Sector IX B

Mathieu Kleyebe Abonnenc
Born in French Guiana in 1977.
He lives and works in Metz, France.

Mathieu Kleyebe Abonnenc works within the colonial and postcolonial heritage and at the border between the work of the historian, the archivist, and the researcher in order to unearth forgotten or little-seen material. He relies on an ensemble of major, sometimes minor, historical and cultural facts, but also pays homage to the work of such tutelary figures as filmmaker Sarah Maldodor (Préface à des fusils pour Banta [Foreword to Guns for Banta]) (2011), philosopher Frantz Fanon (Orphelin de Fanon) (2012), or musician Julius Eastman (Songs for a Mad King) (2012–2013).
For the Biennale di Venezia, Abbonenc is presenting Sector IXB Prophylaxis of Sleeping Sickness, a fiction nourished by several levels of individual and collective stories. The film presents as its starting point a reflection on cultural appropriation and uses, including a soundtrack from the archives of the Musee du quai Branly, Paris, that takes the spectator to the vestiges of the Mission Dakar–Djibouti (1931–1933), an ethnographic expedition undertaken by French scholars to collect data about Africa and its cultural artifacts during the colonial era. Partly filmed at the Musee Theodore-Monod d’art africain in Dakar and the Musee de l’Homme in Paris (which was then under construction), the protagonist, a young ethnographer, decides to try out the drugs prescribed during the 1931 mission. In so doing, she shifts the rational analysis of the ethnographic data of the twentieth century to a more emotional experience, thus questioning the scientific validity of the collected resources. During the film’s second half, we meet the character on the streets of Dakar, where she had begun searching for her own identity.
As in his exhibitions in Paris and Basel, Abonnenc once again resonates the vibrant and angry music of the African– American Julius Eastman (1940–1990), whose trilogy Crazy Nigger (1979), Evil Nigger (1979), Gay Guerrilla (1980)—interpreted live by four pianists in the Biennale’s Arena—represents the origins of the fusion between improvisation, minimalist repertoire, and pop music.