Georges
Adéagbo

Born in 1942 in Cotonou, Benin 
Lives and works in Cotonou and Hamburg

Georges Adéagbo (1942 in Benin, then Dahomey) is a conceptual artist who has been developing his own style of using found objects since the early 1970s in Cotonou, Benin. When out on walks he gathers items that have been lost or thrown away, and incorporates them into his installations. Adéagbo enriches his palette with acquired objects and works he has commissioned himself – sculptures, masks, pictures and text panels. As a result, episodes from his personal past interface with unusual interpretations of so-called objective historical scholarship, mainstream pop culture is juxtaposed with canonized high culture, and the banal confronts the profound in his works. Adéagbo avoids overly obvious interpretations of his work: ambiguity and entrapment are integral to his strategy of provocation.

2024

“L’œuvre d’art d’Aby Warburg et les œuvres d’art des artistes”...!, Hamburger Kunsthalle

2023

“Create to Free Yourselves: Abraham Lincoln and the History of Freeing Slaves in America”, President Lincoln‘s Cottage, Washington DC

2022

“Ouidah d’hier et Ouidah d’aujourd’hui”, Atlantic, Ouidah, Benin

”À l’école de Ernest Barlach, le sculpteur”, Ernst Barlach Haus, Hamburg

2021

“La Philosophie de l‘art…” & “L‘Eau, la clé…”, Musée d’art et d’histoire Genève, Maison Tavel, Geneva, Switzerland

“La lumière qui fait le bonheur...”, KINDL, Berlin