Gerard Quenem’s Clandestins exhibition is an eerie attempt at the recreation of African culture from recycled objects and dolls. Annex Achieng went to have a look.

What:
Gérard Quenum: Clandestins

Access:
Private viewings by appointment every Monday

Where:
October Gallery
24 Old Gloucester Street
London
WC1N 3AL

Telephone:
020 7242 7367

Website:
www.octobergallery.co.uk

The first time I saw Gérard Quenum’s work there was a split second where I thought I was looking through a mirror. I saw a thin, rough, pale, wooden figure, its hair scorched into a charred and black afro fright-wig. The only differences were that I don’t have a doll’s head, and I’m certainly not two metres tall.

In the October Gallery on Old Gloucester Street, I am at Quenum’s Clandestins exhibition surrounded by smashed dolls and other debris, including recycled objects whose diverse histories contribute to the overall significance of the pieces. Quenum, born in the official capital of the Republic of Benin, Porto Novo, uses these to gives his art its unique twist.

His use of discarded dolls elevates the pieces into witty and whimsical portraits of individuals observed in his local environment. These portraits serve as a lens through which we see (or imagine we see) Africa itself.

But it’s important to understand the story behind these dolls, none of which are from Africa. They are all the remains of overseas aid parcels sent to Africa by well-meaning organisations that imagine the discarded toys of first-world children are something that might aid an African child’s development.

Quenum’s begins the transformation of them by taking blowtorch the white skin to blacken it, and to the hair to create something like a frizzy afro. His actors are therefore Africanised before taking their place upon the stages he devises.

Quenum scorches their faces and re-does their hair. Many of them are just heads. L’Ange (Angel) perches in a bowl on dark, powder-stained wood, her eyes sealed up with white paste. The artist has transformed her into a potent mythical being, no longer just a play thing.

From there, Quenum weaves a story around each doll and turns them into players who strut their stuff on his stage. His invention lies in the subtle complexities of his tale, such as the compelling African Barbie in which we are asked to reconsider, remodel and reinterpret the story under a new African light.