André Magnin was the first person I met in the Parisian art-world when I started going to Paris nearly twenty years ago. André works and lives in the Blvd Voltaire 5 minutes away from where I hang out. We meet for coffee from time to time and occasionally we bump into each other in the street. It was in André's apartment where William Eggleston told me not to talk bullshit and where from André's terrace Nan Goldin pointed out to me her apartment above the pharmacy in Rue Oberkampf.
André Magnin is a curator par excellence. A man of vision, impeccable taste and integrity and importantly he has done more than anybody to put contemporary African art on-the-map.
In 1986 André Magnin began his research into contemporary art in non-Western cultures, especially throughout Africa for the exhibition Black Magicians of the Earth at the Centre Georges Pompidou and the Grande Halle de la Villette. Since 1989 he has established the emblematic Pigozzi Collection which he directed for twenty years. He has held numerous solo exhibitions and group in museums, art centers and foundations around the world: Out of Africa (Saatchi Gallery, London), African Art Now (Museum of Fine Arts, Houston), I like Cheri Samba (Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art, Paris), Arts of Africa (Grimaldi Forum, Monaco), 100% Africa (Guggenheim Bilbao), Why Africa? (Pinacoteca Giovanni e Marella Agnelli), Africa? una nuova storia (Complesso del Vittoriano, Roma), African Stories (Marrakech) ...
In 2009, he founded MAGNIN-A, whose mission is to promote contemporary African art on the international art market.
You can see more here: http://www.magnin-a.com/
The Photo: André Magnin by Malick Sidibé
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