Film Screening and Q&A with Artist Hervé Youmbi (Off-Site)
Mon, March 31st at 6:00 PM
Free
Please note this program takes place at Alliance Française de La Nouvelle-Orléans at 1519 Jackson Avenue in New Orleans.
In conjunction with the exhibition New African Masquerades: Artistic Innovations and Collaborations, Alliance Française de La Nouvelle-Orléans presents a screening of the experimental documentary Visages de masques, directed by Hervé Youmbi.
Following the film, Youmbi will share more about the project in a conversation with Amanda M. Maples, NOMA’s Françoise Billion Richardson Curator of African Art.
Free but registration is required.
About the Film
This experimental documentary film highlights Cameroonian visual artist Hervé Youmbi’s conceptual artistic project Visages de masques. The film expresses his unique creative fusion of documentary and art film genres. Visages de masques delves into the creation of hybrid masks designed to enrich and expand the canon of ritual societies in West Cameroon and beyond. The film highlights the characters, the challenges, and the rich collaborations that make it possible to produce formally ambiguous masks that move fluidly between the global contemporary art scene and African ritual ceremonial contexts. It interrogates the impact of colonization on the production of ritual life and masking in Africa today, and stands in opposition to the clichés and categorizations that confine the reception of signs and meanings from Africa. As originator of the Visages de masques project, Hervé Youmbi, directs this film that focuses on the multiple relationships that collaborations entail, and profiles rich accounts from experts in the visual arts sector about the layers of meaning, critique, and innovation embedded in Youmbi’s unique vision.