“Corona”!
Depending on the point of view according to which one places oneself corona can make a direct reference to the virus which prevails in our cities as well as our countrysides. But it can also speak to a moment in history that symbolically refers us to a truth that should never have escaped us: "we are not alone".
Soly Cissé, through a series entitled Corona, summons our responsibility for the problems of our world, as individuals endowed with conscience and reason. The Pandemic or Mbas mi as we commonly call it in Wolof flourishes on a canvas where we slowly disappear. First depicted as a mystical animal, ready to charge on the individualists that we are, the threatening figure of the minotaur gradually disappears in order to give way to lush nature. As if ready to take back its rights on a land where it dominated until we were present.
Soly Cissé is an artist whose painting perpetually fights for causes which he sees as rightful. He calls himself an engaged and not politicized artist. Because according to him, Politics obliges you, conditions you and ultimately enslaves you. He draws our attention to the fact that this health crisis may well be our chance to discipline and reason with the political animal that is Man before it is too late.
Corona, is a series by the painter Soly Cissé in response to the crisis that we are going through collectively. It is visible here or here.
Soly Cissé, (1969 Dakar) painter, sculptor and scenographer lives and works in Dakar. His practice combines different techniques that interpenetrate, three-dimensional painting, mediums new or forgotten like tar, natural materials, painted sculpture, ready-made, site-specific installations, assemblage ... The artist creates works of a new genre to translate social and historical themes and transmit history in a new form. For two decades now he has been gaining international recognition. Top of his year at the School of Fine Arts in Dakar in 1996, he continued his training in Belgium at the School of Graphic Research (ERG) in Brussels. From 1998-2000, he participated in the São Paulo, Dakar and Havana Biennials. He was selected for the legendary exhibition Africa Remix (Düsseldorf, in 2004, the Hayward Gallery in London in 2005, the Center Pompidou, Paris in 2005, the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo in 2006, Moderna Museet in Stockholm in 2006 and Johannesburg in 2007). He also participated in the traveling exhibition Lumières d'Afriques with AAD-fund. Today, these works cross the African continent within the framework of the traveling exhibition Prête moi ton rêve. Soly Cissé is present in international fairs like 1:54 London, New York, Marrakech (Sulger Buell Gallery, London), Art Paris Art Fair, Grand-Palais and AKAA, Paris (Galerie Chauvy), Art X Lagos (Galerie MAM Douala).