Lot 27: Mamadou Cissé (Senegalese, born 1960) 'Victoria Falls City (Africans United)', 2013

Mamadou Cissé (Senegalese, born 1960)
'Victoria Falls City (Africans United)', 2013
signed and dated 'CISSE M.F. 17.09.13' (lower left); titled 'VICTORIA FALLS CITY/ (AFRICANS UNITED)' (lower centre)
watercolour and pen on paper
40 x 50cm (15 3/4 x 19 11/16in).
Footnotes

Provenance
Private collection, Paris.


Born in the small Senegalese village of Baghagha in 1960, Mamadou Cissé moved to Paris at the age of 18. He began to draw whilst working as a security guard. Sketching was a way of occupying himself during the long night shifts.

The artist's work engages with the theme of urban development and the rapid expansion of cities across the world. Cissé claims that his diverse career history, as a tailor, construction worker and wallpaper manufacturer, has has been instrumental in forging his aesthetic. These jobs took him to a number of city centres, encouraging him to consider the nature of urban development and its rapid expansion in recent years.

Inspired by the creativity of urban architecture, Cissé began to create his own cityscapes. Part real and part imagined, Cissé's urban grids are depicted from above, as if from a satellite. They draw on a variety of sources including photographs and travel books.

Cissé is not merely artistically motivated. He believes that with population expansion there will soon be a shortage of residential dwellings. Cities, in his view, have a responsibility to accommodate the growing population: "to host, to feed and bring together its community."

Despite his environmental concerns, Cissé views urban expansion as primarily positive and exciting, offering inhabitants the possibility of a higher quality of life:

"I dream ideal cities, with houses for all, and colors to spread Joy. I am futuristic. Forward ho, Africa ! With Victoria Falls City, I wanted to create a new city between Zambia and Zimbabwe, as a symbol of a unified Africa, celebrating free movement of goods and people...My work glorifies human endeavour and the cities that I reinvent are places of joy."

These cityscapes were exhibited for the first time in 2007 at the Maison Chailloux in Fresnes.


Please note: this work will be sold with a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist.

Bibliography
The artist in conversation with Joyce Bidouzo-Coudray, Another Africa, November 2012.