Famakan Magassa

Over the holidays, Kunsthaus Graz invited visitors to take part in a project with the artist Famakan Magassa, who had temporarily relocated his studio to the Needle of the Kunsthaus for this purpose. The large-format work created in this context will now be exhibited in the foyer of the Kunsthaus.

Famakan Magassa combines the everyday with current socio-political issues in his large-format, intensely coloured acrylic works. His works speak of the need for individual fulfilment and emotional connection, the universal desire for freedom, but also of violence, oppression and displacement. His grotesque, rather gender-neutral figures are an allusion to the Kôrêdugaw - a ritual community in Mali.

Magassa develops his expressive figurations in texts and sketches, which he then in a final step transfers to canvas surfaces on the floor. His targeted use of humour and irony pointedly highlights the contradictions and complexity of social structures. Personal experiences and conflicts are also reflected in his art.

Famakan Magassa (* 1997, Mali) received his BFA from the Conservatoire Arts et Metiers Multimedia Balla Fasséke Kouyaté in Bamako, Mali, in 2018. He has exhibited at L'Institut-Français du Mali, the Fondation La Maison de l'Artiste in Assinie, Ivory Coast (2019), in the Hotel Sahara exhibition at the BETC, Paris, France (2021). In 2022, he had his first solo exhibition SOIFS at the Albertz Benda Gallery, New York. In 2023, Magassa was awarded the Grand Prize of the Norval Sovereign African ArtPrize.