Ci-contre et ci-dessus : l’artiste Sadikou Oukpedjo élève des coqs dans son atelier de Bingerville, un quartier excentré d’Abidjan, moins urbain, qui voit s’installer de plus en plus de créatifs pour son calme et ses tarifs plus abordables. Les toiles de Sadikou Oukpedjo ont été exposées par Cécile Fakhoury dans plusieurs foires, et une nouvelle installation de l’artiste est actuellement montrée à la galerie. < York with Jean-Michel Basquiat known for his “flayed alive” figures, in the 1980s. “I am an artist of the and the late artist and poet Frédéric cosmos,” he says. “I always felt that Bruly Bouabré. Later, at her second art was so universal that it never space in Dakar, Senegal, she also occurred to me to knock on the juxtaposed Aboudia with two artists doors of the galleries.” of his own generation, Armand Today, as Fakhoury says, “More Boua and Yéanzi, exploring the artists are seeking recognition in themes of identity and homeland. their own lands.” While keeping For Fakhoury, each encounter an eye on the market, she never is an opportunity for a new inter- neglects the transmission of cultural pretation of the local social fabric, values, putting the emphasis on and of humankind on a universal dialogues between artists. Her very scale. We went with her to meet first exhibition was an encounter Sadikou Oukpedjo in his studio between Aboudia, a young painter in Bingerville, a small red steel > AIR FRANCE MADAME / 171