In his current exhibition at Le Plateau, the self-taught artist invites visitors to enter his labyrinthine mind

Anaël Pigeat

Ndayé Kouagou conjures up new perspectives in Paris

‘Welcome Back’: Ndayé Kouagou loves snappy phrases. Effective. Provocative. Funny. Sometimes a little tender. This one is written in big letters at the entrance to Le Plateau and welcomes visitors to his exhibition, ‘A Change of Perspective’. On Instagram, his handle is also intriguing: youngblackromantics – he’s turned it into a publishing project.
Yet Kouagou’s art isn’t actually so romantic: instead, it challenges the viewers. This rising star, who has received much attention in Paris lately, has already exhibited at Lafayette Anticipations in 2018 and Fondation Louis Vuitton in 2023. This fall, he takes over Le Plateau, invited by its new director, Céline Poulin, for her first exhibition. It’s a manifesto of sorts – the start of a new era – as the title of the exhibition clearly indicates.

‘Ndayé Kouagou thinks of his works in terms of what they produce in others: a principle I share, as I’ve always thought of my exhibitions in terms of their reception. The audience is always central,’ explains Poulin. Here, Kouagou goes one step further. The visitor is invited to participate, to cocreate the exhibition, which presents itself as a treasure hunt. The first room sets the tone: a large table is littered with pencils and markers, and sheets are pinned to the wall all around. This is an open-invitation workshop designed to entice as wide an audience as possible to get involved in the exhibition from the outset.
Self-taught, Kouagou studied marketing before working in fashion. During the pandemic, he decided to devote himself to art. For him, it all began with writing – highly personal writings about love. He first read his texts in the form of performances, then transformed them into videos in which he appears, dressed in costumes designed especially for him by the stylist Ally Macrae: a chick-yellow halter-top ensemble, the underwiring of a knee-length skirt...

‘Where to go and how to get there?’ This is one of the questions posed by the first installation in the exhibition, Le Choix (2023). Beneath the screen, the wall is lined with wallpaper bearing the inscription ‘Good People TV’. The conversation begins, then Kouagou invites us into his corner. ‘Will you feel comfortable in my corner?’ he asks. The visitors can choose their path: ‘If you’re comfortable and want to stay, go to “III.a: Le Monde.” If you’re not comfortable, go to “III.b: Le Changement.”’ Kouagou had his voice dubbed for this by a woman, Pascale Clark, from the radio station, France Inter. ‘He often writes in English, to distance himself from his subject,’ explains Poulin. ‘He chose to have this dubbing done because he wanted a soft, recognizable voice, to create a sense of intimacy.’

And so the exhibition progresses, from video to video. Themes emerge, which lie at the heart of contemporary concerns: ‘I believe in orality,’ says Kouagou. Those in search of a moment of introspection risk getting their feet caught in rhetorical loops. The humor that emerges from the experience provides another form of reflection. Kouagou pokes fun at us a lot: ‘He uses very effective marketing techniques, which even exude a certain violence, but which he uses for something other than selling, adds Poulin. ‘Above all, he doesn’t want to be convincing. And he forces us to take a stand, to reject authority through irony. In fact, the video he presented at the Fondation Louis Vuitton was entitled The Guru (2023).’
Kouagou underlines the complexity of people and things. The reasoning goes round in circles, turns absurd, the questions remain unanswered. Another work asks, ‘But do you even know what the question is?’ 
<hr>
Ndayé Kouagou ‘A Change of Perspective’ Frac Île-de-France - Le Plateau, Paris Until February 18, 2024 
Anaël Pigeat is an art critic, editor-at-large of The Art Newspaper, journalist for Paris Match, and curator.
English translation: Art Basel.
Caption for full-bleed images, from top to bottom: Ndayé Kouagou, A Coin is a Coin (video still), 2022 © Ndayé Kouagou. 
Published on December 13, 2023.

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In his current exhibition at Le Plateau, the self-taught artist invites visitors to enter his labyrinthine mind

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