Roméo Mivekannin (b. 1986, Bouaké)

Le Colon, Afrique du Sud (part of Barnum series)

2020, acrylic and elixir baths on free canvas, 186 × 146 cm.

Photo by Jean François Rogeboz, courtesy galerie Eric Dupont, Paris.

Produced for an exhibition inspired by W. E. B. Du Bois’s book The Souls of Black Folk which called for the recognition of the human rights of people of African descent, this is one of a series of works which reference different aspects of France’s colonisation of West Africa. Here we see a white colonist with his feet resting on a young African, while a second figure sits on the ground next to them. As in his other works, Mivekannin has substituted his own face for the young men’s. While the colonist looks away, they look at us, as if to remind that the continuing exploitation of Africa involves us too.