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Joël Andrianomearisoa was born in Antananarivo, Madagascar, in 1977. He lives and works between Antananarivo and Paris, France.
Andrianomearisoa originally studied at the Institut Métiers Arts Plastiques. He obtained a diploma degree in architecture from Ecole Speciale d’Architecture, Paris, France in 2003.
Solo presentations include: De Profundis, Sabrina Amrani Gallery, Madrid, Spain (2015); Je ne suis plus une femme noire, Kinani Festival, Maputo, Mozambique (2015); a special project in Tu M’Aimes at the Bamako Encounters Biennial of African Photography, Mali (2015); Perfection, the grave of our own existence, Mikael Andersen, Berlin, Germany (2014); Sentimental, Maison Revue Noire, Paris, France (2013); Une Histoire, Centre Culturel Albert Camus, Antananarivo (2008) and Black Out,mentalKLINIK project space, Istanbul (2007).
Born in 1984 in Antananarivo, Madagascar, Curator Rina Ralay-Ranaivo lives and works between Antananarivo and Berlin.Rina Ralay-Ranaivo started his career at the Institut Français of Madagascar. For twelve years (2006 to 2018) he was in charge of the artistic programming of this flagship institution of Malagasy cultural life.
This transversal work enabled him to design produce and manage several projects in the field of visual arts and dance. It gave him the opportunity to work with countless Malagasy artists (Joël Andrianomearisoa, Madame Zo, Rijasolo, Ariry Andriamoratsiresy, Pierrot Men, Christiane Ramanantsoa), Pan-African artists (Kettly Noël, Omar Viktor Diop, Ballaké Sissoko) Oceanic artists (Pascal Montrouge, Hans Nayna, Davy Sicard…) and artists from Europe (Claude Brumachon, Moise Touré, Bernardo Montet, Pascal Maitre, The Shopping)
Rina Ralay-Ranaivo is also a visual artist and his work has been shown in art centers and contemporary art events in Africa and Europe. He has curated several exhibitions, all in his country, the most important of which is entitled “Ici la limite du royaume est la mer” (2018): a collective and retrospective exhibition of the last twenty years of the history of Malagasy contemporary artistic expressions.
Previously, Rina Ralay-Ranaivo had been a cultural journalist for the Malagasy newspaper La Gazette de la Grande Ile (2003 to 2005), after studying Information Science and Communication at the University of Antananarivo. This proposal by the Ministry of Culture and Joël Andrianomearisoa to curate the Malagasy Pavilion at the 58th edition of La Biennale di Venezia is an essential mission for several obvious reasons.
It is a tremendous honour that comes at the right moment, on the eve of a new orientation in my career. It is also a commitment that I accepted out of friendship, for the artist and for the association Revue Noire, with whom I have maintained both a complicity and a working relationship for about fifteen years.
This invitation to write together, in a dialogue and collectively, a page in the history of Malagasy arts is an act that brings us even closer together. This curation is an unprecedented exercise: interacting intimately with the artist on his way of making poetry, drama, emotion and give them shape.
Finally, it is a personal source of pride to be able to participate in this project and to bring this work on aesthetics – deeply Malagasy in its soul and in its approach – to a prestigious event with worldwide outreach.
