Pascale Marthine Tayou

Robilant+Voena is pleased to present an exhibition of works by Pascale Marthine Tayou in London. The exhibition is organised in collaboration with Galleria Continua, coinciding with a major retrospective at their gallery in Les Moulins, France, and features new works alongside some of the Cameroonian artist’s most celebrated series from the past ten years. This is the first time that Tayou is having a solo gallery presentation in the UK, where he has previously been recognised with solo institutional exhibitions at the Serpentine Galleries (2015), and MK Gallery (2007–8), as well as an Artist Room at Tate Modern (2023–24). Robilant+Voena’s exhibition offers an exciting opportunity for London audiences to see work by this internationally renowned artist, who was recently awarded the Grand Prix de Sculpture from the Académie des Beaux-Arts in France. Pascale Marthine Tayou was born in Nkongsamba, Cameroon in 1966. Since the beginning of the 1990s and his participation in Documenta 11 (2002) in Kassel and at the Venice Biennale (2005 and 2009), Tayou has been known among a wide international public. His work is characterised by its variability, since he does not confine himself in his artistic work to one medium, material or subject. Instead, he uses himself as a person as the point of departure for each artwork. At the very outset of his career, Pascale Marthine Tayou changed his name to incorporate a feminine ending, thus distancing himself from the importance of artistic authorship and male/female ascriptions. The variability of his practice applies also to geography and cultural origin. His works not only mediate in this sense between various experiences, perspectives and backgrounds, but are produced in the knowledge that they are social, cultural, or political constructions. His work is deliberately mobile, elusive, and linked to the idea of travel and of coming into contact with that which is other to oneself, and is often so spontaneous that it seems casual. All works by Tayou have a recurrent feature in common: they dwell upon an individual moving through the world and exploring the issue of origins and related expectations. Tayou has been recognised with solo exhibitions at leading international institutions, including the Cultural Foundation, Abu Dhabi (2023); Mu.ZEE Ostend (2018 and 2019); the Bass Museum, Miami (2017); Bozar, Brussels (2015); MACRO, Rome (2012); MUDAM Luxembourg (2011); and the Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2002). His work features in notable collections worldwide, including Buffalo AKG (Albright-Knox Art Gallery), Buffalo; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland; MAC Lyon; Macro, Rome; MAXXI, Rome; MUDAM, Luxembourg; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Pinault Collection, Paris; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Abu Dhabi; SMAK, Ghent; Tate Modern, London.

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