Preparations for

‘La Rencontre de l’Afrique et du Japon’

for the Toyota Municipal Museum of Art in Cotonou, Benin, spring 2000

---

Georges chose the prototype sedan AA car production as a symbol for the Toyota Pioneers' persistance

and links his theories with proves from books and magazines.

The corporate image of Toyota motor today goes back to the determination of a family

who was destined to forge a new alloy between tradition and innovation.

The Toyota Municipal Museum is the first institute in Japan to invite Georges Adéagbo to compose a site
specific installation that will open on June 27th 2000. Winner of one of the prizes of last year’s Venice
Biennial, Georges Adéagbo gave preference among numerous invitations to the call from Japan. Even
though thousands of miles apart, Georges discovered on his first journey through Japan in summer 1999
many common denominators in culture and religion between Africa and Japan. He felt immediately drawn to
do more research, collect evidence to prove his intuitive perception, and present the results of his artistic inquiry
to the Japanese public.

Sakichi and Kiichiro Toyoda, father and son,

risked the family fortune, gained on selling automatic looms, to launch a new era.

The Toyota Municipal Museum attracts some of the most creative minds on earth.

and hosts cross-cultural events. 'Nok' stone and Haniwa? African sculpture and Enku?

In his installation, Georges will both draw, from the perspective of an African, a portrait of Japan, the
evolution of the Toyoda family in particular, and introduce the essence of African spirituality through
antique sculptures, masks and ceremonial costumes serving to communicate with the nether world, a parallel
to Obon in Japan. ‘Le kimono d’Afrique et le kimono du Japon’ is one of the themes which indicate his
search for analogies between these two originally non Christian cultures, who still today root largely in animistic
beliefs.

Georges will bring a set of rare Benin bronzes, wooden sculptures, ritual dance costumes and terra cotta
figures(nok) from Africa, a museum for a museum, to match them with elements he will acquire this coming June
in Japan, an act of matching spiritual brothers and sisters who appear in different forms. Georges will map out the
system of his theories with texts in French interspersed in the installation in form of handwritten manuscripts
or templates on glass. A selection of the key phrases will be translated into Japanese.

The hand written texts in in the installation

unite the found, bought,

and commissioned elements

to a dense network, that speaks about the forces which shape a culture, a country, a city or a person.

While traveling to major cultural sites in Nara, Kyoto and Tokyo, again and again Georges remarked, ‘the
Japanese are very religious - among the many gods, they have recognized their god and focus with
determination on worshipping this one source. Also they recognized the importance of creating and
sustaining employment.’ In addition to the antique objects from both worlds, Georges has studied the history
of the Toyoda family, who started out with automatic loom production and became a car building empire,
Toyota Motor. From material of the Toyada family memorial center, sights of Toyota City and books on Japanese history,
Georges had a set of 22 canvasses painted to intertwine with his installation. In this fashion, his sight specific
installation will be irreversibly linked to its host, the Toyota M. Museum of Art.

Georges Adéagbo, born 1942 in Benin, developed the grammar for his compositions far away from the
art-world. He never met artists nor visited exhibitions while studying law and business administration in
France in the late sixties. Upon his return to Cotonou, he refused to assume the traditional role as family
head after his father’s death. Being declared as insane by his mother , brothers and sister, Georges lived
isolated and was locked into a clinic eight times. As no one wanted to listen to his philosophical insights,
Georges turned to leaving constellations of found objects and self written texts in the family compound’s
court, as the only remaining means of self expression. For over 23 years he lived unrecognized on a
minimum allowance until being ‘discovered’ as artist in 1994. Not being formatted in an art school or the
fine arts environment, Georges’ language evolved authentically and his installations might contribute fresh
blood to a clan which begins to experience the defects of cultural incest.
Since then, he has participated in more than fifteen exhibitions, including the Palais of the United Nations,
Geneva; The Serpentine Gallery, London; the Round Tower, Copenhagen; the Second Johannesburg, the
24th São Paolo and 48th Venice Bienniales and most recently by invitation of Harald Szeemann at
‘ForwArt’ in Bruxelles.
Curatorial assistance and
coordination of Georges Adéagbo’s installation are given by S. Köhler, jointadventures

Reading about the life of Georges,

one wonders how he survived and

remained unstained from taking revenge

to those who made him suffer. 9see biography)

return to coverpage jointadventures