Miu Miu brings Alice Diop to Art Basel Paris for Geste de Consolation, a powerful tribute to Black women artists, their stories and the images that shape how we see them. Art, memory and collective healing meet at the Palais d’Iéna.
For the third consecutive year, Miu Miu returns as Official Partner of the Art Basel Paris Public Program with Geste de Consolation, a new project conceived by French filmmaker Alice Diop at the Palais d’Iéna. The exhibition is open to the public from today until October 25. Marking Diop’s first foray into exhibition-making, the project expands her cinematic practice into a multidisciplinary experience combining film, photography, sculpture, poetry, dance, music and performance.
Centered on the work of Black women artists, Geste de Consolation explores how Black women have been represented throughout art history and how these images continue to shape contemporary perceptions. The journey unfolds across four interconnected spaces, beginning with photography by South African artist Zanele Muholi and a two-screen video installation by Diop, before leading into Chambre à soi, a living room and library featuring a motif by artist Mary Lee Bendolph. The space brings together books that have shaped Diop’s intellectual life, alongside live readings of texts by writers including Audre Lorde, Zora Neale Hurston and June Jordan.
The exhibition continues with a performance programme featuring choreographer Nadia Beugré’s Prophétique and a musical performance by Chicago composer and musician Angel Bat Dawid with her ensemble, Sistazz of the Nitty-Gritty. The experience culminates in Simone Leigh’s monumental bronze sculpture Sentinel (Mami Wata), inspired by the West African water spirit. Moving between remembrance, representation and collective healing, Geste de Consolation invites visitors to reconsider the images and narratives that have shaped our understanding of Black womanhood.
Credits
PROJECT BY Alice Diop
IN COLLABORATION WITH Francesca Corona, Mehdi Meklat
ARTISTS Mary Lee Bendolph, Alice Diop, Simone Leigh, Zanele Muholi
LIVE PERFORMANCES Readings by: Penda Diouf, Alice Da Luz Gomes, Latifa Laabissi, Séphora Pondi, Davide-Christelle Sanvee, Betty Tchomanga
Prophétique (site-specific version) by Nadia Beugré
Performance and artistic collaboration: Beyoncé, Jhaya Caupenne, Lyne Delpey, Kevin Sery, Shereya October 21–23
Concert by: Angel Bat Dawid and the Sistazz of the Nitty Gritty October 24–25
EXHIBITION DESIGN Studio Dennis Vanderbroeck
EXHIBITION BRANDING 2×4, New York
EXHIBITION PRODUCTION Bureau Betak
