In Toulouse, rapper Oli curates an exhibition at Les Abattoirs

“I build the frame, I paint the picture and I am the gallery owner,” sings Oli (real name Olivio Ordoñez, born in 1996), of the Toulouse duo Bigflo and Oli formed with his brother, in the song “Tandem” released in 2023. Contemporary art loverthe rapper will be the curator of an exhibition at the Toulouse Abattoirs Museumin duo with not his brother, but Lauriane Gricourt, the director of the institution. This is the surprise announced this Sunday, November 17 on his Instagram account in a clip directed by Antoine Zago-Honnorat.

Of December 6, 2024 to May 4, 2025the Toulouse museum gave him carte blanche for an exhibition entitled “Oli’s Imaginary Museum”which is inspired by the notion of an “imaginary museum” coined by André Malraux in 1947. What does this mysterious display have in store for us? In the press kit, the museum describes an exhibition “at the crossroads of art and rap” unfolded like “a personal score”.

An exhibition “like an artistic autobiography”

On the program: a eclectic selection of worksdrawn from the museum's reserves and created by around fifty artistsamong which Keith Haring, Pierre Soulages, Bianca Bondi, César, Joan Miró, Andy Warhol, Jacques Villeglé… But also more recent works by Présence Panchounette, InvaderInès Longevial. The comic strip author will also be present Zep and the Toulouse Claude Nougaro. Some will also come from the collection of Hélène Nougaro, the singer's last wife or even that of Oli himself.

We can also find works commissioned especially for the occasion from JR, Jean JullienJuliette Green or even the photographer Odieux Boby. The rap star thus concocts for us a very rich hooking which “responds to its own story, like an artistic autobiography. »

An unexpected carte blanche which, added the institution, “inaugurates a series of invitations made to artists, curators, designers, creators from varied backgrounds to come and take possession of the Abattoirs collections, offering a surprising and rich diveand opening the programming toother fields of creation. »

Concerts, performances, film club, conferences…

Oli also designed a generous cultural program around the exhibition with concerts (the names of the artists have not yet been revealed), workshops in sign language, dance and singing performances (an artistic practice which consists of adapting songs in sign language), conferences – notably one on women in rap –, a screening of the documentary Tehachapi by JR, or even a film club (Hate, The Nightmare Before Christmas). A very ambitious proposal that we can’t wait to discover…