The Dakar Biennale of Contemporary African Art is in its final hours. But this 15th edition was marked by a somewhat unusual situation. A Senegalese writer, Rama Salla Dieng, was represented in the work of Moroccan Majida Khattari. The Senegalese woman, not being informed, requested the removal of her image.
The 15th Biennial of Contemporary African Art (Dak’Art 2024) is in its final hours. Between exhibitions, events and conferences, Dakar vibrated for a month to the rhythm of art. In the former Cap Manuel courthouse which hosts the international exhibition, there were many visitors. And those who visited this small room which hosts the installation by Moroccan artist Majida Khattari, The Punishment of the Roses, were able to notice changes in the work between the start of the event and its end. One of the women’s faces depicted in the temple is now covered with a red piece. A way of hiding from view the face of the character who is the researcher and writer Rama Salla Dieng. Represented in this work without her knowledge, the Senegalese researcher reacted to an act that she considers “not ethical at all”. “Ms Khattari used my image, supposedly to pay tribute to me, believing that I should be happy about it. I am against going on the internet, using someone’s image, printing it and exhibiting it without first thinking of informing the person that their image was used,” reacted Dr Rama Salla Dieng. “She didn’t agree, because I didn’t ask her for permission. And I explained to him that I had a lot of work, because I did the Venice Biennale. As an artist, I can use this image because we are in a biennial. I am not selling the painting. And for me, it was a reference because she is a Senegalese novelist. I was shocked that she blamed me for it,” explains the Moroccan artist. Her explanations undoubtedly did not convince the Senegalese researcher and feminist. “She explained to me that she contacted a lawyer who said that if it is used for artistic purposes, it is authorized. But I, frankly, don’t care that she asked her lawyer because in the time she spent asking her lawyer, she could have simply written me an email. It’s not in the context of the Off of the biennial, it’s in the context of the In, which means that she had the time, really had the time to properly prepare her exhibition. And I think the least you could have done was to ask my permission before using my image. I think this is not ethical at all. I find that for an artist, this practice is really doubtful, that if she considers herself an artist, she should have asked the person for permission to use her image,” replies Ms. Dieng. In the end, the Moroccan artist had a mask put on the face of her Senegalese caryatid.
From “Mee too” to “Swing your pork”
In the room, once through the door, you are greeted by colorful sails. Over a large part of the room, curious statuettes sit on pedestals. The human faces are extended by a pig’s hindquarters. In the portrait gallery, we find Donald Trump, Harvey Epstein, Dominique Strauss Kahn, Roman Polanski, Woody Allen and Bill Cosby. All of them have in common that they have been involved in very scandalous stories. Opposite this gallery of characters, a series of six portraits of women hanging on the wall. Between these women and the “pigs”, a shield made of a multitude of small women’s mirrors. Ophrah Winfrey, Angela Davis, Dr. Rama Salla Dieng, among others, Majida’s caryatids are not subject. Through their postures, their determined head positions, they embody the power and strength of women. “The women that I have erected as caryatids all have the same dress, the same landscape. Because they are all feminists. So, there are writers, there are singers, there are journalists. So all women who create feminist movements in society and who have created something on their own,” explains Majida Khattari. “The installation is in the form of a temple, because I reread the myth of the Medusa, the Gorgon. There was Me Too in the United States, there is Balance Ton porc in France, the two are mixed,” continues the Moroccan artist. Selected in the international exhibition, The Punishment of the Roses, the work of the Moroccan, reverses the roles of the myth of Perseus and Medusa.
Par Mame Woury THIOUBOU – ([email protected])
