Life Fragments

Exhibition:

June 13 to August 9, 2025

"Life Fragments" by Aboubakar Fofana at Pascal Robert Gallery

Aboubakar Fofana, «Les arbres à bleu», 2012, Malian strive woven cotton, metal pedestal, pvc tubes, loofah, sand © Pascal Robert Gallery

Pascal Robert Gallery takes pride in unveiling its second exhibition within the vibrant heart of Zurich’s Gallery District – an event that transcends mere institutional presentation to serve as a daring foray into the deep, uncharted waters of contemporary artistic exploration. Aboubakar Fofana’s «Life Fragments» not only signifies a milestone for the gallery but also emerges as a potent celebration of the often underappreciated yet omnipresent contributions of those who shape, challenge, and redefine the ongoing cultural dialogue within the art world.

This exhibition, featuring the works of Malian-born artist Aboubakar Fofana, promises to be a radical, multidimensional interrogation of experimental themes – an artistic odyssey that boldly tears through the corridors dividing past and present, forging a space where healing, innovation, and reflection converge. Fofana’s practice demands that viewers question the very foundations of conventional aesthetics, utilizing a language steeped in the mythic and the legitimating – rooted in the legends and legacies that have long sustained the collective memory of art. With an unwavering focus on sound, materiality, and spirituality, the show extends an invitation to shatter familiar horizons and embrace a collective openness – an arena where new sources of inspiration beckon, hidden within the liminal spaces beyond tradition.

Driven by an unrelenting commitment to the unknown and the unorthodox, Pascal Robert Gallery champions artists who, whether emerging or established, carve out voices that challenge complacency. These creators deliberately transcend the boundaries of convention, venturing into the shadowed, often tabooed realms of the mind, body, and cultural identity – pioneers forging a new epoch of artistic rebellion. Their works form a visceral symphony of dynamism, discourse, and profound reflection – an impassioned collective force destined to unsettle and elevate the global art community.

Complementing Fofana’s visionary works, the gallery further curates select masterpieces from between 1860 and 1940 – testaments to an era marked by ruptures and incandescent sparks of innovation, no less revolutionary in their transformative power than the contemporary practices they illuminate. These historical fragments serve as a clarion call, revealing how rebellion against tradition has always driven art’s most radical breakthroughs.

At the heart of this exhibition lies Fofana’s «Life Fragments», an evocative homage to unbounded hope, history, and the human spirit. It beckons viewers not merely to witness the evolution of artistic expression but to participate in forging new dialogues – dialogues capable of shaping the very contours of future modernity. Here, art is celebrated not merely as a display but as an eternal, provocative challenge: an ongoing struggle between tradition and innovation, seduction and provocation, past, present, and an uncertain, yet exhilarating future. In this space, art transforms into an act of rebellion and renewal – an unceasing odyssey into the ever-emerging horizons of human creativity.

"Life Fragments (Metamorphosis)" by Aboubakar Fofana

Aboubakar Fofana, «Life Fragments», 2025, installation with 90 cotton and hemp cloths, indigo and plant dye from the 19th Century, three rusty metal plates, 200 x 300 cm © Pascal Robert Gallery

«Life Fragments» by Aboubakar Fofana: Textiles as Vessels of Memory and Resistance

 In «Life Fragments», Aboubakar Fofana orchestrates a haunting meditation on the materiality of history, the politics of labor, and the metaphysics of presence. The installation consists of ninety hemp and cotton shirts, each meticulously folded and arrayed in rhythmic rows atop a rusty metal plate. These garments, produced in 19th-century France and distributed to Malian field workers during the colonial era, serve as both relics and witnesses – embodying the intersecting narratives of exploitation, endurance, and cultural transmission.
 
The shirts, originally undyed due to the economic deprivation of their wearers, retain the pale, muted tones of white and beige. Their surfaces are inscribed with the marks of generational use: frayed cuffs, patched holes, and the subtle imprints of bodies long gone. Each shirt is not merely a utilitarian object but a palimpsest of lived experience, bearing silent testimony to the anonymous laborers who wore them, and to the colonial structures that shaped their destinies.
 
Fofana’s act of dyeing these garments in indigo and riverine clay from the Niger River is a gesture of reclamation and transformation. Indigo, with its deep roots in West African cultural and spiritual practice, becomes here both a pigment and a signifier – a chromatic counter-narrative to the imposed histories of colonialism. The variegated blues and earth tones, produced through the organic processes of fermentation and bacterial infusion, evoke the passage of time, the cycles of decay and renewal, and the alchemy of survival.
 
The installation’s physical arrangement – orderly, almost ceremonial – invites viewers to contemplate the grave of the collective and individual stories embedded in the fabric. The rusted steel plate beneath the shirts functions as a metaphorical ground, suggesting both the corrosive effects of history and the resilience that persists amid ruin. In Fofana’s worldview, textiles are repositories of spirit; the belief that the soul adheres to cloth transforms these humble shirts into charged sites of memory and energy.
 
«Life Fragments» ultimately resists the erasure of marginalized histories. It asks us to reckon with the legacies of colonial violence, to honor the dignity of manual labor, and to recognize the spiritual agency that endures in material traces. Through this poetic accumulation of garments, Fofana offers a space for mourning, remembrance, and, perhaps, the possibility of collective healing.
IMG 4288

Aboubakar Fofana, «Africa blessing (No.3)», 2017, signed and dated verso, print on Fine Art German Etching Paper 310g, print: 40 x 53.3 cm, paper: 48 x 61.3 cm, framed: 50 x 63.3 cm, edition of 8 + 1 AP, ed. 1/8 © Pascal Robert Gallery

«The materials are essential; they have chosen me and I have chosen to submit to their constraints in a fruitful dialogue.»

Aboubakar Fofana 

Aboubakar Fofana

Aboubakar Fofana © The Artist, photo by Robert Wright for New York Times

Aboubakar Fofana

Born in 1967, lives and works in Mali and Paris.

Aboubakar Fofana is a Malian artist, designer, and master indigo dyer whose practice bridges traditional craft and contemporary conceptual art. Deeply rooted in the spiritual and material heritage of West Africa, Fofana’s work centers on the revival of ancient dyeing techniques, particularly those using fermented natural indigo. His artistic vision is inseparable from his mission: to preserve, honor, and evolve ancestral knowledge systems through a transformative dialogue with the natural world.

Born in Mali and raised in France, Fofana’s dual cultural heritage informs a practice that is both global and profoundly local. After training as a calligrapher and graphic designer in Paris, he began to explore the alchemical processes of indigo dyeing – a journey that led him back to Mali in search of the nearly lost techniques of his ancestors. Through years of study and experimentation, Fofana developed a distinctive approach that merges age-old methods with contemporary aesthetics, resulting in deeply meditative works that resonate across disciplines.

His art takes many forms: textile installations, hand-dyed garments, sculptural objects, and immersive environments, all of which reflect his reverence for natural materials and ecological cycles. The intensity and subtlety of his indigo hues – ranging from deep midnight blues to the softest sky tones – are achieved through a labor-intensive process of fermentation and layering that becomes a metaphor for patience, ritual, and spiritual renewal.

Fofana’s work is as much about process as it is about product. His studio practice is intertwined with sustainable agriculture, regenerative farming, and the ethical sourcing of materials. He works closely with communities in Mali to revive local economies and reestablish connections between art, land, and culture.

Exhibited at institutions such as the British Museum, the Smithsonian, and the Hayward Gallery, Fofana’s installations often function as sanctuaries – quiet, sensorial spaces that invite reflection on impermanence, ancestry, and the sacredness of nature. Through indigo, he weaves stories of resilience and rebirth, carrying forward traditions that speak to both the fragility and strength of cultural memory.

More about Aboubakar Fofana

Exhibition Brochure

Life Fragments

Aboubakar Fofana 

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