Quenum

Chloé

Quenum

Guest artist in the studio of Tatiana Trouvé

Chloé Quenum is a Franco-Beninese artist born in 1983. She lives and works in Paris. She is a graduate of the Olivier de Serres School of Applied Art and the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris. She also trained at ehess in the anthropology of writing.
Chloé Quenum works with graphic, linguistic and movable elements from a variety of cultures, extracting and schematising them from their context. These elements become signs, decorative forms of unidentifiable origin. She questions the effect that contextual displacement has on their understanding, and consequently their capacity to generate new stories.

Her work is regularly the subject of solo exhibitions, including "Épopée" as part of the Mondes Nouveaux programme at the Hôtel de Ragueneau in Bordeaux in 2023, curated by Cédric Fauq; "Wonder Wander" at the Florence Loewy gallery, Paris (2023); "Overseas" at the Les Bains-Douches art centre, Alençon (2020); and "Le Sceau de Salomon" at The Engine Room, Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand (2018). She is regularly invited to take part in group exhibitions: "Sarah Maldoror: Ci-néma Tricontinental", Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2021) and Wexner Center for the Arts (2024); "Diaspora at Home" at CCA, Lagos, Nigeria (2019) and Kadist, Paris (2021); "Ernest Mancoba - An Artist and His Legacy", at Centre Pompidou, Paris (2019) and Sodertalje konsthall, Sodertalje, Sweden (2020).

She regularly carries out research and creative residencies, for example in 2019 at the Manufacture de la Cristallerie Saint-Louis as part of the Hermès Foundation's residency programme, and in 2024 at the Villa Medici in Rome as part of the "Résidence Médicis" programme. Chloé Quenum shares her artistic activity with teaching at the Paris College of Arts. She has also been invited to study at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, in 2022-2023.

Chloé Quenum is representing Benin at the 60th Venice Biennale alongside artists Ishola Akpo, Moufouli Bello and Romuald Hazoumè, curated by Azu Nwagbogu. She will be in residence at the Villa Médicis in May 2024, as part of the "Résidence Médicis" programme.

Her work can be found in the collections of public and private institutions, including: Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris; FRAC Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Bordeaux; FRAC Île-de-France, Paris; FRAC Grand-Large - Hauts-de-France, Dunkerque; Fondation Kadist, Paris; Lafayette Anticipations, Paris.