Entrée to Black Paris Blog

Thursday, October 24th, 2024

Barthélémy Toguo at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France

Offrandes in the Galerie de verre
© Entrée to Black Paris

Entrée to Black Paris has published articles about Barthélémy Toguo in the past,* and we talk extensively about him at the beginning of our Spirit of Africa walking tour. He is an inexhaustible source of work that explores questions of migration, environment, and human rights.

It seems not only fitting, but also natural, for the Musée de la Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) to select this world-renowned creative to be artist-in-residence for its year-long (September 21, 2024 - September 7, 2025) examination of the theme "Le monde pour horizon" ("The world for horizon").

Through Toguo's art, BnF wanted the visiting public to experience an artistic, contemporary, and culturally decentralized counterpoint to the works traditionally displayed throughout the museum as well as to a selection of more than 300 rarely shown works from its collections that are being displayed in the Salle Mazarin over the course of the year. Ceramic works, sculptures, works on paper, and installations by Toguo can be found throughout the museum.

You first encounter Toguo as you mount the grand staircase, where his installation entitled A Book Is My Hope hangs overhead. Painted cardboard "guardians" survey numerous books suspended by wire as a metaphorical defense against the destruction of books and manuscripts by fundamentalists.

Grand staircase
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A Book Is My Hope (2024)
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A Book Is My Hope (2024)
La Mauvaise Education des Noirs - Carter G. Woodson
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A Book Is My Hope (2024)
Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
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A Book Is My Hope (2024)
Nations Nègres et Culture - Cheikh Anta Diop
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Toguo's Bardes guard the treasures of the Salle des Colonnes, the Cabinet précieux, and the Salle de Luynes. Ceramic works of varying sizes are strategically placed in these rooms as well as in the Salle Barthélémy and the Salon Louis XV.

Barde (2024) - Salle des Colonnes
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Barde (2024) - Cabinet précieux
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Fragile Body 2 (2017) - Cabinet précieux
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Balade aquatique III (2017) - Salle de Luynes
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Fragile Body 9 and Fragile Body 10 (2017) - Salle Barthélémy
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In the Salle Barthélémy (named after Abbé J. J. Barthélémy [1716-1795]), fourteen (14) bronze medallions honor male leaders from Africa and the African diaspora.

Leaders Africains - Franz Fanon and Nelson Mandela (2024) - Salle Barthélémy
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Leaders Africains - Malcolm X (2024) - Salle Barthélémy
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And in the Salon Louis XV, in addition to four ceramic works, an enormous collection of manuscripts by Toguo entitled Eclosions mémorielles lies on a table near the passage where visitors view the contents of the room. The texts in this work present the thoughts of intellectuals about Africa's relationship with the world; sketches, watercolors, and collages compliment their words.

Eclosions mémorielles (2024) - Salon Louis XV
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Vaincre le virus ! VI (2016) - Salon Louix XV
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Retracing your steps through these rooms and venturing past the grand staircase toward the Rotonde, you find yourself in a glass corridor that provides a view of the interior courtyard. On the walls of the passageway, Toguo has installed vinyl handprints that originate from acrylic paintings. For him, they represent solidarity.

Offrandes (2024) in the Galerie de verre
© Entrée to Black Paris

Offrandes (2024) and view of courtyard - Galerie de verre
© Entrée to Black Paris

The Rotonde currently houses a fascinating temporary exhibition of rarely displayed items from India. This is the only room where no works by Toguo are currently on view.

Back in the main building, turn right before regaining the grand stairwell to enter the Salle Mazarin.

Salle Mazarin
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In this magnificent space, you will a display of bas-relief Zingana wooden sculptures called Bilongue in front of an alcove in the wall on the left, just a few yards past the entryway.

The people represented in these wood portraits are from the Bilongue quarter of Douala, Cameroon.

Bilongue - bas-relief (2020)
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Bilongue - bas-relief (2020) - Portrait of a woman
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Much farther along the left wall, a second display of the same name shows portraits of local inhabitants in ink and watercolor on paper. Each has a post card from colonial times superimposed on the face.

Bilongue - works on paper (2020)
© Entrée to Black Paris

Between these two sets of works, again on the left wall, is an installation called Urban Requiem.

This work evokes the stamps used by administrators to approve or reject documents submitted by people seeking asylum or other categories of residence. The slogans speak to issues surrounding immigration, exile, and other struggles experienced by minority populations.

Some of these stamps have been used to create prints that the museum acquired for its collection.

Additional works by Toguo in this room include the Head Above Water, Rwanda (2011) postcard series.

Beginning in 2001, Toguo invited people living through difficult economic or political situations around the world to share something about their situation on a postcard addressed to him. He has collected cards from Kosovo, Lagos, Johannesburg, Cuba, Tunisia, Hiroshima, Auschwitz and Birkenau, Mexico, London, Cairo and The Hamptons in addition to those found in the Rwanda series.

Between Toguo's powerful works and the extraordinary pieces from BnF's collection, you could spend hours in this room alone!

When you leave the Salle Mazarin and turn right to go back to the grand staircase to exit the museum, you will find one last glorious juxtaposition of the classic and the contemporary in the view pictured below.

During the course of the exhibition year, works will be rotated on and off display. The museum has already announced that in January 2025, a Toguo sculpture entitled Caring for Memory (2023) will be installed in the garden in front of the museum.

I highly recommend seeing this exhibition. The BnF is an architectural gem, its collections are magnificent, and Toguo's counterpoint to the works displayed throughout the museum is nothing short of brilliant.

Musée de la BnF
Site Richelieu
5, rue Vivienne
75002 Paris
Metro: Palais Royal (Lines 1 and 7), Bourse (Line 3)
Entry: 10€

*Previous ETBP articles about Barthélémy Toguo:
Expo: The Lost Dogs' Orchestra - Barthélémy Toguo (2010)
Barthélémy Toguo's Strange Fruit in Paris (2017)
Barthélémy Toguo - Two Shows in Paris (2021)