Ichihara City Former Satomi Elementary School
2024.3.23-5.26 *Closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays (excluding 4.30 and 5.1)
Buddha mantra
Hervé Youmbi
cameroon
Born in 1973 in Bangui (Central African Republic), lives and works in Douala (Cameroon).
After studying at the Mbalmayo Art Training Institute in Cameroon, he studied at the High School of Decorative Arts (currently HEAR, Haute Ecole des Arts du Rhin) in Strasbourg, France. From 2012 to 2020, he taught at the School of Fine Arts at the University of Douala and the University of Dishan (relocated to Nkonsamba and Fumban, respectively) in Cameroon.
In recent years, he has focused on creating hybrid wooden masks, thrones, and dolls covered in colorful beads and buttons. By mixing African cultural styles and diverse elements, he intentionally challenges the Western art history category of "traditional African art." Moreover, Yumbi's works further emphasize ontological ambiguity as they move between the global contemporary art scene and the African ritual world. In his work, layers of conceptual meaning create dislocations that subvert Western stereotyped values about the exhibition and marketing of African goods and culture.
His work is represented in numerous private and public collections, including the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art (Washington, DC), the Newark Museum of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Menil Collection (USA), the Royal Ontario Museum (Canada), and the LWL Museum (Münster/Germany). It is stored in. Affiliated with Axis Gallery in New York and New Jersey