Black Venezia: Modou Dieng Yacine

From July 19 to August 8, 2024, Modou Dieng Yacine moved to Venice at the invitation of the 193 Gallery to study what Venetian architecture, sculpture and painting from the 15th to 18th centuries reveal about the presence of black people, many of them enslaved, in the merchant city.

 

Black Venezia explores the representation of black bodies through a decolonial and autobiographical prism, in resonance with transatlantic and Mediterranean circulation. Inspired by the history of exchanges between Africa, Europe and the Middle East, Dieng questions the African presence in Europe, particularly in Venice, where he revisits the iconography of slaves in classical Venetian art. He blends elements of Saint-Louis du Sénégal culture, such as painting under glass, and reinvents these representations, while questioning their meaning and heritage in contemporary societies.