A Franco-Cameroonian artist living in Paris, Barthélémy Toguo has composed a political and multi-cultural body of work. An excellent watercolor painter, he is equally at ease with drawing, video, sculpture, performance art and installations for expressing his ideas about exile, borders and identities, the North-South imbalance, and his view of the world, which he wishes were a better one. The whole of his work, which is directly informed by worldwide current events, offers spectator/visitors a provocative gaze over the most violent and unfair realities. In 2005, he gave inner-city youth a forum; he happened to be on Tahrir Square in Cairo in 2011, for the Arab Spring.

His motto, which he borrowed from Albert Camus: Artists forge themselves in the endless back-and-forthing between themselves and others, half way between the beauty they cannot do without and the community they cannot tear themselves away from.

In 2008 he opened Bandjoun Station, an artists’residence in northern Cameroon. It is an open-minded place, devoted to exploring what is needed for sub-Saharan Africa to reclaim its contribution to international contemporary art.

Represented by Galerie Lelong, Barthélémy Toguo’s work has been shown around the world.

In 2015, he was invited to the Venice International Biennale, where he presented Urban Requiem, an installation piece

This book is based on Thierry Clermont’s interviews with the artist, carried out in the artist’s Parisian studio over a span of several years, from 2012 to 2015.

An interview-text that offers a forum for Barthélémy Toguo, a multi-faceted artist who uses drawing, video, sculpture, performance art and installations to express his ideas about exile, borders and identities.