Leonce Raphael Agbodjelou | Benin
Leonce Raphael Agbodjélou was born in 1965 in Porto-Novo, Benin, where he still lives and works.
He is the founder and director of the first photographic school in Benin which opened in 2013, and has recently been appointed the president of the Photographer’s Association of Porto-Novo. Agbodjélou is the recipient of the 2013 Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize which he was awarded by the National Portrait Gallery in London, UK.
Using a daylight studio and a medium format film, the artist interprets the experience of a generation caught between tradition and progress.
He presented his first solo exhibition From Dahomey to Benin in 2010 in London. The Egungun Project was presented in Germany in 2013, followed by his latest solo exhibition Code Noir in 2014 in London; Egungun Masquerades at SMAC Gallery in Cape Town , South Africa in 2015 and, most recently Borderlands at Jack Bell Gallery in London, UK in 2016.
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
His work was acquired for the permanent collection of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (MOCAA) and was included in the inaugural exhibition opening on 22 September 2017 in Cape Town, South Africa. Other notable collections include: the Switzerland Museum of Modern Art, Zurich, Switzerland; Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, UK; Saatchi Collection, London, UK; CAAC Pigozzi Collection, Geneva, Switzerland; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, USA; Tiroche DeLeon Collection, Gibraltar; Iziko South African Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa; Scheryn Art Fund, Cape Town, South Africa; Museum of Modern Art, Equatorial Guinea; Danjuma Collection, Esher, United Kingdom; and most recently, The Kelvin Grove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow, Scotland.
Selected solo exhibitions:
2015
LEONCE RAPHAEL AGBODJÉLOU, Smac gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
Leonce Raphael Agbodjelou : Code Noir, Jack Bell Gallery, London, UK
2013
Citizens of Porto-Novo, Jack Bell Gallery, London, UK
The Egungun Project, Kleinschmidt Fine Photographs, Wiesbaden, Germany
2012
Leonce Raphael Agbodjelou : Demoiselles de Porto-Novo, Jack Bell Gallery, London, UK
2011
Egungun Project, Jack Bell Gallery, London, UK
2010
From Dahomey to Benin, Jack Bell Gallery, London, UK
Selected group exhibitions:
2016
Making & Unmaking, Camden Arts Centre, London, UK
Making Africa – A Continent of Contemporary Design, CCCB, Barcelona, Spain
Disguise: Masks and Global African Art, Brooklyn Museum, New York, USA
2014
Pangaea: New Art from Africa and Latin America, Saatchi Gallery, London, UK
2013
Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize, National Portrait Gallery, London, UK
Native Nostalgia, The Museum of African Design, South Africa
Revealed2, Samstag Museum of Art, Adelaide, Australia
LagosPhoto Festival, Lagos, Nigeria
Paris Photo, Paris, France
2012
Betwixt and Between: Contemporary African Photography, Museum of Glasgow
Out of Focus, Saatchi Gallery, London, UK
2011
Les Fantomes, Jack Bell Gallery, London, UK
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