The Contemporary African Art Collection (CAAC) is a private collection created in 1989 by

Jean Pigozzi Jean "Johnny" Pigozzi (born 1952), heir to the CEO of the automobile brand Simca, is an art collector, photographer and fashion designer. He lives in Geneva. Biography Pigozzi is a "French-born Italian". He was born in Paris in 1952 and is th ...

, an Italian businessman, after his encounter with French independent curator, André Magnin. Magnin specializes in art from non-Western cultures, and especially sub-Saharan art. The CAAC came into being at a time when non-Western contemporary art was largely ignored on the international scene. It was founded shortly after the seminal exhibition ''The Magicians of the Earth'' at the

Pompidou Center The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the (), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English and colloquially as Beaubourg, is a building complex in Paris, France. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team of ...

in Paris, curated by Jean-Huber Martin. It was the first truly international exhibition where contemporary works from all over the world were shown on an equal footing. As of May 2022, the collection was based in

Geneva Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

, but it "does not have a permanent exhibition venue". The CAAC includes several thousand artworks, featuring sculptures, drawings, photographs, installations and videos, by more than 80 artists, living and working in sub-Saharan African countries. Some of its artists live in large cities and attended art schools. Others were "self-taught" and some are from remote areas and work within local traditions that they extend and enrich. The CAAC regularly organizes exhibitions and artwork loans in major museums and art foundations around the world, such as

Tate Modern Tate Modern is an art gallery in London, housing the United Kingdom's national collection of international Modern art, modern and contemporary art (created from or after 1900). It forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Live ...

(London), Pompidou Center (Paris), Guggenheim Bilbao,

Metropolitan Museum The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the third-largest museum in the world and the largest art museum in the Americas. With 5.36 million v ...

(NY),

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), is an art museum located in the Houston Museum District of Houston, Texas. The permanent collection of the museum spans more than 5,000 years of history with nearly 80,000 works from six continents. Follo ...

(Texas),

National Museum of African Art The National Museum of African Art is the Smithsonian Institution's African art museum, located on the National Mall of the Washington, D.C., United States capital. Its collections include 9,000 works of traditional and contemporary African ar ...

(Washington), Cartier Foundation (Paris) and the

Saatchi Gallery The Saatchi Gallery is a London gallery for contemporary art and an independent charity opened by Charles Saatchi in 1985. Exhibitions which drew upon the collection of Charles Saatchi, starting with US artists and minimalism, moving to the ...

(London). The CAAC also has published several catalogues and monographies.

Artists in the collection

References

External links

The Contemporary African Art Collection
{{DEFAULTSORT:Contemporary African Art Collection African art African art museums Voodoo art 1990 establishments in Italy Private collections in Italy