Between the Biennale of Dakar and the Théodore Monod Museum
Paper long abstract:
In Senegal, the invention of a biennale was an urgent need following the end of the welfare state provided until the 1980s by the political regime of President Léopold Sédar Senghor. The reasons that led to the creation of the Dakar Biennale are multiple, but the main motivation of Dak'Art was to make the Senegalese capital the hub of cultural life in Africa. One can admit that the creation of the Dakar Biennale is a fascination and a nostalgia of the 1966 mega-event by the political and cultural actors. Today, it occupies a major place in African cultural life and resonates with places like the Theodore Monod Museum of African Art. The latter is an old institution that has revived a contemporary dynamic and has become, in recent years, a high place of meeting and exchange.