More Than Meets the Eye: An Exhibition Reframing African Art History

At Geneva’s Musée Rath, a major new exhibition, More Than Meets the Eye, open now and on view until 23 November, brings together voices and visions from across the African continent. Drawn from the CBH Art Collection, the sprawling show spans nearly a century of artmaking, from 1929 to 2024, and features more than eighty artists from twenty-one countries. Co-curated by Jean-Yves Marin, former Director of the MAH and Artistic Adviser to CBH, and Ousseynou Wade, former Secretary General of the Dakar Biennale, with scenography by acclaimed architect and designer Pierre Yovanovitch, the exhibition rejects colonial-era geographical constraints, spotlighting the continent’s artistic exchanges across borders.

It began in the 1920s, along the banks of the Congo River. There, the seeds of modern African art took root, quietly at first, then with a momentum that spread across sub-Saharan Africa. From Lubumbashi to Abidjan, Dakar to Bamako, new voices emerged. Each centre fostered its own vision of modernity. Together they formed not a single story, but a constellation of artistic schools and movements. Shining a light on these diverse narratives and the moments in which they overlap, More Than Meets the Eye includes historical works by early innovators such as Albert and Antoinette Lubaki, and Djilatendo.

Upon entering the exhibition, Marin shared with me how Antoinette Lubaki’s name is often lost in the shadow of her husband, Albert, yet she was one of the first to give modern Congolese art its expression. In fact it was only relatively recently that art historians started attributing Antoinette’s pieces to her, previously believing her works were part of Albert’s oeuvre. Born in Katanga, the daughter of a village chief, in 1926, a chance meeting changed everything – so the story goes. Albert had caught the attention of a Belgian administrator, Georges Thiry, who stumbled upon one of his murals, painted with charcoal, clay, and earth on the wall of a mud-constructed home. Enamoured by this ephemeral work, Thiry gave the couple paper and paints. Some of the very first works on paper by the Lubakis, rarely seen, are shown in More Than Meets the Eye.

Alongside these pioneers sit paintings and sculptures by internationally acclaimed artists such as Amoako Boafo, El Anatsui, Yinka Shonibare, Abdoulaye Konaté, JP Mika, and Omar Ba, as well as a new generation of dynamic voices, with a particular focus on contemporary female practitioners.  

Among the many conversations unfolding across the exhibition, Congolese painter Géraldine Tobe’s work speaks powerfully to the tension between material and spirit, life and afterlife. Her painting included in the show, made using soot, flickers with ancestral memory. “This piece was created using the smoke technique. I used a kerosene lamp to experiment with shapes, volumes and light,” she explains to me. “It conveys the notion of a mental and physical journey towards an inevitable state that compels us to relinquish all that we perceive as familiar about ourselves and our existence on Earth…

I see my work as both a continuation and a conversation with those who came before me. This exhibition showcases a century of African creativity, featuring artists who have transformed pain, memory, tradition and hope into new forms. My work is part of this tradition, not as a form of protest, but as a means of recognition, dialogue and resilience. For me, this dialogue is not only aesthetic; it is also spiritual. It acknowledges that African creativity is not confined to a particular era or style; it continues to evolve, challenge the world, and offer alternative perspectives,” Tobe expands. 

Elsewhere on view, Ivorian artist Armand Boua captures another register of lived experience. “The works presented in this exhibition depict scenes and portraits of young people living on the streets, striving to survive in a very challenging world,” he says. In Boua’s layered canvases, fragments of urban life accumulate like memory itself – torn posters, acrylic, and dust.

From Mali, Konaté presents his inctricate textiles. “It’s a series that focuses on colour and composition,” he says. “In these pieces, I explore and incorporate numerous symbols drawn from various traditional cultures across the African continent.” His cloth works, expansive and rhythmic, transform the gallery space into something almost ceremonial. “My work naturally fits within the continuity of the pieces presented here, as part of the ongoing process of African artistic creation. It also offers a renewed perspective – a contemporary way of looking at this history, a kind of nod to the evolution and vitality of today’s African art.”

Rooted in plurality, the curatorial vision of Wade and Marin serves as both anchor and guide. For Wade, More Than Meets the Eye is not simply a presentation of African art but a reframing of how it’s seen. “We needed to identify coherent connections and structures without falling into a chronological or geographical approach,” he explains. “The sections were defined with the intention of fostering dialogue between the works. However, it sometimes happens that certain pieces in the exhibition can be interpreted in ways that allow them to fit into several sections, depending on their content or technique.”

Those seven sections – Emergence, Spirituality, Between Two Worlds, Everyday Life, Intimacy, The Timeless, and Affirmation – each reveal diverse facets of creative expression, yet all remain in conversation. “Such an exhibition has the distinctive quality of being able to be presented anywhere,” Wade reflects, “but Geneva offers a unique symbolic space. Switzerland has no colonial past with Africa, and Geneva hosts major international institutions, positioning itself as a place of convergence for many communities.”

Konaté’s words on the museum resonate with that vision: “A museum is, above all, a space for testimony, dialogue, memory, transmission, and relevance. Through this space, we realise that some historical narratives can – and should – be questioned today. This exhibition provides an opportunity to open up a new perspective on Africa.” More Than Meets the Eye celebrates a story still unfurling, not necessarily asking viewers to see Africa differently, but rather, more deeply.

More Than Meets the Eye: A Tale of Modern and Contemporary Art from Africa is on view at Musée Rath, Geneva until 23 November 2025.



Feature image: Installation view. More Than Meets the Eye: A Tale of Modern and Contemporary Art from Africa at Musée Rath, Geneva. © Dylan Perrenoud