Joël Andrianomearisoa Tools of Emotions and Desires

The Malagasy artist Joël Andrianomearisoa, born in 1977 in Antananarivo, Madagascar, lives and works between Paris and Magnat-l’Étrange in France, and Antananarivo in Madagascar. In 2003, he received a degree in architecture from the École Spéciale d’Architecture in Paris. In 2016, he won the “Arco Madrid Audemars Piguet” Prize.

Joël Andrianomearisoa works multidisciplinarily, expressing himself through various media and materials. He aims to give form to abstract, inexplicit narratives and feelings. From sculpture to installation, from crafts to writing, from textiles to architecture, he pursues a pluralistic approach inspired by his Malagasy roots, but also by the world and its diverse geographies.

Joël Andrianomearisoa originates from Malagasy multiculturalism, which exists at the interface between Africa and Asia and is linked to Europe through colonial history. In the service of his emotional explorations, he freely uses mixed references, uniquely combining the coldness of industrial minimalism with the warmth of strong personal narratives that transcend time and people. Steeped in complex emotional experiences, his works produce delicate and tense creations that reflect the breath of our lives and express his ongoing explorations of the materiality of emotions. Andrianomearisoa’s approach to poetry and architecture allows him to explore his own unique path, creating a new architectural layout within the exhibition space. Special textiles and weaves, as well as his use of specially dyed and manufactured papers, play a major role, exploring materiality, haptics, and oversized dimensions as essential criteria. In this way, the artist succeeds in transforming spaces in his own way and imbuing them with emotional energy.

His works have been exhibited in leading international institutions such as the Centre Pompidou, Paris (2005), the Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2010), the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Washington DC (2015), and the MAXXI, Rome (2018). In 2019, he represented Madagascar for the first time at the 58th Venice Biennale with a monumental installation made of black tissue paper for the national pavilion, “I have forgotten the night.” He is also known for his work “The Five Continents of All Our Desires,” which was exhibited at the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Afrika in Cape Town in 2022.

Andrianomearisoa belongs to the first pioneering wave of contemporary African artists and actively participates in the cultural and artistic development of Madagascar, including since the creation in 2020 of an independent, free art center in Antananarivo, Hakanto Contemporary, dedicated to the promotion of Malagasy artists and the dialogue between cultures.

For the Ludwig Museum in Koblenz, the artist will further develop these concepts and create two distinct, yet mutually referential, visual spaces. The exhibition, curated by Prof. Dr. Beate Reifenscheid (Director of the Ludwig Museum, Koblenz) and Jérôme Sans (co-founder of the Palais de Tokyo, Paris, and former artistic director of UCCA Beijing, Lago Algo Mexico City, and currently Cookie Factory, Denver), is supported by the Peter and Irene Ludwig Foundation and the Association of Friends of the Middle Rhine Museum and the Ludwig Museum.