Pascale Marthine Tayou

In his sculptures, drawings, videos and performances--which are frequently interwoven to become opulent, lavish installations-- Cameroonian artist Pascale Marthine Tayou (born 1967) addresses such subjects as national identity, consumerism and the global village, drawing on cheap materials such as plastic bags, beads, dolls and brushes. His installations blur distinctions between sacred objects and commercial goods, playing with popular conceptions of African art and conjoining religious fetishism and consumer fetishism with wit and sculptural ingenuity. He has been championed by curators such as Daniel Birnbaum, Nicolas Bourriaud and Okwui Enwezor, who here elaborates on the idea of "openness" as a fundamental artistic strategy, using Tayou's early assemblage technique as a point of departure. In his contribution, Yilmaz Dziewior focuses on the concept of the exhibition at Kunsthaus Bregenz that this volume accompanies and the large-scale installations that have been newly created for the Kunsthaus, which are also documented here.