Togo returns to the Venice Art Biennale (9 May – 22 November), and does so via the Republic of Guinea, an African country on the Atlantic. It is not a tortuous path as it might seem: from Milan, where he lives and works, the artist from Messina will move to the island of San Servolo, once a psychiatric hospital and now one of the exhibition venues, to confront those who seem to have common pieces of DNA in their roots.
Guinea, a former French colony, is one of the seven countries present for the first time in Venice and is linked to those “minor keys” that the late Cameroonian-Swiss curator Koyo Kouoh (who passed away last May) chose as the theme of this edition. While controversies rage because no Italian artist was invited and the Italian Pavilion is entirely dedicated to Chiara Camoni alone, some of our artists, with other Europeans, will be on stage in Venice thanks to Guinea.
«San Servolo – explains the curator Carlo Stragapede – is a place where the “minor keys”, low notes of isolation and silence, resonate with power, transforming the void into absolute presence. The pavilion proposes a universal dialogue between Guinean material and contemporary European art. It is not a sterile search for influences, but a resonance of souls based on the human condition and dignity. Guinean art, linked to ritual and spiritual functions, expressed through sounds and colours, confronts European sensitivity: it updates its own codes to inhabit the dynamics of globalization and the complex stratifications of post-colonial identity.”
From this perspective, the strong colors of the Mediterranean expressionism of Enzo Migneco, aka Togo, fit well, indeed they are truly consonant, a different mirror of an identical attachment to the land of origin.
On display is his very recent diptych «Constant Presences». Stragapede explains everything again: «Togo’s ability to dialogue with nature in an almost totemic and spiritual way makes it an ideal figure for a cultural comparison with the Republic of Guinea: the primordial energy of its landscapes fits perfectly with the idea of a pavilion that celebrates the earth, symbols and light. Togo represents the strength of a painting that can be both cultured and popular, capable of touching the universal chords of the bond between man and his territory.”