www.canalacademies.com:
His hands are already born men and women from Africa, the Indians of America. Inspired by the memory of his father, the artist has decided to undertake a new series of sculptures representing those who have helped him not to despair of the human race. Its great men call Victor Hugo, Nelson Mandela, the General De Gaulle, mahatma Gandhi, Moctar Sow ... Ousmane Sow live these heroes, illustrious, unknown or anonymous history by his giant sculptures, bronzes, colorful, mixed forces, far from the monumental and the glory, for better help us to see the greatness of soul.
Sculptures by Ousmane Sow in his Parisian house, in the foreground L'Immigré, then Nuba, and in the background, Victor Hugo, November 14, 2009.
In 2002, at the request of Médecins du Monde, for the Day of the refusal of the exclusion and poverty, Ousmane Sow created a large sculpture of the poet Victor Hugo, of which he produced a bronze commissioned and installed in 2003 by the municipality of Besançon, the thplace of the great writer. He represented him looking at his pocket watch in the clothes of Jean Valjean, the hero of Les Misérables, about whom Victor Hugo wrote"Jean Valjean is the ant that the social law crushes". The sculptor still remembers the poem After the battle: "My father, this hero with such a sweet smile ..." which he learned as a child and has sincere admiration for the writer.
Traduction
De ses mains, sont déjà nés des hommes et des femmes d’Afrique, des Indiens d’Amérique. Inspiré par le souvenir de son père, l’artiste a décidé d’entreprendre une nouvelle série de sculptures représentant ceux qui l’ont aidé à ne pas désespérer du genre humain. Ses grands hommes s’appellent Victor Hugo, Nelson Mandela, le Général De Gaulle, Gandhi, Moctar Sow ... Ousmane Sow fait vivre ces héros, figures illustres, méconnues ou anonymes de l’histoire par ses sculptures géantes, grands bronzes colorés, métissés de forces, loin du monumental et de la gloire pour mieux nous aider à en voir la grandeur d’âme.
Sculptures d’Ousmane Sow dans sa maison parisienne, au premier plan L’Immigré, puis Nuba, et en arrière plan, Victor Hugo, 14 novembre 2009.
En 2002, à la demande de Médecins du Monde, pour la Journée du refus de l'exclusion et de la misère, Ousmane Sowdont il réalisé un bronze commandé et installé en 2003 par la municipalité de Besançon, ville natale du grand écrivain. Il l'a représenté regardant sa montre à gousset dans les habits de Jean Valjean, le héros des Misérables, à propos duquel Victor H"Jean Valjean est la fourmi que la loi sociale écras". Le sculpteur se souvient encore du poème Après la bataille : «Mon père , ce héros au sourire si doux...» qu'il a appris enfant et voue à l'écrivain une sincère admiration.
www.maisonousmanesow.com:
Inspired by the memory of his father, Moctar Sow, “the man he respected most in the world, the unfinished series entitled Thank’s, was created as a homage to the great men who, according to Ousmane Sow, “helped him never despair of humankind”: Victor Hugo, Nelson Mandela, General de Gaulle, Toussaint Louverture and Man and Child.
In an unfinished state are: Mohamed Ali (aka Cassius Clay), Martin Luther King, and Gandhi...
www.artkelen.medium.com:
The series that particularly impressed and touched me is the “great men”one in tribute to the great men who have marked his life. We discover the sculptures of his father, Victor Hugo, General de Gaulle, Nelson Mandela and The Man and the Child. Behind these majestic works, we can perceive the themes that were to be impoch as heroism and courage, freedom and compassion.
www-parismatch-com:
Figure de l'art africain contemporain, le sculpteur sénégalais Ousmane Sow est mort tôt jeudi à Dakar à l'âge de 81 ans, a annoncé sa famille à"Il emporte avec lui rêves et projets que son organisme trop fatigué n'a pas voulu suiv", a souligné sa famille, précisant qu'il avait fait ces derniers mois plusieurs séjours à l'hôpital à Paris et à Dakar.
Ousmane Sow Introduit À L'Académie Des Beaux arts Par François Hollande, Lors D’un Cérémonie À L’Elysée En Décembre 2013 2.
Translate
Figure of contemporary African art, Senegalese sculptor Ousmane Sow died early Thursday in Dakar at the age of 81, hi"He takes with him dreams and projects that his too tired body did not want to follow," said his family, adding that he had made several hospital stays in Paris and Dakar in recent months.
Ousmane Sow Introduced To The Academy Of Fine Arts By François Hollande, During A Ceremony At The Elysee Palace In December 2013 2.
www.maisonousmanesow.com:
Amongst this threatened race in South Sudan, where the men go naked, wrestling matches are seen as a ritual that lifts the soul. After the fights, men and women choose their partners. Nouba women practice tattooing and scarification for religious, ethnic and aesthetic purposes.
Ousmane Sow: 'As far back as I can remember, I have always sculpted. I never thought of making a profession of it, until the day I left deeply moved by the photographs of Leni Riefenstahl portraying the Nouba of Kau.What interested me about the nouba wrestlers is that they care of their bodies and that, at some point in their lives, they run the risk of being disfigured.'
www.ousmanesow.com: As if driven to return to the very source, to the origins ad development of African art, Ousmane Sow's work might well appear to be a contemporary digest, an exaggerated vision of a long forgotten history. Following the example of the first ancient and classical art of the African continent - the large, terracotta figurative statues of the Nok culture of Nigeria, as mute and as hallucinated as the Easter Island statues - Ousmane Sow began by kneading the earth. A new creative force seeking to build up an improbable army of the shadows, Sow raised his Golem warriors by perfecting an alchemist's mixture of his own concoction. His esthetic of secrecy corresponded exactly with his esthetic of initiation.
How can you think of reproduction when you are striving to produce? Transmutation into bronze - completely hypothetical at that moment - would have been considered as a vulgar and flashy transformation of clay into gold.
It's a mistake to attribute to primary works of art an originality that cannot be reproduced.
We know that as early as the 11th century the ancient Ife civilization in the Yoruba lands, in the south-west of modern Nigeria had discovered how to cast, having already achieved remarkable mastery of terracotta modeling.
But the experiment would have soon ended if the artist had not discovered, first with fascination, then astonishment and emotion, a regeneration and a real metamorphosis in his work. As we know, in the end replicants always escape from their creator…
For his first three bronzes, Ousmane Sow immediately turned to his earliest works: Dancer with Short Hair and the Standing Wrestler from the Nuba series, an"Mother and Child" from the Masai series. Perhaps the most brutal, in any case the most nude and undeniably the most alive, even though they remain imbued with a sense of moderation, restraint and self control that we associate with the Yoruba and the Fulani.
In the remote Kordofan region, in the south of Sudan, where the Nuba survive and still live, young virgins dance the myertum, the "dance of love". They move closer and closer to the victorious wrestlers, who sit in a circle their eyes lowered, after the annual ceremonial combat. They smear their bodies with black or red earth to make them more athletic and desirable. Only bronze, with its dark, shimmering patina, could recreate the initial erotic gleam of the Dancer with Short Hair, her oblique, hollowed highlights, her supple, animal power. With the Standing Wrestler the bronze makes him stronger, stockier, more concentrated, more violent. He's certainly less human, standing there, one solid block, like a god, a force in motion. The mask he has skillfully painted on his face to frighten his opponents - here etched in green acid in the very flesh of the bronze - acquires a virulence that is closer to actual Nuba war paint, made from charcoal dust and crushed shell.
Contrary to the original human creations, they demand a resurrection of the flesh, a touch of eternity as opposed to a rotting straw...
And the mother breastfeeding her child with her dress and clothing melting into the flesh is here transformed into Maternity. Emerging like a lotus flower from the folds of clothing, colored warm ochre by nitrates, the young woman's head, shaven, smooth and burnt dark by the sun, takes on a Buddha-like grace. Her feet, however, deformed as in Picasso's cubist manner, coarsely hacked as Baselitz might have done, remind us in an immediate, clear and perceptible fashion of the wounds and shocks that African feet suffer from their endless walking.
Ousmane Sow is certainly not the first to color his bronzes. Giacometti and Germaine Richter experimented with it before him, but as a game, a fad, a whim, rarely out of necessity. For the Senegalese, Sow, bronze is inconceivable without color, which is its mask, its interior adornment.
With Ousmane Sow, it's the Africa of bronze and gold, proud and heroic, that comes to life under a beating sun.
Text: Emmanuel Daydé
www.wikipedia.org:
Ousmane Sow (10 October 1935 – 1 December 2016) wasSenegalese sculptor of larger-than-life statues of people and groups of people.
ow was born in Dakar, Senegal, on 10 October 1935. After the death of his father in 1956, he left Dakar to study in France, where he obtained a diploma in physiotherapy. He returned to Senegal after it became independent in 1960 and started a practice in physiotherapy. He later went back to France and practised there, but returned to Senegal in 1978. He died in Dakar on 1 December 2016 at the age of 81.
Sow was inspired by photographs by Leni Riefenstahl of the Nuba peoples of southern Sudan, and from 1984 began to work on a series of larger-than-life sculptures of muscular Nuba wrestlers. To make them, he developed a series of new techniques and materials. They were shown at the Centre Culturel Français de Dakar in 1987. Sow later made series of sculptures of Maasai people, of Zulu people, of Peul or Fulani people, and, in the late 1990s, of Native Americans.
www.rbb85.wordpress.com:
In 2008 Sow was honored ith a Prince Claus Award from the Netherlands in the theme Culture and the human body.
www.maisonousmanesow.com:
The Maison Ousmane Sow has been visited by many people since its opening on May 5th, 2018. In order to create his sculptures, for long hours, Ousmane Sow remained locked in his studio house in Dakar, a place where he lived from 1999 until the end of his life. This house, in itself is a work of art. Its floor is still covered with tiles made by the artist himself and the walls remain painted with "his material". Definitely contemporary, this building now shelters about thirty original pieces of artwork.
His hands are already born men and women from Africa, the Indians of America. Inspired by the memory of his father, the artist has decided to undertake a new series of sculptures representing those who have helped him not to despair of the human race. Its great men call Victor Hugo, Nelson Mandela, the General De Gaulle, mahatma Gandhi, Moctar Sow ... Ousmane Sow live these heroes, illustrious, unknown or anonymous history by his giant sculptures, bronzes, colorful, mixed forces, far from the monumental and the glory, for better help us to see the greatness of soul.
Sculptures by Ousmane Sow in his Parisian house, in the foreground L'Immigré, then Nuba, and in the background, Victor Hugo, November 14, 2009.
In 2002, at the request of Médecins du Monde, for the Day of the refusal of the exclusion and poverty, Ousmane Sow created a large sculpture of the poet Victor Hugo, of which he produced a bronze commissioned and installed in 2003 by the municipality of Besançon, the thplace of the great writer. He represented him looking at his pocket watch in the clothes of Jean Valjean, the hero of Les Misérables, about whom Victor Hugo wrote"Jean Valjean is the ant that the social law crushes". The sculptor still remembers the poem After the battle: "My father, this hero with such a sweet smile ..." which he learned as a child and has sincere admiration for the writer.
Traduction
De ses mains, sont déjà nés des hommes et des femmes d’Afrique, des Indiens d’Amérique. Inspiré par le souvenir de son père, l’artiste a décidé d’entreprendre une nouvelle série de sculptures représentant ceux qui l’ont aidé à ne pas désespérer du genre humain. Ses grands hommes s’appellent Victor Hugo, Nelson Mandela, le Général De Gaulle, Gandhi, Moctar Sow ... Ousmane Sow fait vivre ces héros, figures illustres, méconnues ou anonymes de l’histoire par ses sculptures géantes, grands bronzes colorés, métissés de forces, loin du monumental et de la gloire pour mieux nous aider à en voir la grandeur d’âme.
Sculptures d’Ousmane Sow dans sa maison parisienne, au premier plan L’Immigré, puis Nuba, et en arrière plan, Victor Hugo, 14 novembre 2009.
En 2002, à la demande de Médecins du Monde, pour la Journée du refus de l'exclusion et de la misère, Ousmane Sowdont il réalisé un bronze commandé et installé en 2003 par la municipalité de Besançon, ville natale du grand écrivain. Il l'a représenté regardant sa montre à gousset dans les habits de Jean Valjean, le héros des Misérables, à propos duquel Victor H"Jean Valjean est la fourmi que la loi sociale écras". Le sculpteur se souvient encore du poème Après la bataille : «Mon père , ce héros au sourire si doux...» qu'il a appris enfant et voue à l'écrivain une sincère admiration.
www.maisonousmanesow.com:
Inspired by the memory of his father, Moctar Sow, “the man he respected most in the world, the unfinished series entitled Thank’s, was created as a homage to the great men who, according to Ousmane Sow, “helped him never despair of humankind”: Victor Hugo, Nelson Mandela, General de Gaulle, Toussaint Louverture and Man and Child.
In an unfinished state are: Mohamed Ali (aka Cassius Clay), Martin Luther King, and Gandhi...
www.artkelen.medium.com:
The series that particularly impressed and touched me is the “great men”one in tribute to the great men who have marked his life. We discover the sculptures of his father, Victor Hugo, General de Gaulle, Nelson Mandela and The Man and the Child. Behind these majestic works, we can perceive the themes that were to be impoch as heroism and courage, freedom and compassion.
www-parismatch-com:
Figure de l'art africain contemporain, le sculpteur sénégalais Ousmane Sow est mort tôt jeudi à Dakar à l'âge de 81 ans, a annoncé sa famille à"Il emporte avec lui rêves et projets que son organisme trop fatigué n'a pas voulu suiv", a souligné sa famille, précisant qu'il avait fait ces derniers mois plusieurs séjours à l'hôpital à Paris et à Dakar.
Ousmane Sow Introduit À L'Académie Des Beaux arts Par François Hollande, Lors D’un Cérémonie À L’Elysée En Décembre 2013 2.
Translate
Figure of contemporary African art, Senegalese sculptor Ousmane Sow died early Thursday in Dakar at the age of 81, hi"He takes with him dreams and projects that his too tired body did not want to follow," said his family, adding that he had made several hospital stays in Paris and Dakar in recent months.
Ousmane Sow Introduced To The Academy Of Fine Arts By François Hollande, During A Ceremony At The Elysee Palace In December 2013 2.
www.maisonousmanesow.com:
Amongst this threatened race in South Sudan, where the men go naked, wrestling matches are seen as a ritual that lifts the soul. After the fights, men and women choose their partners. Nouba women practice tattooing and scarification for religious, ethnic and aesthetic purposes.
Ousmane Sow: 'As far back as I can remember, I have always sculpted. I never thought of making a profession of it, until the day I left deeply moved by the photographs of Leni Riefenstahl portraying the Nouba of Kau.What interested me about the nouba wrestlers is that they care of their bodies and that, at some point in their lives, they run the risk of being disfigured.'
www.ousmanesow.com: As if driven to return to the very source, to the origins ad development of African art, Ousmane Sow's work might well appear to be a contemporary digest, an exaggerated vision of a long forgotten history. Following the example of the first ancient and classical art of the African continent - the large, terracotta figurative statues of the Nok culture of Nigeria, as mute and as hallucinated as the Easter Island statues - Ousmane Sow began by kneading the earth. A new creative force seeking to build up an improbable army of the shadows, Sow raised his Golem warriors by perfecting an alchemist's mixture of his own concoction. His esthetic of secrecy corresponded exactly with his esthetic of initiation.
How can you think of reproduction when you are striving to produce? Transmutation into bronze - completely hypothetical at that moment - would have been considered as a vulgar and flashy transformation of clay into gold.
It's a mistake to attribute to primary works of art an originality that cannot be reproduced.
We know that as early as the 11th century the ancient Ife civilization in the Yoruba lands, in the south-west of modern Nigeria had discovered how to cast, having already achieved remarkable mastery of terracotta modeling.
But the experiment would have soon ended if the artist had not discovered, first with fascination, then astonishment and emotion, a regeneration and a real metamorphosis in his work. As we know, in the end replicants always escape from their creator…
For his first three bronzes, Ousmane Sow immediately turned to his earliest works: Dancer with Short Hair and the Standing Wrestler from the Nuba series, an"Mother and Child" from the Masai series. Perhaps the most brutal, in any case the most nude and undeniably the most alive, even though they remain imbued with a sense of moderation, restraint and self control that we associate with the Yoruba and the Fulani.
In the remote Kordofan region, in the south of Sudan, where the Nuba survive and still live, young virgins dance the myertum, the "dance of love". They move closer and closer to the victorious wrestlers, who sit in a circle their eyes lowered, after the annual ceremonial combat. They smear their bodies with black or red earth to make them more athletic and desirable. Only bronze, with its dark, shimmering patina, could recreate the initial erotic gleam of the Dancer with Short Hair, her oblique, hollowed highlights, her supple, animal power. With the Standing Wrestler the bronze makes him stronger, stockier, more concentrated, more violent. He's certainly less human, standing there, one solid block, like a god, a force in motion. The mask he has skillfully painted on his face to frighten his opponents - here etched in green acid in the very flesh of the bronze - acquires a virulence that is closer to actual Nuba war paint, made from charcoal dust and crushed shell.
Contrary to the original human creations, they demand a resurrection of the flesh, a touch of eternity as opposed to a rotting straw...
And the mother breastfeeding her child with her dress and clothing melting into the flesh is here transformed into Maternity. Emerging like a lotus flower from the folds of clothing, colored warm ochre by nitrates, the young woman's head, shaven, smooth and burnt dark by the sun, takes on a Buddha-like grace. Her feet, however, deformed as in Picasso's cubist manner, coarsely hacked as Baselitz might have done, remind us in an immediate, clear and perceptible fashion of the wounds and shocks that African feet suffer from their endless walking.
Ousmane Sow is certainly not the first to color his bronzes. Giacometti and Germaine Richter experimented with it before him, but as a game, a fad, a whim, rarely out of necessity. For the Senegalese, Sow, bronze is inconceivable without color, which is its mask, its interior adornment.
With Ousmane Sow, it's the Africa of bronze and gold, proud and heroic, that comes to life under a beating sun.
Text: Emmanuel Daydé
www.wikipedia.org:
Ousmane Sow (10 October 1935 – 1 December 2016) wasSenegalese sculptor of larger-than-life statues of people and groups of people.
ow was born in Dakar, Senegal, on 10 October 1935. After the death of his father in 1956, he left Dakar to study in France, where he obtained a diploma in physiotherapy. He returned to Senegal after it became independent in 1960 and started a practice in physiotherapy. He later went back to France and practised there, but returned to Senegal in 1978. He died in Dakar on 1 December 2016 at the age of 81.
Sow was inspired by photographs by Leni Riefenstahl of the Nuba peoples of southern Sudan, and from 1984 began to work on a series of larger-than-life sculptures of muscular Nuba wrestlers. To make them, he developed a series of new techniques and materials. They were shown at the Centre Culturel Français de Dakar in 1987. Sow later made series of sculptures of Maasai people, of Zulu people, of Peul or Fulani people, and, in the late 1990s, of Native Americans.
www.rbb85.wordpress.com:
In 2008 Sow was honored ith a Prince Claus Award from the Netherlands in the theme Culture and the human body.
www.maisonousmanesow.com:
The Maison Ousmane Sow has been visited by many people since its opening on May 5th, 2018. In order to create his sculptures, for long hours, Ousmane Sow remained locked in his studio house in Dakar, a place where he lived from 1999 until the end of his life. This house, in itself is a work of art. Its floor is still covered with tiles made by the artist himself and the walls remain painted with "his material". Definitely contemporary, this building now shelters about thirty original pieces of artwork.