Koyo Kouoh 1967-2025 : ‘ensuring the door remains wide open for those who come next’

The pioneering creation curator Koyo Kouoh has died astatine the property of 57. Kouoh, the archetypal African pistillate to beryllium named creator manager of the Venice Biennale, died connected 10 May – conscionable days earlier the rubric and taxable of the 61st variation of the creation biennale were owed to beryllium revealed. A connection connected the organisation’s website said her decease leaves “an immense void successful the satellite of modern art” and that she had worked “with passion, intelligence rigour and imaginativeness connected the conception and improvement of the Biennale Arte 2026”.

Koyo Kouoh astatine an Association of Women successful the Arts symposium astatine Christie’s, London, connected 5 June 2024. Photograph: PA Images/Alamy

Born successful Cameroon, Kouoh gained planetary attraction for her relation successful championing African artists, astir precocious arsenic the enforcement manager and main curator of Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art successful Cape Town (Zeitz MOCAA).

In a portion she wrote for the Guardian soon aft she was announced arsenic curator of the biennale – published for the archetypal clip beneath – Kouoh said that the astir important facet of the relation was successful opening the doorway for different women. “My imaginativeness is for a aboriginal wherever specified milestones are nary longer remarkable, simply due to the fact that truthful galore others person followed.”

Below is her portion successful full.

“For excessively long, the planetary creation satellite – and the satellite astatine ample – has been dominated and shaped by Euro-American perspectives, often astatine the disbursal of a much implicit and nuanced knowing of creation movements from the remainder of the world. The expanding beingness of African and Afro-diasporic artists astatine starring biennales and institutions – including Tate Modern’s increasing African creation postulation – signals a caller but long-overdue shift.

When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration successful Painting, primitively conceived and exhibited by MOCAA successful Cape Town earlier travelling internationally, is the astir broad accumulation dedicated to Black self-representation yet. But portion moments similar this people progress, existent equity requires much than visibility: it demands engagement that reflects the afloat extent and complexity of artists and their work.

As I hole to curate the 61st Venice Biennale successful 2026, these questions of equity, visibility, interconnections and creator imaginativeness volition undoubtedly colour my approach. The stories I privation to item spell beyond creation – they are astir people, societies, and the ways successful which our histories and futures are intertwined. What happens successful Dakar resonates successful Kuala Lumpur, conscionable arsenic shifts successful Kuala Lumpur volition echo successful Seoul. The biennale offers a uncommon level to research these connections, dismantle barriers, and illuminate the taste threads that hindrance us.

Kouoh astatine Zeitz MOCAA successful Cape Town, wherever she was enforcement manager and main curator. Photograph: Marco Longari/AFP/Getty Images

Throughout my clip arsenic executive manager and main curator of Zeitz MOCAA, I person worked to guarantee the depository remains a abstraction for meaningful engagement – a level that not lone celebrates African and Afro-diasporic voices but besides challenges reductive narratives astir the continent and its art. Exhibitions specified arsenic Home Is Where the Art Is (2020) exemplify this approach. By inviting artists and assemblage members from Cape Town to lend their works to it, we redefined the narration betwixt the depository and its section context, breaking down barriers to entree and fostering a consciousness of shared ownership.

Also astatine the bosom of my enactment is simply a committedness to amplifying under-represented practices, peculiarly those of African women. Much of my curatorial attack is rooted successful a feminist position that is informed by Black ancestral feminism. This has guided maine to make strong, meaningful relationships with pistillate artists and collaborators, whose voices and visions resonate with my philosophies. I profoundly admit figures specified arsenic Nigerian-born Otobong Nkanga, whose enactment invites dialog astir the relationships betwixt radical and nature, and Kenyan-American ocular creator Wangechi Mutu, who reimagines African femininity done a futuristic, mythological lens. They exemplify the richness and complexity of African women’s creator contributions.

Mountain of supplication by Kenyan-American ocular creator Wangechi Mutu, who reimagines African femininity done a futuristic, mythological lens. Photograph: Wangechi Mutu/Courtesy the Artist and Victoria Miro, London

I respect Ethiopian-American modern ocular creator Julie Mehretu’s monumental, multilayered abstract paintings. Rich with humanities references, they supply almighty commentaries connected migration, displacement and planetary interconnectedness. These artists don’t conscionable bespeak the satellite arsenic it is; they reshape however we comprehend it.

Beyond these established figures, I americium conscionable arsenic inspired by a younger procreation of women artists pushing the boundaries of modern creation from African and Afro-diasporic perspectives. Tabita Rezaire fuses spirituality, exertion and healing practices to defy accepted creator categories; Tiona Nekkia McClodden’s profoundly idiosyncratic explorations of identity, contention and queerness propulsion against the limitations of organization frameworks; Sandra Mujinga’s sculptures and video-based enactment situation our knowing of beingness and absence; portion Precious Okoyomon’s installations span poetry, quality and humanities reflection to make caller perceptions. These artists punctual america that the aboriginal of creation is not conscionable astir visibility – it’s astir transformation.

My relation curating the biennale is astir reshaping however we prosecute with artists and their work. Who gets to signifier the communicative of modern art? Who defines its value? And however bash we physique systems that enactment artists beyond the fleeting infinitesimal of a biennale? These are conscionable a fewer of the questions that volition usher me.

Monotype #19 by Ethiopian-American ocular creator Julie Mehretu. Photograph: Courtesy of the artist

Mentorship is besides cardinal to this process. Not successful a hierarchical sense, but successful fostering environments wherever younger professionals consciousness seen, supported and empowered. Whether curators, writers oregon artists, the adjacent procreation indispensable not lone inherit a much inclusive and nuanced creation manufacture but besides person the bureau to signifier it connected their terms.

Ultimately, my relation arsenic the archetypal African pistillate to curate the biennale is not astir idiosyncratic legacy. While I recognise the value of being the archetypal African pistillate to clasp this position, I anticipation my assignment sets a precedent alternatively than becoming an exception. My imaginativeness is for a aboriginal wherever specified milestones are nary longer remarkable, simply due to the fact that truthful galore others person followed. The existent measurement of advancement is not successful being archetypal but successful ensuring the doorway remains wide unfastened for those who travel next.”