Koyo Kouoh’s death is a loss felt throughout the globe, especially in the realm of contemporary African art. Kouoh was an institution builder, a brilliant intellectual, and a visionary curator who single-handedly transformed the world’s view of African art and—more importantly—how Africa views itself. It is true that no one can take her place and that she has left a deep vacuum, but her work at the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA), where she served as the executive director and chief curator, and at RAW Material Company, which she founded in Dakar, speak to her legacy as a fierce advocate of critical thinking and artistic leadership from and about Africa, challenging the Eurocentric art history dominance. Koyo Kouoh is an example of someone who did not just inhabit the art world; she was one of the change agents who turned the world upside down. Today, she is a beacon for many who will be inspired and guided by her long-lasting influence.
Koyo Kouoh’s passing evokes grief across the world, which has led to a flood of tributes from every corner, including artists, curators, scholars, and institutions. Each remembrance describes a woman of eloquent intellect and one who lived by her passions with stubborn principles—an individual who fought her whole life to create systems and worlds for artists that were sidelined by paradigmatic systems. From the very start, she built a career on the possibility of art enabling dialogues, provoking needed changes, and verbally expressing intricate human affairs in an unparalleled manner. To truly appreciate Koyo’s Kouoh’s life journey, it is vital to grasp the concept of her all-embracing model. Her model integrated curatorial practice, institutional architecture, citizenship education, and incisive cultural critique.
Koyo Kouoh received her education in France and Switzerland, which prepared her for a career in banking as an administrator. Kouoh was born in Cameroon and later became an artist. As an artist, Kouoh demonstrated a remarkable understanding of the systematic problems facing modern-day African artists. Right after entering the art industry, she began searching for ways to solve the issues arising from the lack of well-developed and independent art infrastructures. Kouoh understood that Africa needed spaces that could support artistic production, promote critical discourse and engage the local communities in a meaningful way without the influence of external entities, aside from providing the necessary resources.
This accolade led to the establishment of RAW Material Company in Dakar, Senegal, in 2008. More than a gallery or an exhibition space, Kouoh’s visionary leadership transformed RAW Material Company into a powerful center for the intersection of art, education, and social change. It became a critical site for exhibitions, residency programs, symposia, publications, and an invaluable platform for discourse where artistic, political, and social critique concerning Africa and the global world were the primary focus. Koyo Kouoh conceived RAW as an ecosystem, a space for testing for the artists, deep diving for the researchers, and engaging the public with invigorating and accessible ways to confront difficult contemporary art.
The precise sections at the RAW Material Company, which were programmed and curated by Koyo Kouoh, reflected an insatiable drive for innovation. Exhibitions were more than displays of objects; they were sophisticated, and at times, research-based propositions, and public programs and publications that accompanied them were robust. Projects such as “Condition Report on Building Art Institutions in Africa” (2012) and “Word! Word? Word! Issa Samb and the Undecipherable Form” (2013) showcase Koyo Kouoh’s dedication to the African art ecosystem, honoring critically self-reflective thinkers who shaped it and celebrating enduring yet internationally under-acknowledged figures. Under the direction of Koyo Kouoh, RAW Material Company emerged as a best practice model for independent art initiatives from all over the world, illustrating the impact of combining intellectual rigor and activism in the construction of cultural institutions. These works provided essential groundwork for her later, large-scale, more thorough institutional leadership.
Koyo Kouoh: A Curatorial Lexicon of Engagement and Inquiry
Outside of institutional frameworks, Kouoh was an internationally notable and in-demand curator. With her curatorial work, she undertook an intense engagement with postcolonial theory, gender studies, and the socio-political particularities of her area of work. Combining diverse artistic voices into cohesive exhibitions, Kouoh goes to evoke essays and historical perspectives that are beautiful, intellectually stimulating, and timeless.
Defying stereotypes and dominant narratives, Koyo Kouoh’s signature as a curator includes surgical scrutiny of archives, resurrection of forgotten memories, and emphasizing narrative-defying and form-defying artistic interventions. Difficult topics such as colonialism, slavery, migration, identity, and contemporary urbanism are all themes Kouoh tackles head-on. They are well researched with years of conversations alongside artists and scholars, wrapped into thoughtful presentations brimming with layers of meaning, packaged in powerful visuals and depth.
Before being appointed to Zeitz MOCAA, Koyo Kouoh curated special projects for the 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair. Additionally, she received praise for her curatorial work on Ireland’s EVA International Biennial in 2016 with her exhibition “Still (the) Barbarians.” This exhibition especially showed her astonishing ability to deal with history as well as contemporary shifts in power systems such as savage colonialism and intricate globalization. Through the format of a biennial, she raised important issues related to citizenship, belonging, and systemic inequity.
In addition, Koyo Kouoh participated in documenta 12 (2007) and documenta 14 (2017) as an international curator and a member of the curatorial team, respectively. These are prestigious global platforms that she presented her voice andon on, which made her an enduring icon in contemporary curatorial practice. In her professional career, Koyo Kouoh has always represented African and diaspora artists and brought them to the international art stage. The force of her critical thought and deep dedication to artists whose work addresses urgent social issues rendered every exhibition designed by Koyo Kouoh an event of enormous intellectual importance.
The Evolving Leadership of Koyo Kouoh at Zeitz MOCAA
In March 2019, Koyo Kouoh was appointed the Executive Director and Chief Curator of Zeitz MOCAA in Cape Town, a flagship contemporary African museum. Her appointment was welcomed as a restoration of curatorial leadership to the museum, which, notwithstanding its towering ambitions and extensive collection, had been struggling with concerns about its overarching directional narrative, local engagement, and curatorial neglect of community art. Koyo Kouoh took this challenge head-on with her trademark fervor and intellectual stamina.
Kouoh’s first actions as leader of the museum marked the beginning of a previously absent strategic evolution of Zeitz MOCAA. She infused new energy and stability, expanded the scope of intellectual rigor, and sharpened curatorial focus at the museum. Within the context of Zeitz MOCAA, her priorities included strengthening the research and exhibition collaborations of the museum, improving the growing engagements with the local artistic communities, and ensuring that the museum lived up to its identity as a truly pan-African as well as globally relevant institution.
Koyo Kouoh has significantly transformed Zeitz MOCAA’s programming to become more responsive and critically engaged. Exhibitions started to address with greater depth the artistic endeavors alongside the intricate socio-political dynamics of Africa and its diaspora. She also led efforts to broaden the scope of the museum’s accessibility, understanding its critical importance within Cape Town and the wider cultural context. The major exhibitions she curated or started under her direction showed the strong commitment to the inclusion of diverse perspectives, ranging from well-known and emerging artists to the most contemporary approaches in the discourse on 21st-century African art.
Koyo Kouoh is recognized as an essential leader in the global art community. She has been described as “a global thinker, rooted in Africa.” Kouoh has always been focused and dedicated towards change and art, which she believed to be the most influential tool to cultivate sociopolitical dialogue within a society. This former head curator at the raw material company dedicated herself to the creation of platforms that encouraged self-expression and the sharing of ideas amongst intellectuals. Koyo Kouoh’s story is best described as an uncompromising battle advocating for the dismantling of the Eurocentric hegemony. She fought for the intricate and multifarious artistic narratives produced not only in Africa but also by its diaspora across the globe.
The Birth of a Vision: Koyo Kouoh and RAW Material Company
One fundamental aspect of Koyo Kouoh’s legacy is centrally located in Dakar, Senegal: RAW Material Company, the first-ever center for art, knowledge, and society that she founded in 2008, and which continues to shape her legacy. More than an exhibition space, with Koyo Kouoh at the helm, RAW Material Company transformed into an important center for artistic experimentation, intellectual critique, research, and residencies. It became a haven for artists, curators, writers, and thinkers— a place where ideas could be nurtured, argued, and shared. RAW was designed as a response to the rampant transiency of art initiatives, striving instead for an enduring framework for African intellectual and artistic production.
The ethos of RAW Material Company showed that Koyo Kouoh understood deeply the relationship between art and society. She was a proponent of art that contributes to and participates in the most urgent social, political, and cultural concerns of our epoch. This conviction was evident in RAW’s programming, which included library resources, exhibitions, symposia, the RAW Académie (a fellowship program for emerging practitioners), and other scholarly activities. The projects designed and executed by Koyo Kouoh at RAW were marked by very strong, almost scholarly determination to deep-dive into thorough planning and bold research into very difficult and often unaccounted for contemporary and historical ausência realities. To illustrate, the “Condition Report” symposia is a striking example of this attitude, as international participants were invited to address the challenge of constructing art institutions in Africa. This is but one facet of Koyo Kouoh’s effort aimed at establishing a continental and global network of solidarity and knowledge exchange.
Koyo Kouoh has shaped and aided a new generation of African artists and curators through her work with RAW, and many have achieved global acclaim. Kouoh’s conviction of “people over things” was evident in her talent cultivation and community building around RAW. She didn’t merely establish an institution; rather, she fostered an ecosystem of rigorous intellectual and artistic inquiry that still reverberates well beyond Dakar. Under Kouoh’s guidance, the impact of RAW Material Company is astounding; it redefined the standards of independent art venues and became a benchmark for constructive participation and creative autonomy.
An Influential Curator Changing the Stories Told in Art
Koyo Kouoh is still recognized as one of the most innovative independent curators who created numerous exhibitions that grew people’s understanding of art beyond the confines of the history books. These exhibitions were highly in demand as they were accompanied by a narrative that included underrepresented voices, demonstrating her powerful, deep understanding of the context and meticulous attention to detail. Apart from being an incredible independent curator, Koyo Kouoh is still labeled as one of the masters when it comes to creating multifaceted and visually astonishing displays. Soak in the strength of her words, and you will understand why she was and still is highly in demand.
Her curatorial imprint was felt across numerous prestigious international platforms. Koyo Kouoh served on the curatorial teams for Documenta 12 (2007) and Documenta 13 (2012) in Kassel, Germany, which are some of the world’s most important contemporary art exhibitions. These events marked her deepening international reputation as a curator of remarkable talent and a gifted strategic thinker. For eight editions in London and New York from 2013 to 2017, she served as the curator for the educational and artistic program of the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair. During this time, she impacted the contemporary African art discourse in the commercial art world, critically transforming it.
Among her notable curatorial projects is “Body Talk: Feminism, Sexuality and the Body in the Works of Six African Women Artists,” which she presented at WIELS in Brussels in 2015. This exhibition was an exploration of contemporary African female artists challenging stereotypical representations of women and asserting new narratives of self. Another significant project was Kouoh’s “Still (the) Barbarians” 37th EVA International, Ireland’s Biennial in Limerick (2016), where she analyzed post-colonial conditions and the enduring legacies of imperialism. In “Saving Bruce Lee: African and Arab Cinema in the Era of Soviet Cultural Diplomacy,” a research project co-curated with Rasha Salti, she examined neglected cultures and overused influences.
Koyo Kouoh’s curatorial geography wasn’t labeled to a specific medium or region but rather focused on an idea, a wish to unwrap intricate socio-political realities and depict how artists engage with the world around them. She strived as an educator who viewed art as a means of knowledge production and understanding history and a tool for envisioning alternative futures.
Leading Zeitz MOCAA: Pan-African Vision
Koyo Kouoh took on another milestone in her career as the executive director and chief curator of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA), located in Cape Town, South Africa, in March 2019. She received praise for changing the face of the institution, which is the largest contemporary art museum in Africa. With the Zeitz MOCAA, Kouoh came in with her trademark energy, intellectual rigor, and a strong commitment to pan-African and pan-diasporic approaches.
The strategies Kouoh had implemented brought a wave of revitalization to the Zeitz MOCAA. She redefined the museum’s curatorial strategy to include more substantial solo showcases of African and diasporic artists and stronger engagement with the local and continental art community. Kouoh made it clear that the vision for Zeitz MOCAA included the active use of the building as a repository of art for critical discussions, interdisciplinary research, education, and active inquiry. She also highlighted the need to relate the museum to its neighborhood in Cape Town and make it more welcoming and relevant to myriad audiences.
“The Zeitz MOCAA curator and art historian Koyo Kouoh made waves with her solo exhibitions in the institution, more prominently with the completion of her vast display ‘When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Painting’ (2022). This intricate display put forth the progress made by more than 120 Black artists from Africa and its diaspora, assertively claiming Black subjectivity while exploring in-depth the countless ways during the past century Black artists have depicted themselves and their communities.”
“‘When We See Us’ brought about international appreciation and was moved to other notable locations like Kunstmuseum Basel and Bozar in Brussels, which further reinforced her capability as a curator who weaves together exhibitions of immense historical and cultural significance. Along with her works, other notable solo exhibitions under her authority included group retrospectives and focused presentations of Tracey Rose, Otobong Nkanga, Johannes Phokela, Senzeni Marasela, Abdoulaye Konate and Mary Evans, further contributing to the understanding of contemporary art practice.”
Koyo Kouoh’s directorship at Zeitz MOCAA exhibited both a mastery and intuitive grasp of the responsibilities as well as the possibilities of a major contemporary art museum on the African continent. She focused on strengthening the internal structures of the museum, carefully building its collection, and establishing its thought leadership in global art discourse.
Intellectual Legacy and Global Impact
Outside of her curatorial and institutional roles, Koyo Kouoh also gained respect as an author, intellectual, and public figure. She published extensively in art journals and in the catalogues of exhibitions and critical collaborative books, writing with a sharp eye on contemporary art, culture and politics, as well as on the art world itself. Like her curatorial projects, her writings were characterized by straightforwardness, distinctive critique, and advocacy for more balanced and representative art. “When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Paintin”g, “Word! Word? Word!: Issa Samb and the Undecipherable For”m, and ‘Condition Report: Symposium on Building Art Institutions in Africa” are just a few of her publications that showcase her intellect.
Koyo Kouoh was a notable international speaker and attended multidisciplinary conferences, symposiums, and academic forums where she was a keynote speaker and her voice was respected. She was an outspoken proponent of the decolonization of art history and curatorial practices, calling for the end of institutional colonialism in favor of more polycentric, multi-centric, and inclusive frameworks. She spoke passionately in more than one catalyzing debate on the future of museums, ethics of curating, and responsibilities of art towards society, which captivated people throughout the world.
Kouoh’s impact was also felt through her participation on various boards and advisory committees, such as the DAAD board, as well as the Vera List Center Prize for Art and Politics at The New School in New York. Koyo Kouoh has most recently received the Grand Prix Meret Oppenheim, which is known for being the highest cultural award in Switzerland for architects, critics and curators. This was a great testament to her remarkable efforts towards the discipline.
Her recent updates indicated that she had been appointed to curate the 2026 Venice Biennale. This affirmation demonstrated her standing globally and the deep respect she had earned internationally in the community. This was an appointment that held radical potential for constructive change, a transformative Biennale that, without question, would have been shaped by Koyo Kouoh’s unique vision and understanding of contemporary global art.
The enduring impact of Koyo Kouoh remains a gap that is a profound silence and a source of inspiration endlessly.
Koyo Kouoh’s death is a deep loss for art. Every art community had a mentor, friend, and champion supporting their cause. Kouoh devoted a lot of time pushing forward ideas and people who she deeply believed mattered. With enduring valor, she had the evidence-based means to change lives due to her enthusiasm. She inflicted change in the world’s art system and hence paved an entirely new path for those who strive for mere survival and not existence. Behind every artistic entity there exists a living soul who participates and is transformed.
Kouoh’s absence creates a wide void within the contemporary African art scene, but her legacy is rich and enduring. Her impact can be felt in the many institutions she built and revitalized, in the transformative exhibitions she curated, in her numerous artist and curator mentees, and in the many critical dialogues she sparked. She literally transformed the contemporary African art scene as well as its reception around the world. The intellectual and institutional frameworks she established will support enduring and multigenerational artistic and scholarly endeavors.
Kouoh’s life’s work exemplifies the issues of social justice and healing, as well as establishing connections in a fragmented society where art can be used as a tool of change. Her case teaches us how a person can become a deeply engaged and socially transformative leader. Today’s reality of the art world is a painful shock, but on the other hand, it loses the bright force named Koyo Kouoh. She was a woman full of visionary ideas that will not get erased for multiple decades to come. So many people, including myself, will always remember her as an unforgettable leader and as someone whose contributions to art history and in the lives of so many whom she inspired will never be forgotten. She will always remain remembered as someone who strongly believed in the need for the “contemporary African personality” as well as an ardent supporter of the importance of art in shaping such a personality.
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