This evaluation is a part of a sequence of Should-See reveals, by which a author delivers a snapshot of a present exhibition
Upon encountering Alioue Diagne’s signature figuro-abstro work in his first New York solo present, ‘Jokkoo’, at Templon Gallery, I used to be struck by his alchemical strategy to image-making. In every canvas, Diagne inverts Charles Darwin’s Tree of Life – a organic diagram that historically depicts the hierarchical evolution of life varieties – and interrogates the foundations of illustration, the place language and science intersect to form our understanding of humanity.
Up shut, tiny curvy glyphs pulse by a wheel of vivid colors. From afar, pointillist-esque scenes of Black folks in Senegal and New York come into semi-focus, as Diagne’s otherworldly script deconstructs pores and skin tones and landscapes into molecular buildings, dissolving defining particulars into unfavorable area. We’re launched to a choice of quotidian scenes: Saay- Saay si – Police Misconduct (2024) presents a conflict between officers and protestors, whereas Pénc Mi – Assembly Place (2024) depicts a peaceable, adolescen crowd. Close by, Demb ak Tey – Previous and Current (2025) options staggered rows of ladies and youngsters arriving in a metropolitan metropolis. Drawing kinship from Hanoi script, Egyptian hieroglyphs and Arabic calligraphy, Diagne’s approach blurs the strains between numerous communication programs, grounding his work in universality.
Although Diagne’s presentation is a testomony to his mastering of obscurity, there are moments the place extra typical gestures of legibility disrupt that opacity. In Basketball Duality – Bëre Basket (2024), clipped English newspaper texts are scattered alongside the portray’s perimeter. Their semantic readability clashes with the summary composition, fracturing the coherence of Diagne’s invented visible language and flattening its enigmatic pull.
The exhibition’s crown jewel is its closing room, the place a blown-up black-and-white photographic wallpaper of on a regular basis Senegalese folks engages immediately with the work, like Sama rééni xol – Give and take (2024). This pairing, between candid pictures and expressive portraits, invitations us to confront the pseudo-scientific narratives embedded within the histories of each mediums, which had been traditionally used to categorize Black folks inside racial hierarchies. Right here, Diagne shifts his viewers’ gaze from distortion to (re)humanization – a obligatory corrective that helps us see the world with renewed readability.
Alioue Diagne’s ‘Jokkoo’ is on view at Templon Gallery, New York, till 1 Might
Most important picture: Alioune Diagne, Saay-Saay si – Police Misconduct, 2024, acrylic on canvas, 1.4 × 1.8 m. Courtesy: the artist and Templon, Paris/Brussels/New York; {photograph}: © Laurent Edeline
