Installation view. Alternative Practices and Unbound Forms: African Artists Across Recent Biennales – Part II, Primo Marella Gallery Milano, 2026
Primo Marella Gallery Milano is pleased to announce the unveiling of Alternative Practices and Unbound Forms: African Artists Across Recent Biennales – Part II.
Open to the public from today, this renewed chapter of the exhibition unfolds through a reconfigured display centred around the presentation of a major new work by Malian artist Abdoulaye Konaté: Hommage aux chasseurs et musiciens du Mandé (2026).
Conceived as a new chapter within the exhibition, the reinstallation creates fresh dialogues between the artists on view while offering visitors a renewed perspective on the richness, complexity and diversity of contemporary African artistic practices.
At the heart of the new display stands Konaté’s monumental textile composition, measuring 705 × 220 cm, the largest work ever produced within this celebrated cycle and the most ambitious iteration of a subject that has remained central to the artist’s practice for more than three decades.
This new work represents a monumental reimagining of one of Konaté’s most iconic and enduring themes. For over three decades, Konaté has explored the symbolic legacy of the chasseurs du Mandé – legendary hunters and spiritual guardians of the medieval Mandé Empire – whose history continues to resonate as a powerful metaphor for cultural identity, collective memory and resilience.
The Mandé Hunters cycle occupies a pivotal place in the artist’s career. An early work from the series, L’Hommage aux chasseurs du Mandé (1994–96), earned Konaté the prestigious Grand Prix Léopold Sédar Senghor at the Dakar Biennale in 1996. Another version from the series entered the collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, in 2023, while a monumental iteration was presented at Documenta 15 in Kassel in 2022. These milestones attest to the international significance of a body of work that has become emblematic of Konaté’s practice and of contemporary African art more broadly.
In Hommage aux chasseurs et musiciens du Mandé (2026), the artist revisits this seminal theme, paying tribute to the hunters and musicians who have shaped and preserved the cultural heritage of the Mandé world. The work stands as a powerful reflection on the transmission of memory and the enduring relevance of tradition in the present.
Through a carefully reconsidered spatial framework, the exhibition encourages new readings and connections across the works on view, further enriching its critical and curatorial scope.
See you at the gallery in Milan!
June 18, 2026
