Koyo Kouoh Built Institutions for African Art. We Must Keep Building.
Her leadership as a curator, mentor, and institution builder gave African artists spaces to be seen and heard. With her passing, we must build and lead with the same urgency.
“We need to take the time to do the things that are urgent, that are essential, that are necessary,” renowned curator Koyo Kouoh said in a2023 podcast. “And for me, building out institutions on the continent is a matter of urgency.”
Today, those words carry even more weight following her death on Saturday, May 10, in Basel, Switzerland, after a short battle with cancer.
With her passing, the art world mourns one ofits most fearless visionaries. But for African artists and practitioners, this is the loss of a giant—and I say that without exaggeration. Kouoh believed deeply that Africa’s creativity must be shaped and shared by those who live it.
Even more tragic is the timing: she died just ten days before she was to unveil her concept for the 2026 Venice Biennale.As the first African woman appointed to curate one of the world’s most prestigious art exhibitions, it was a dream interrupted. Yet her legacy continues. We can honor her legacy by moving with the same urgency she lived by in building our own spaces and telling our own stories.
Kouoh spent her life working to build platforms where African creativity could be seen, respected, and celebrated. She was the executive director and chief curator at the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town.She once called the museum “an unapologetically and decisively Pan-African, pan-diasporic museum… we are building our own voice, our own language.” And she meant it. Under her leadership, the museum became a space that showcased African talent in powerful and lasting ways.
Born in Cameroon, raised in Switzerland, and building a career in Senegal, Kouoh knew how to move between worlds. She built bridges between artists, countries, and ideas. In 2008, she opened RAW Material Company in Dakar, an artist residency and space where she mentored young talent, published writing, and curated exhibitions that asked difficult questions about identity, migration, and history.
When she joined Zeitz MOCAA in 2019, she transformed a struggling institution. She changed how it was operated, brought in new people, and even redesigned the space to serve the art better. Under her leadership, the museum focused on giving artists the space to tell their full stories. She led major solo exhibitions for artists like Otobong Nkanga, Tracey Rose, and Senzeni Marasela.
In 2022, she curated When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Painting, a powerful show about how Black people have represented themselves in art across Africa and the diaspora. It was part of her larger mission to reclaim African stories in contemporary art.
“Art is in the cracks, not in the polish,”she once said,reminding us that beauty and meaning often come from broken places. She also believed museums should stay close to their communities, not just the art world.
Kuouh was repeatedly named one of ArtReview’s 100 most influential figures in contemporary art. But what made her special wasn’t the rooms she was in or the titles she held. It was how she always put Africa at the center. Through her warmth, generosity, and belief in others, she created spaces where African artists and curators were seen and valued. She rooted everything she built on the continent and helped others believe they could lead too.
Her life is a reminder that we can’t wait. We must continue to build institutions and platforms. But more importantly, we must build each other, just as Kouoh did. If we want African creativity to be seen, we must make the space ourselves. That’s what she did, and that’s how we honor her.