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El Hadji Malick Ndiaye

Researcher, Curator
2023

C, OUMOU

  • Museums
  • Visual Arts
  • Atlanta

“We need to understand the ways in which contemporary artists revisit the past, creating counter-narratives to invent a different future. We then need to analyze the ways in which museums work with archives and negotiate history.”

I studied Modern Languages at the Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, and specialized in Aesthetics, with a focus on the semiotics of the image. My project on the work of Senegalese sculptor Ousmane Sow earned me a fellowship at the National Institute of Art History (INHA) in Paris. I subsequently enrolled in the Art History PhD program at the University of Rennes II.  

 

After defending my thesis on “The Stakes of the Postcolonial Critical Debate”, I joined the French National Institute of Cultural Heritage (INP) in Paris, graduating in 2011 with an international diploma in Heritage Studies. Thanks to the link between my thesis on contemporary art and my research at the INP, I naturally became part of the first generation of the Laboratory of Excellence Creation, Arts, and Heritage (Labex CAP) postdoctoral fellows. I then returned to Senegal, where I was recruited by the Fundamental Institute of Black Africa (IFAN) at the Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, which oversees three museums.

 

In 2016, I was appointed director of the Théodore Monod Museum of African Art, where I began to experiment with exhibition and research projects, most of which interweave contemporary art and historical heritage. The museum, whose history is connected to colonization and to ethnography, has become an experimental space where the renewal of knowledge – on which part of my research is focused – takes various forms (exhibition practices, artist residencies, scientific meetings, etc.). In January 2021, as the new Head of the Museums Department, I began linking those projects together as part of a more ambitious plan to revitalize the three museums under my supervision.

 

El Hadji Malick Ndiaye holds a PhD in Art History from the University of Rennes II (France). He is also a graduate of the French National Institute of Cultural Heritage (INP) in Paris, a former fellow of the National Institute of Art History (INHA), and a former post-doctoral student at the Laboratory of Excellence Creation, Arts, and Heritage (Labex CAP). He is currently a researcher at the Fundamental Institute of Black Africa (IFAN) and curator of the Théodore Monod Museum of African Art in Dakar, Senegal. He was the art director of the 14th Dakar Biennale of Contemporary Arts (May 19–June 21, 2022), and one of the curators of the Picasso in Dakar, 1972-2022 exhibition that was held at the Museum of Black Civilizations in Dakar (April–June 2022). His writings focus on contemporary art and African museums. 

In partnership with

Ford Foundation

The Ford Foundation is an independent organization working to address inequality and build a future grounded in justice. For more than 85 years, it has supported visionaries on the frontlines of social change worldwide, guided by its mission to strengthen democratic values, reduce poverty and injustice, promote international cooperation, and advance human achievement. Today, with an endowment of $16 billion, the foundation has headquarters in New York and 10 regional offices across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East.

 

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Musée Théodore Monod d’Art africain

The Théodore Monod Museum of African Art is located on the plateau, in the heart of Dakar. It includes two main neo-Sudanian and colonial style buildings, workshops and studios. The primary mission of the Théodore Monod Museum of African Art at IFAN Cheikh Anta Diop is to preserve and enhance the cultural heritage of Senegal and of Africa as a whole. As guardian of the collective memory of the cultures of Senegal and Africa, the Théodore Monod Museum of African Art aims to be a space of remembrance, dialogue and bringing people together. It celebrates difference and cultural diversity to stimulate understanding between peoples.

 

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ADAMA

ADAMA (African Diaspora Art Museum of Atlanta) is an innovative museum showcasing contemporary art and culture of the African Diaspora. ADAMA amplifies the diverse voices of our global family through the creation of immersive experiences, cultivating shared learning, and facilitating meaningful points of connection.

 

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AUC Art Collective

Housed within the Department of Art & Visual Culture at Spelman College, the Atlanta University Center Art History + Curatorial Studies Collective is an innovative program dedicated to future curators, art historians, museum professionals and artists. It aims to position the Atlanta University Center as the leading incubator of African American professionals in these fields.

 

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