Alexandre Diop is a Franco-Senegalese artist based between Paris, Dakar, Vienna, and Berlin. His process is deeply rooted in a meticulous exploration of the physicality of the materials he engages with. Diop has developed the concept of Object Image, utilizing everyday—and often discarded—materials and objects such as metal, found items from the streets or junkyards, fabrics, books, photographs, colours, anatomical elements, as well as transformative processes like fire and rust.

Diop’s powerful mixed-media works delve into themes of history, metaphorical archaeology and socio-political change. Most importantly, it’s about the relationship between forms, lines, and colours that allows him to create a visual narrative. Drawing upon his experience as a dancer, musician and visual artist, Diop brings a multidisciplinary lens to his practice, crafting works that are deeply visceral and formally innovative.

Acting as multilayered narratives, Diop’s works delve deeply into his own experiences, alongside broader observations and interpretations of the world. Inspired by contemporary realities, cultural and subcultural practices across Europe, Africa, Asia, South America, and the U.S., as well as diverse musical genres ranging from noise to hip-hop, Diop presents a rich tapestry of inquiries, socio-political themes, and art-historical references. His work invites viewers beyond the immediate texture and materiality, immersing them in the depths of his artistic vision.

As an interdisciplinary artist, Diop founded the artist collective Le Mouton Noir during his time in Berlin, creating a platform for exploring intersections between visual and performing arts while fostering collaboration with artists worldwide.

“I’m looking for risk and experimentation, and this is the way that allows me to innovate. I destroy, advance and change. I create hybrid works that follow then their own set of rules.“

The works of Alexandre Diop present us with a multitude of cultural, socio-political and art-historical references that draw us deeply into the artist’s mind. Considering the musical and literary references, symbolisms and metaphors takes us beyond the immediate texture and materiality that defines the aesthetics of his work, created with discarded, damaged and forgotten materials. His references allude to the deep intellectual space that is an integral layer of his practice and constitutes an essential part of the works’ materiality – conceptually and based on ontological explorations. Materiality is the literal definition yet also a conceptual extension of the idea behind it.

Plastic and wood sections may show burn marks as fire is a recurring metaphor in Diop’s work. The blackened and curled plastic edges almost still carry the scent as we are asked to accept the damage and move into a newly emerging reality. Diop is a true creator as he understands reality yet immediately alters it to create a different version that he asks us to follow him into. Using pieces of objects, vessels and containers such as discarded cookie jars or cans, the artworks themselves become containers that hold meaning. The artwork becomes akin to a container or “the soul of the project,” as Diop calls it. The materiality contains history, references, and identity notions, but also it also paradoxically contains the artwork itself. We find a combination of materials that hint at self-reflection yet merge them into a grander picture that considers connections between space or landscape and identity markers, contemporary politics, history and art history, whilst simultaneously claiming its rightful place within.

We can see stitching and gluing and a merging of materials, visible and literal at first. Wires connect latex to Hershey’s wrappers that mark a shoulder, but the references and material layers extend into the intellectual and conceptual spaces of the work and connect directly with the viewer. The works invite to dance, sing, read, think, engage. A third extension is the think space of Diop himself. We may not always see a literal depiction of cultural references by finding a book cover somewhere on the canvas. But he would have read it anyway and not provided us with the direct interpretation. The third layer we must find on our own as we share the canvas with Diop and so many thinkers that are part of his research and being.

Diop ultimately challenges with an expression of mind. He stimulates every sense so we can almost smell the burn, perceive his movements, and feel his intensity during the creation process even after completion. He is never absent from the work. The energy persists and we can hear jazz music, hip hop beats and his own voice resonating off the walls. There is movement, fluidity, continuity. We cannot grasp a beginning or end regardless of how much or how little negative space is provided. The story doesn’t end by what we immediately perceive.

Taken from:
Beyond Texture – Intellectual Materiality in the Work of Alexandre Diop
By Heike Dempster

An efficient work stands by itself. I'm not interested in illusions, nor in intellectualism. I show what I believe to be.

Each artwork by Diop is an explosion. We can’t say where it comes from or predict where it will go, but it’s not difficult to understand how the artist positions himself among the great masters and among the sometimes depressing status quo of the contemporary art scene. The Art of Diop is the Art of Defiance.

If Alexandre Diop’s work reflects his identity, then any analysis must begin with an investigation of his origins. Diop is the product of his biological family—his parents and friends; his artistic family— the Mouton Noir; and he’s also a product of the diaspora. Like all Senegalese, he is inseparable from the path of his ancestors.

The Young Devil is the nickname given to Alexandre by his friends. We imagine the pioneers of the colonial expeditions using it to designate the Tiedos (or Ceddos), dangerous warriors who fought against the colonialists for so long that they grew dreadlocks. Like them, the young artist fights disrespect with the dialectic of chaos.

Each new Diop reinvents the reality of his surname while holding fast to the ancestral history that lies beyond it. Similarly, Alexandre’s works will continue to transform themselves over time. They are in constant and steady evolution due to the materials he uses and the ways in which they act against each other. Because of the complexity of their execution, Diop’s works pose a real challenge to any future conservator should they face accidental or natural damage. That said, in a world doomed to inevitable degradation by the struggle between Nature and Technology, aren’t we all already challenged conservators?

Taken from:
Jooba Jubba: The Art of Defiance
Written by Mara Niang

𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓

𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓. #++

𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓 𝓐𝓓kd

𝖉𝖉𝖉𝖏𝖔𝖇𝖇𝖆𝖏𝖚𝖇𝖇𝖆

Mouton Noir

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Mireille l´Abeillllllleeeeeee

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