Christine Eyene (born Paris, 1970) is a

Cameroon Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon, is a country in Central Africa. It shares boundaries with Nigeria to the west and north, Chad to the northeast, the Central African Republic to the east, and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the R ...

ian

art critic An art critic is a person who is specialized in analyzing, interpreting, and evaluating art. Their written critiques or reviews contribute to art criticism and they are published in newspapers, magazines, books, exhibition brochures, and catalogue ...

art historian Art history is the study of artistic works made throughout human history. Among other topics, it studies art’s formal qualities, its impact on societies and cultures, and how artistic styles have changed throughout history. Traditionally, the ...

, and

curator A curator (from , meaning 'to take care') is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the particular ins ...

Biography

Born in 1970 in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, Christine Eyene studied the history of art at the Panthéon-Sorbonne University, also in Paris. She obtained a Diplôme d’Études Approfondies (DEA) in 1999, under the supervision of , and wrote a dissertation entitled ''Image and Body: representing the body in South African art from the 1960s to 1990s''. She then pursued research on

contemporary Contemporary history, in English-language historiography, is a subset of modern history that describes the historical period from about 1945 to the present. In the social sciences, contemporary history is also continuous with, and related t ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

n art with, as her main subject, the history of artists exiled during

apartheid Apartheid ( , especially South African English: , ; , ) was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. It was characterised by an ...

and their cultural exchange with the black diaspora in

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

and

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

. She is particularly interested in the painters

Ernest Mancoba Ernest (Methuen) Mancoba (29 August 1904 – 25 October 2002) was an avant-garde artist, born in Transvaal Colony, who spent the majority of his life in Europe. He was probably South Africa's first professional Black modern artist, and exhibited fr ...

and Gerard Sekoto. Her other research topics also include themes such as body representation, gender in art, and urban culture. In 2000, she worked for the French Institute in

Rabat Rabat (, also , ; ) is the Capital (political), capital city of Morocco and the List of cities in Morocco, country's seventh-largest city with an urban population of approximately 580,000 (2014) and a metropolitan population of over 1.2 million. ...

, with the curator Nadine Descendre. In 2002, she also became one of the journalists for the review

Africultures ''Africultures'' is a publication of arts and culture about and from Africa and its diasporas. Based in Paris, it was founded in 1997 under the impetus of Olivier Barlet by journalists and academics such as Virginie Andriamirado, Gérald Arnaud, ...

, working in the field of visual arts. In 2010, she began a career as an independent curator, as had other art critics, such as

Simon Njami Simon Njami (born 1962 in Lausanne) is a writer and an independent curator, lecturer, art critic and essayist. Career Writing Njami published his first novel, ''Cercueil et Cie'', in 1985, followed by ''Les Enfants de la Cité'' in 1987, and '' ...

, and

Okwui Enwezor Okwui Enwezor (23 October 1963 – 15 March 2019) was a Nigerian curator, art critic, writer, poet, and educator, specializing in art history. Enwezor served as artistic director of several major exhibitions, including Documenta11 (2002) and th ...

, who contributed to a dynamic on contemporary art and highlighted African creators. She works for various institutions, notably as an exhibition curator for the ''FOCUS - Contemporary Art Africa'' exhibition in

Basel Basel ( ; ), also known as Basle ( ), ; ; ; . is a city in northwestern Switzerland on the river Rhine (at the transition from the High Rhine, High to the Upper Rhine). Basel is Switzerland's List of cities in Switzerland, third-most-populo ...

, on the selection of African photographers at Photoquai, in Paris in 2011, and, with other curators, for the

Dakar Biennale The Dakar Biennale, or Dak'Art - Biennale de l'Art Africain Contemporain, is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Dakar, Senegal. Dak'Art's focus has been on Contemporary African Art since 1996. History ...

in 2012. In 2012, she was in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

for the ''Roma-Sinti-Kale-Manush'' exhibition. In 2012, she joined the Making Histories Visible team, an artistic research project of the Center for Contemporary Art at the

University of Central Lancashire The University of Lancashire (previously abbreviated UCLan) is a public university based in the city of Preston, Lancashire, England. It has its roots in ''The Institution For The Diffusion Of Useful Knowledge'', founded in 1828. Previously k ...

(UCLan) with the mission of carrying out innovative curatorial projects, in collaboration with museums and contemporary artists.

References

External links

University of Lancashire Biography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Eyene, Christine Living people French women art historians 1970 births 21st-century French historians Historians of African art Art critics Women art critics Cameroonian art curators Cameroonian curators 21st-century Cameroonian women Cameroonian women curators