Inside the World’s Largest Collection of Contemporary African Art

Krispin Joseph Px

Google Art and Culture present a mesmerising African art collection from Italian Automible Brand Simca CEO Jean Pigozzi. Pigozzi has many layers of interest in the Art industry and became one of the leading African art collections in the 20th century.  

In 1989, Pigozzi visited a show titled, Magiciens de la Terre (Magicians of the Earth), Pompidou Center and Grande Halle de la Villette in Paris. After that, he started to collect African Art constantly. From that exhibition, Pigozzi starts to collect the artwork, and with French Curator Andre Magnin owns the most prominent African Art, now known as the Contemporary African Art Collection (CAAC-the Pigozzi Collection). 

Pigozzi’s first fonded exhibition, Magicians of the Earth, is a groundbreaking show that highlights “one hundred per cent of exhibitions ignoring 80 per cent of the earth.” The curator of this show brings 50% Western and 50% Non-Western artists shoulders to shoulder in an equal manner that carries the idea of African Art globally. Pigozzi is one art lover who is amazed and even starts collecting artwork. 

Pigozzi’s collection has no permanent venue, and they give the artwork as lend to many; more than sixty museums and art galleries have exhibited his collection globally, including the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston; the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco; the National Museum of African Art in Washington D.C.; the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain; the Pinacoteca Giovanni and Marella Agnelli in Turin, Italy; the Tate Modern in London; the Cartier Foundation in Paris, Paris, the Grand Palais in Paris, the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris, The MoMA in N.Y., The Venice Biennale, Venice, Documenta, Cassel, etc. 

We can explore his African art collections through Google Art and Culture. Pigozzi’s collection includes thousands of paintings, sculptures, drawings, photographs, installations and videos from contemporary artists living in sub-Saharan African countries and has features worldwide. Pigozzi’s art collection became a spotlight in 2019 because he donated 40 priceless works to MOMA in New York. 

In 2008, Pigozzi started to collect Japanese Art after the saturation of African Art collections. ‘When you’re an obsessive collector, you collect friends, companies, and Art, Pigozzi says the artsy correspondent.