Hitting fifty might be a brutal and rough rite of passage. Some experiences seem incomplete, while others may have taken their toll and brutally accelerated our sinking into decrepitude. Yet in this day and age, fifty is the new twenty and the creative transformation of Abidjan’s La Pyramide (Côte d’Ivoire) is simply a case in point. To celebrate the marking of the 50th anniversary of this iconic brutalist building and give it a new lease on life after a period of abandonment, the Plateau district of Abidjan, under the artistic leadership of Agency II.V.I turned to some of the most talented and vibrant local and international street artists. Katre and Dourone were among the six who answered the call.
Considered to be his largest performance to date over a wall that reaches a height of 64 meters, French artist Katre produced his architectural interpretation of La Pyramide through the use of his trademark approach to abandoned constructions. By mixing a colorful and vibrant background with monochrome perspective drawings of his own pictures of the building, Katre wished to invite the viewer to step inside the triangle and imagine the space and the people who once inhabited it. He toyed with the wedge-shaped graphic element that represents the building, like a ray of light refracting through a triangular prism dispersing into a splash of colors. A vision reminiscent of Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon album cover which ironically, also celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. Katre played with the triangle element just like George Hardie did when designing the iconic Floyd’s album cover. “Triangles are symbols of ambition, and are redolent of pyramids, both cosmic and mad in equal measure”, Hardie had said of his design. Cosmic indeed, as we witness the perfect alignment of the stars, brought together by this singular triangular shape. Katre’s layering of bold black architectural lines over a splash of colors had always been his signature in an effort to rebuild forgotten spaces through art, and this form of communication is depicted yet again in the heart of Abidjian. Between Katre’s contemporary animated art over a vibrant orange-ochre gradient prism to symbolize “renewal” and the 50-year old brutalist La Pyramide architecture, communication between two different worlds and eras simply becomes a communal rite of passage between a forgotten past, and a dynamic future.
Renewal. Regeneration. Rebirth. The theme is at the heart of this project, Dourone explains. The eclectic and self-taught Spanish-French couple, Fabio Lopez and Élodie Arshak completed in just ten days the highest mural in all of West Africa, using 63 colors but only a brush. Abiding by Galeano’s Sentipensante movement, feeling with the head and thinking with the heart, Dourone’s art and image compositions have always reflected on everyday human behavior and human relationship with society, through a vivid combination of colors and pixels. And this mural is no different. Yet while the lower section of the mural portrays a young Ivorian man illustrated in the recognizable Dourone style, the upper part breaks away from what is traditionally expected from the duo and gives out a much bolder message. Over a background of random duotone faces – men, women and children – stands out a colorful and vibrant young girl. While the young man in the lower part seems to be confidently heading into the future, the younger girl on the other hand stops in the present and looks back at us, intently, deeply, with confidence and resolve. “This is our vision of Africa: a young, dynamic and constantly evolving continent where the present and the future are juxtaposed, and the future is through this girl, a bearer of strength and determination.” Their mural is rightly entitled, The World of Tomorrow.
“For tomorrow is already born!” Otto Lemon, the artistic director behind this creative initiative passionately shares with Elisabeth Saad, his partner at Agency II.V.I. Ivorian by birth and architecture aficionado by passion, Otto wanted more than anything to put the African continent on the international architectural map. Dotted with some remarkable constructions, Africa had experienced an avant-gardist era with La Pyramide which was constructed between 1968 and 1973 by the Italian architect Rinaldo Olivieri, in collaboration with the Ivorian architect Raymond Aka-Adjo. Exhibited at New York’s MOMA in the 70s and 80s, the recognizable African building was not only considered a Brutalist architecture gem, but a bioclimatic architecture innovation as well with the use of horizontal slats to cover all window panes, thus avoiding the greenhouse effect in a tropical environment.
“Africa is strong. It is the future” Dourone affirms. A future that can only be born out of the close collaboration between local and international artists, new and older generations – people from different strokes, backgrounds, traditions and ages. As such, and with the support of the Abidjian Plateau Town Hall and the Ministries of Construction, Urbanism, Culture and Francophonie, Otto and Elisabeth turned the brutal monochrome past into a hue of colors, creating a prism through La Pyramide, a human communion that can only be the catalyst for an exciting future. For indeed, Dourone and Katre not only joined forces with artists and architects like Issa Diabaté, Amah Cynthia Dongo, Pascal Konan, and Annick Lia, but they also collaborated with students from the National Institute of Fine Arts and youth from La Casa des Enfants, a local orphanage.
Hitting fifty might be a brutal and rough rite of passage. It may be true for some. But it is hardly the case for the visionaries among us who believe that the future was born fifty years ago, today.
Dourone: website | instagram
Katre: website | instagram
Pyramide2023: instagram
