Mbaye Babacar Diouf
Mbaye Babacar Diouf (b:1983) lives and works near Dakar, Senegal. He graduated in Philosophy of the Arts at the Institute Cheikh Anta Diop, after obtaining his BA from the National School of Fine Arts, both in Dakar.
Through painting, sculpture or installations, Mbaye Babacar Diouf examines the individual and societal opportunities and challenges in contemporary Senegal through the ‘long time’ of West African history and the country's rich traditions of philosophy and spirituality.
After he was commissioned by the Ifan Museum (Dakar) to produce a 700kg bronze installation in 2020, he has pursued his explorations of this material in a new body of works.
His most recent bronze sculpture series’ starting point is the motif of the universal football, which he uses as an allegory to examine notions of malleability and mutations. Using the technique of lost wax casting, the round shapes are deflated, crushed, or pierced, as if they have been submitted to various shocks. Sometimes nails transpierce the bronze, calling to mind a leitmotiv specific to African sculpture. The surface of the objects is weathered green, blackened, or rendered a glossy gold, and carries loose marks in places- like scriptures. The artist then mounts the objects on clean white plinths, which makes them look as if they were small terrestrial globes, or archeological-like artefacts.
Mbaye Babacar Diouf has exhibited extensively in Senegal, including at the Dakar Biennale, Raw Material, IFAN Musuem and The Museum of Black Civilisations. He is the recipient of the Silver Prize, Painting, at the Francophonie Games and the 1st Prize for Art, City of Dakar ,2022 (with A. Bassene). He was invited to exhibit at: Institut du Monde Arabe, Cite des Arts et des Sciences, both in Paris, France, where he was an artist Resident at the prestigious Cite des Arts; and Musee Mohamed VI, Rabat, Morocco.
