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Sarah Maldoror: Tricontinental Cinema

US Premiere

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Feb 03, 2024–Apr 28, 2024

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Free for all audiences

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See the first large-scale museum exhibition dedicated to filmmaker Sarah Maldoror, a pioneer of African cinema and fighter for Black women’s empowerment.

Tricontinental Cinema explores Maldoror’s five-decade career as a filmmaker, tracing her involvement with Black liberation movements in France, Africa, and the Caribbean. Through an immersive, multisensory landscape of films, photographs, poetry, and letters, the exhibition invites you to experience the full scope of Maldoror’s practice.

Recognized as "the mother of African cinema," Maldoror completed more than 45 shorts, documentaries, and feature films for both the screen and television before her death in 2020. Many of these works, including her searing anti-colonial drama Sambizanga (1972)—one of the first features made in Africa by a Black woman filmmaker—rewrite the rules of films focusing on resistance and rebellion, often casting women as protagonists in movements dominated by men. Other films chart Maldoror’s creative connections with key artists and intellectuals in the Afro-Caribbean diaspora, including Surrealist artist Wifredo Lam and Négritude poet Aimé Césaire, as well as jazz musicians like the Art Ensemble of Chicago.

Tricontinental Cinema extends this circle of conversations and collaborations to the present. The exhibition includes several large-scale works by contemporary artists, including Maya-Bantu, a monumental fiber sculpture by renowned French and Canadian artist Kapwani Kiwanga and Homage to the Poet Léon-Gontran Damas, an installation by American sculptor Melvin Edwards. It also features a newly commissioned mural, painted on-site, from Paris-based artist Maya Mihindou entitled An Obscure Wound. Framing Maldoror’s films and archives, these works form a constellation of Black and Afro-Surrealist practices while amplifying the continued resonance of her work today. Images of all three artists’ works are included in the image gallery below.

Explore more programs and events related to the exhibition.

Artist list:
Mathieu Kleyebe Abonnenc 
André Acquart 
Melvin Edwards
Soñ Gweha 
Ana Mercedes Hoyos
Kapwani Kiwanga
Wifredo Lam 
Sarah Maldoror 
Chris Marker
Maya Mihindou 
Chloé Quenum
Maud Sulter

"This long-overdue survey…present[s] not just the work of a life, but that life itself."

—Artforum

A large colorful mural painted on a long wall in a brightly lit gallery, with a video projection and posters in a darkened space in the background.

Maya Mihindou, An Obscure Wound, 2024 (detail). Wall painting, dimensions variable. Commissioned by the Wexner Center for the Arts. Installation view at the Wexner Center for the Arts.

Maya Mihindou, An Obscure Wound, 2024 (detail). Wall painting, dimensions variable. Commissioned by the Wexner Center for the Arts.

Two metal disks and a chain sit on the floor in front of a blue, black, and red mural of two pairs of seated figures. A painting hangs between them.

Foreground: Melvin Edwards, Homage to the Poet Léon-Gontran Damas, 1978-1981 (detail). Courtesy of Alexander Gray Associates, New York; Stephen Friedman Gallery, London. © 2024 Melvin Edwards/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Background: Maya Mihindou, An Obscure Wound, 2024 (detail), commissioned by the Wexner Center for the Arts. Wifredo Lam, Ici sur la Terre (Here on Earth), 1955; courtesy of Wifredo Lam Estate and Gary Nader; © Wifredo Lam Estate, ADAGP, Paris / ARS, New York 2024. Installation view at the Wexner Center for the Arts.

In the closer of the two film projections shown, a Black man carries harvested bananas. The subtitle reads Europe thinks it’s buried colonialism.

Sarah Maldoror: Tricontinental Cinema, installation view at the Wexner Center for the Arts.

A video monitor, video projection, and archival materials installed in a bright, skylit museum gallery.

Sarah Maldoror: Tricontinental Cinema, installation view at the Wexner Center for the Arts.

Installation view of a freestanding black wire sculpture of a pair of eyes and eyebrows, four posters, a video projection, and ephemera.

Sarah Maldoror: Tricontinental Cinema, installation view at the Wexner Center for the Arts.

Installation view of six identical black stands holding shallow black bowls on a wood floor. Architectural details are visible in the background.

Soñ Gweha, Des safous pour les Bayam-Sellam (The safous for the Bayam-Sellam), 2021 (detail). Ceramic, Dibond, aluminum, steel, and sound, approx. 39 3/8 x 19 11/16 x 19 11/16 in. each. Installation view at the Wexner Center for the Arts. Courtesy of the artist.

Detail of a shallow black bowl containing an assortment of blue, green, gray, and gold ceramic safous fruits.

A large hanging sculpture made of sisal hangs in the center of a brightly lit museum gallery, with paintings installed on walls to the left and right.

From left to right: Ana Mercedes Hoyos, Sin Título (Untitled), 2010; acrylic on linen; courtesy of the estate of Ana Mercedes Hoyos and Galería Nueveochenta. Kapwani Kiwanga, Maya-Bantu, 2019; sisal fiber, steel; courtesy of the artist and Goodman Gallery; © 2024 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris. Ana Mercedes Hoyos, Comercio Triangular (Triangular Trade), 2007; acrylic on canvas; courtesy of the estate of Ana Mercedes Hoyos and Galería Nueveochenta, Bogotá, Colombia. Installation view at the Wexner Center for the Arts.

Four yellow to brownish plaster sculptures of abstracted faces with both animal and human characteristics are supported by metal armatures.

André Acquart, four plaster masks, created for the theatrical performance of The Blacks by Jean Genet, directed by Roger Blin, performed by Les Griots, 1959. Courtesy of Claire Acquart.

More about the exhibition

Sarah Maldoror was born Sarah Ducados in 1929 in the town of Condom in Gers, France. The child of a Guadeloupean father and French mother, Maldoror matriculated into the intellectual and artistic ferment of 1950s Paris, where she cofounded the first Black theater troupe in France. Rechristening herself in homage to Isidor Ducasse’s proto-Surrealist book Les Chants de Maldoror (1868–69), she earned a scholarship to study filmmaking in Moscow, where she counted future Senegalese filmmaker Ousmane Sembène among her classmates at the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography (VGIK). After decamping from Moscow to Morocco, her stint as assistant director of Gillo Pontecorvo’s insurrectionary classic The Battle of Algiers (1966) set the course for Maldoror’s first film, Monangambeee (1969), followed by Sambizanga (1972, also screened at the Wex in 2022). In the decades thereafter, Maldoror directed more than 45 films for screen and television, many of which feature leading voices of Négritude and Pan-Africanism.

The following films are screening in the gallery during the run of the exhibition.

Friday–Wednesday

Film Title, Date (Run Time ) | Start Time
Et les chiens se taisaient, 1978 (12:49 mins.) | 10:05 AM

Toto Bissainthe, 1984 (3:24 mins.) | 10:17 AM

Aimé Césaire—un homme une terre, 1977 (57:19 mins.) | 10:21 AM

Léon G. Damas, 1994 (25:30 mins.) | 11:18 AM

Monangambeee, 1969 (15:57 mins.) | 11:44 AM

Sambizanga, 1973 (98:29 mins.) | noon

Fogo, île de feu, 1979 (33:50 mins.) | 1:39 PM

À Bissau, le carnaval, 1980 (18:28 mins.) | 2:12 PM

Carnaval dans le Sahel, 1980 (33:20 mins.) | 2:31 PM

Un dessert pour Constance, 1981 (61:21 mins.) | 3:01 PM

Portrait d’une femme africaine, 1985 (3:10 mins.) | 4:02 PM

Aimé Césaire—le masque des mots, 1987 (46:47 mins.) | 4:05 PM

Ana Mercedes Hoyos, 2008 (12:49 mins.) | 4:52 PM

Thursday

Film Title, Date (Run Time ) | Start Time

Et les chiens se taisaient, 1978 (12:49 mins.) | 10:05 AM

Toto Bissainthe, 1984 (3:24 mins.) | 10:17 AM

René Depestre, poète haïtien, 1981 (4:32 mins.) | 10:21 AM

Aimé Césaire—un homme une terre, 1977 (57:19 mins.) | 10:26 AM

Léon G. Damas, 1994 (25:30 mins.) | 11:23 AM

Monangambeee, 1969 (15:57 mins.) | 11:48 AM

Sambizanga, 1973 (98:29 mins.) | 12:04 PM

Fogo, île de feu, 1979 (33:50 mins.) | 1:43 PM

À Bissau, le carnaval, 1980 (18:28 mins.) | 2:17 PM

Carnaval dans le Sahel, 1980 (33:20 mins.) | 2:35 PM

Un dessert pour Constance, 1981 (61:21 mins.) | 3:06 PM

Portrait d’une femme africaine, 1985 (3:10 mins.) | 4:07 PM

Aimé Césaire—le masque des mots, 1987 (46:47 mins.) | 4:10 PM

Wifredo Lam—peintre et sculpteur, 1980 (3:13 mins.) | 4:57 PM

Ana Mercedes Hoyos, 2008 (12:49 mins.) | 5:00 PM

Sambizanga, 1973 (98:29 mins.) | 5:13 PM

Screening of Carnaval dans le Sahel, À Bissau, le carnaval, and Fogo, île de feu made possible in part by the French National Centre of Cinema.

Tag(s)

Exhibitions

Sarah Maldoror: Tricontinental Cinema is organized by Palais de Tokyo, Paris, and the Wexner Center for the Arts. The exhibition is curated by Palais de Tokyo Curator François Piron and CAPC Musée d'art Contemporain de Bordeaux Chief Curator Cédric Fauq. The Wexner Center presentation of the exhibition is coordinated by Associate Curator of Exhibitions Daniel Marcus with Head of Exhibitions Kelly Kivland.

The exhibition has benefited from the generous assistance and support of Annouchka de Andrade and Friends of Sarah Maldoror and Mário de Andrade.

THIS PRESENTATION MADE POSSIBLE BY
Etant donnés Contemporary Art, a program of Villa Albertine

ADDITIONAL SUPPORT PROVIDED BY
Galería Nueveochenta

EXHIBITIONS 2023–24 SEASON MADE POSSIBLE BY
Bill and Sheila Lambert
Carol and David Aronowitz
Crane Family Foundation
Mike and Paige Crane

FREE GALLERIES MADE POSSIBLE BY
American Electric Power Foundation
Mary and C. Robert Kidder
Bill and Sheila Lambert

ADDITIONAL SUPPORT FOR FREE GALLERIES PROVIDED BY
Adam Flatto
CoverMyMeds
PNC Foundation

WEXNER CENTER PROGRAMS MADE POSSIBLE BY
Ohio Department of Development 
Greater Columbus Arts Council 
The Wexner Family
 Institute of Museum and Library Services 
Ohio Arts Council , with support from the National Endowment for the Arts
CampusParc 
Ohio State’s Global Arts + Humanities Discovery Theme 
The Columbus Foundation
 Nationwide Foundation 
Vorys, Sater, Seymour, and Pease

ADDITIONAL SUPPORT PROVIDED BY
Mike and Paige Crane
Axium Packaging
Nancy Kramer
Ohio State Energy Partners
Ohio History Fund/Ohio History Connection
Larry and Donna James
Bruce and Joy Soll
Rebecca Perry Damsen and Ben Towle
Jones Day
Alex and Renée Shumate