Abu Bakarr Mansaray

A crossover of oversized aircraft and post-apocalyptic war machines straight out of hell, the universe depicted by Abu Bakarr Mansaray, artist and self-taught engineer, has a technical precision that is as amazing as it is troubling.

The "Abu Bakarr Mansaray" catalogue accompanies the exhibition of the same name presented at the Cité des sciences et de l'industrie. It is the first monograph dedicated to this painter, illustrator and sculptor born in Sierra Leone in 1969. Along with the nine drawings and two sculptures on show at the exhibition, this book contains other creations by the artist inspired by the chaos of his country's devastating civil war. The works come from the Jean Pigozzi Collection of African Art.
Three original contributions shed light on various aspects. André Magnin, gallery owner and expert on modern and contemporary African art, tells us about the exceptional circumstances of his first encounter with Abu Bakarr Mansaray in Freetown at the end of 1991. Art sociologist Myriam Odile Blin discusses "the vision of humanity's biotechnological future" flowing through his "Afro-futurist" productions. And, beyond the supposed extravagance of his machines and their proximity with creations by other space-vehicle-inventing artists, Gérard Azoulay, head of the Observatoire de l'Espace at the French Space Agency (CNES), suggests that Mansaray has "made a pact with non-humans" at the crossroads of science and the imagination.

Key dates, a list of his main exhibitions and a bibliography conclude these critical approaches to a major artist on the current African scene.