Koyo Kouoh Foundation Takes Shape in Basel to Extend a Curatorial Legacy
A new foundation in Basel is being built to carry forward the work of Koyo Kouoh, the curator whose influence reached from Dakar to Venice and Cape Town. Announced as the 2026 Venice Biennale opened to the public, the Koyo Kouoh Foundation says it will support emerging and established organizations and curators in Africa and internationally, while also creating new structures to preserve and expand her legacy.
Among the first organizations named is RAW Material Company, the Dakar-based arts and research organization Kouoh founded in 2008. The foundation’s website describes the initiative as a platform for resources, funding, and structural support for those contributing to contemporary African cultural production globally. It also says the project is intended to sustain research, education, production, and circulation for practices that have often been pushed to the margins.
Two major initiatives are already planned: the Koyo Kouoh Prize, which will recognize artists, curators, researchers, cultural practitioners, and institution builders, and a long-term home for the Koyo Kouoh Collection. That collection is expected to house art, archives, research, and cultural contributions aligned with Kouoh’s values and conversations. The foundation is seeking financial support for both projects and says it welcomes “real conversations with people who want to help it grow.”
Philippe Mall, Kouoh’s partner of 17 years, serves as president. The foundation’s board includes artist Alfredo Jaar; Adrienne Edwards, senior curator and associate director of curatorial programs at the Whitney Museum; Kate Fowle, director of arts programs for the Hearthland Foundation; and Josef Helfenstein, former director of Kunstmuseum Basel.
Kouoh died while working on “In Minor Keys,” the main exhibition for the 2026 Venice Biennale, which centers art as a life-sustaining strategy. Before her death, she was executive director and chief curator of Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town, South Africa, where she organized “When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Painting” in 2022. Her earlier curatorial work included Documenta 12, Documenta 13, and six editions of EVA International in Ireland.
The foundation’s launch underscores how Kouoh’s influence continues to shape institutional thinking well beyond a single exhibition cycle. In the video on its homepage, Kouoh describes curating as a collective process built over time — a reminder that her legacy was always as much about structure as it was about vision.
