Saâdane Afif's 'Anthologie de l'humour noir' at Centre Pompidou

Saâdane Afif, winner of the Marcel Duchamp Prize, presents 'Anthologie de l'humour noir' in Espace 315 of the Centre Pompidou from September 15, 2010 to January 3, 2011. The exhibition explores displacement and iteration, featuring works like 'Black Spirit' and 'Ghost'—two monochrome sticks (1.80 m tall, one black, one white) that reinterpret André Cadere's polychrome bars by removing color and rendering them visually homogeneous. Afif also incorporates textual interpretations: he commissioned song lyrics from various authors based on his works, displayed alongside the objects. In 2005 at Palais de Tokyo, musicians including Julien Perez (North), Rainier Lericolais, Tante Ortense, Port Radium, and Tujiko Noriko performed musical versions of these texts. For the Centre Pompidou show, Afif commissioned Ghanaian coffin-maker Kudjo to build a coffin shaped like the museum itself, referencing the 'Magiciens de la terre' exhibition. The exhibition functions as a platform for layered meanings, with Afif having no fixed studio, relying instead on exhibition spaces for production. Thierry Davila, curator at Mamco Geneva, authored the accompanying text.