Away from Africa

A few years ago, I wrote about Mboko Lagriffe's " Barbebuexpo " in Douala: a novel way of organizing an art fair. In the meantime, he has not been idle. He continued painting, organizing bi-annual Barbecuexpo art fairs, designing household items, but the big "coup" has been to win the competition for a new design on Royal Air Maroc (RAM) airplanes. In 2016, Royal Air Maroc organized a competition, Wings of African Art, to decorate the exterior fuselage of its airplanes. The jury president was Mehdi Qotbi, head of the National Foundation of Museums of the Moroccan Kingdom, and included artists and critics of renown. There were three winners: Mboko Lagriffe from Cameroon, the Franco-Moroccan Sara Ouhaddou, and Saidou Dicko from Burkina Faso. Mboko Lagriffe also won the public vote.  The "Love" Royal Air Maroc plane (photo: Dayot JC) The Love plane in the air (photo: Guillaume Février) Painting: Frontières Irréelles (Unreal border...

Contemporary visual art is not only to be found in the upper scale neighborhoods of Douala. Désiré Pemeyeke, alias Mboko Lagriffe, recently held an art gathering in an out of the way neighborhood – in fact, so out of the way that we got lost trying to find it, and I was with a person who knows Douala’s meandering streets by heart. The gathering is named Barbecuexpo : no wine and cheese for Cameroonians! Grilled fish was the featured attraction.  Eugénie, the smoothie expert The setting was humble – a courtyard with a dirt floor – but one large wall was covered with the creations of several local artists, including the host himself; and an assortment of fabric bags, mugs, clothing, a table made with old tires, and sandals; packaged hot sauce, and a fruit smoothie stand held by a young lady named Eugénie. Mind you, this is not a country where there are a lot of smoothies, even less with beet juice included! Despite the distance from “Main Street, Douala” – not th...