Art & Object
May/ June 2026
“First Look: Living Through Legacy”
By Katy Diamond Hamer
First Look: Living Through Legacy
Kambui Olujimi, "Hand To Hand,” 2020, Watercolor, ink and graphite on paper. Image: Courtesy of the artist
In May 2025, it was announced that Koyo Kouoh, executive director and chief curator of Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, Cape Town, and the official curator of the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, had passed away after a sudden diagnosis and brief illness with cancer, aged 57. Because of the extent of her planning, the board of the Biennale decided to allow her vision to come to life even after her untimely passing. By April 2025, she had declared the title, In Minor Keys, and assembled a curatorial team, including advisors Gabe Beckhurst Feijoo, Marie Hélène Pereira, and Rasha Salti, with editorial leadership by Siddhartha Mitter, and assistant curator and research assistant Rory Tsapayi.
In the history of the Biennale, this is the first time that an exhibition is being manifested posthumously. Some may even say a phantasmagoric mystique lingers in the long galleries, blowing above the expanse of the ceiling, felt even across the Atlantic Ocean. Kouoh's curatorial framework was divulged in a statement that starts with a request for the reader: [Take a deep breath.] [Exhale] [Drop your shoulders] [Close your eyes]. This invitation, a call to action, is a prompt for embodiment. Did she know that she wasn't well at the time of authorship? The request is framed as a way to "shift to a slower gear" in order to hear the "frequencies of the minor keys." Her vision, even at the earliest stages, was one of healing, of unification, of vulnerability in the face of turmoil. Her introduction is followed by quotes from James Baldwin, Édouard Glissant, and Patrick Chamoiseau. The quotes look at the nature of my oceanic expansion and Kouoh's text promises an experience "more sensory than didactic."
As with many curators, organizing a large-scale exhibition doesn't start from scratch but is rather the culmination of relationships built upon years of practice. Such was the case with artist Tuan Andrew Nguyen, who met Kouoh in Saigon, and Kambui Olujimi, who met the curator at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn on the occasion of the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, both in 2015. Nguyen had an extensive dialogue with Kouoh which led to The Specter of Ancestors Becoming, a 2019 film exploring the legacy of the Vietnamese-Senegalese community in Dakar.
Olujimi recalled a conversation they had for his monograph North Star, speaking on the idea of simultaneity. They reflected on how "the personhood, the position of the self, is not a single locality," and is more a "pluralistic self," one who can be "embodied in those we love who keep our memories." He shared, with a warm laugh, that Kouoh declined to do another studio visit, as they had just spent weeks conducting in-depth and intimate conversations in preparation for the interview featured in the book North Star. Olujimi was also part of the traveling exhibition When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Painting curated by Koyo Kouoh and Tandazani Dhlakama. The show opened at the Bozar Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels, February 7, 2025, just months before her passing.
Kennedy Yanko's experience was different, but no less poignant: "Koyo and I met only a few months before her passing. She approached my practice with a genuine curiosity and understanding, and it felt deeply meaningful to be received by a curator in that way."
There are 111 artists who will participate in In Minor Keys. By the time of publication, their artworks will have been installed, and press previews will soon be underway. More will be revealed at that time, but for now, we can contemplate the power and generational depth exquisitely catalogued through legacy. Koyo Kouoh impacted many artists, not only through the landscape of her curatorial scope, but also through the generosity she extended to those with whom she interacted.
Nguyen wrote an essay for the exhibition The Other Side of Now (2025), which was held at the Zeitz Museum not long after Kouoh's passing. In an excerpt, he writes: "I share an immense grief, along with so many, at the loss of Koyo. But I am consoled by the idea that these connections do not end when life ends, but continue through time." He later noted, "To have had the chance to call her a friend is to have touched the power of the cosmos."
Katy Diamond Hamer Hamer is the Senior Editor of Art & Object magazine and has been writing about contemporary art and culture for nearly 20 years.