Au-delà des apparences : parcours amoureux de l’art moderne et contemporain d’Afrique

Exhibition at the Rath Museum, Geneva, 16 October - 23 November 2025

The growing success of today's African artists undoubtedly stems from their ancestral heritage, which reflects a profoundly original worldview through dazzling colours, also demonstrating a social and ecological commitment.

In the 1920s, artists were identified by missionaries and a few colonial administrators with an appreciation for art. Originating in Congo, Kenya and South Africa, African art emerged and developed throughout the 20th century. Recognition came in the 1960s with the creation of art schools in the continent's major cities, which promoted cultural reappropriation through new forms of expression based on an encounter between traditional African permanence and modern aesthetics formed in the context of the new megacities. At the turn of the millennium, influenced by spontaneous artistic movements, the vitality of art was confirmed and amplified.

For more than fifteen years, the Swiss family-owned banking group CBH has been building its own art collection. Modern and contemporary African art, one of its major themes, is presented in this exhibition catalogue. The works brought together (paintings, sculptures, photographs), created by more than 80 artists, cover approximately a century, from 1929 to 2025. All were created by artists born or who lived part of their lives in sub-Saharan Africa.