ROMUALD HAZOUME - Uncomfortable Truths – the shadow of slave trading on contemporary art & design

Uncomfortable Truths will address the ways in which the legacy of slavery informs contemporary art and design in a display of a series of works throughout the museum’s public spaces. This exhibition of new and specially commissioned work will commemorate the bicentenary of the Parliamentary abolition of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, seeking to reassess the human cost of slavery.

'DAN AYIDO-HUEDO, RAINBOW SERPENT' ROMUALD HAZOUMÉ, V&A LONDON

(photo©Artist)

LA BOUCHE DU ROI - ROMUALD HAZOUME AT BRITISH MUSEUM

La Bouche du Roi: an artwork by Romuald Hazoumé was created between 1997 and 2005 by Romuald Hazoumé, an artist from the Republic of Benin, West Africa. Literally translated as ‘The Mouth of the King’, the title refers to a place in Bénin from where many thousands of slaves were transported to the Americas and the Caribbean.

However, La Bouche du Roi is primarily a warning against all kinds of human greed, exploitation and enslavement, both historical and contemporary. A profound and thought-provoking artistic statement by artist Romuald Hazoumé, it is made from a combination of materials, including petrol cans, spices, and audio and visual elements, the artwork’s arrangement recalls the famous 18th-century print of the slave ship, the Brookes, which was used to great effect by Abolitionists.

A recitation of Yoruba, Mahi and Wémé names, the terrible sounds and smells of a slave ship, and a video of black market petrol-runners in modern Benin are other elements which combine to make La Bouche du Roi a truly remarkable and thought-provoking work of art in which the connections between past, present and future are made profoundly real.

Horniman Museum
5 December 2008 – 1 March 2009

LA BOUCHE DU ROI Exhibit (Quick Time)

ROMUALD HAZOUME - "DREAM" DOCUMENTA12 KASSEL

«Damned if they leave and damned if they stay: better, at least, to have gone, and be doomed in the boat of their dreams»

For documenta 12, Hazoumé has installed a new art work: Dream (2007), a boat which is made of black oil cans is just in front of a picture showing an idyllic beach. But the people are forced to leave their homeland. They flee to where everything is supposedly better. But Hazoumé wishes to stay. The oil cans represent the passengers who travel in such boats. Even individual signatures are legible. Here Hazoumé stakes a claim to universal validity, no matter how corrupt African countries may be.

Currently showing at documenta 12 in Kassel, Germany, Romuald Hazoumé is one of Africa's leading visual artists. He has worked with many media throughout his career, from discarded petrol canisters, oil paint and canvas, to large-scale installation, video and photography.

Romuald Hazoumé was born in 1962 in Porto Novo, Republic of Benin, and now lives in Cotonou and works in Porto Novo. His work has won widespread critical acclaim, and he has recently exhibited his major installation "La Bouche du Roi, a re-creation of a slave ship made from petrol canisters, in solo shows at the British Museum, London, the Menil Collection, Houston, the Musée Quai Branly, Paris, and participated in the exhibitions "100% Afrique" at the Guggenheim Bilbao and in "Uncomfortable Truths", an exhibitions which addresses the ways in which the legacy of slavery informs contemporary art and design, at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Arnold-Bode-Preis für Romuald Hazoumé

©Photo: Haupt&Binder