance. It’s scriptural, visual, graceful; a way to create osmosis between me and the audience.

Do you become a piece of art yourself?

Enduring an unusual physical position is only a tiny part of the creation process. It involves graphic elements, even if sometimes it’s just limited to the clothes I wear. My scenography also integrates movement and sound, of water for example. All of these elements illustrate my multidisciplinary approach of art.

According to you “We all are in a permanent transit … we go from a place to another with different means while taking with us, on these trips, our culture, which go to meet the other”. How is it relevant to your work?

I always want just to leave, leave, leave again. When I ‘escaped’ from my native country Cameroon to go to Ivory Coast, or when I went to France or Germany. As a consequence the idea of leaving nurtures my work. I go away with my own culture in my luggages but I am forced into learning other cultures. It’s the beauty of exile: you leave things behind you to learn more things. Witch necessarily involves happiness as well as sadness. Yesterday Africans were deported now they move. In the modern world you move because your in love with a girl from Alaska [sic] or for basic economic or political reasons. Sometimes it’s an utopia, other times it’s just painful.

A topic that you explored with “Road to exile” at the Cité nationale de l’histoire de l’immigration in Paris or with “We face forward” in Manchester?

These are relevant pieces of art. “Road to exile” is an overloaded and crackling small boat. It shows how Africans go into exile, on an overcrowded skiff, with way too much luggages. The problem I had was to materialize danger. That’s way I implanted bottles to represent water, sea, peril. The two gigantic chairs in Manchester were a call for fraternity between the North and the South. On one of them you had slogans and on the other bags. And me standing in th middle, wearing a white costume to illustrate the lack of solidarity between people around the globe.

You recently designed the kits of the Cameroon national football. A commercial transformation of your art?

Is it a shame? Certainly not. When I listen to people suffering, then I can materialize the spirit of country thanks to a unifying sport. Football means wealth and solidarity between human beings. So I thought of a gigantic lion on the jersey, celebrating Cameroons’ culture and the proud of Cameroonians. Working with Puma company wasn’t a bad thing at all.