Yo-Yo Gonthier
Email : yoyo.gonthier(at)free.fr
Photographe, plasticien, musicien, assujetti au régime des artistes auteurs
Yo-Yo Gonthier est représenté par la Galerie Cécile Fakhoury, Abidjan, Côte D'Ivoire
Biographie : 
En 2017 Il crée avec François-Xavier Gbré le projet collaboratif La Cour et réactive durant plusieurs mois l'ancien cinéma El Hillal à Medina Coura, Bamako, Mali. En Occitanie, Il initie le projet Les vivants durant la résidence de création, à la Chapelle Saint-Jacques Centre d’art contemporain, où il met en place un atelier de création pluridisciplinaire.
En 2018, au Grand Palais, à Paris, le projet La cour et le film Une éclaircie sont sélectionnés pour la foire internationale Paris Photo, son travail est remarqué par la critique et fait l’objet d’un article dans la revue internationale d'art contemporain Art press.
En 2019, il est invité pour la première Nuit blanche au Kosovo et en 2020 à Nuit Blanche Paris où il réactive un lieu culturel à Clichy Montfermeil avec le soutien des Ateliers Médicis.
En 2021, En Occitanie Il crée Le labyrinthe, un chantier artistique et citoyen pour le festival Les chemins, en occupant une ancienne Halle à la volaille. Utilisant le textile et le bambou dans une série d’installations qu’il continuera avec La tour bleue au centre d’art contemporain Bandjoun Station au Cameroun. La même année, son travail est reconnu internationalement dans les ouvrages African Artists: From 1882 to Now paru chez Phaidon, et aussi en France : Oh ! AfricArt , paru aux éditions du Chêne, ouvrage réunissant, pour la première fois, les oeuvres de 52 artistes plasticiens contemporains d'Afrique et de sa diaspora.
En 2022, iI expose au MOAD, Museum Of African Diaspora à San Francisco et son travail entre dans les collections du Frac Occitanie.
En 2023, En Ariège, il débute la réhabilitation d’un ancien bâtiment en un lieu d’émancipation poétique et politique, personnelle et collective.
Yo-Yo Gonthier was born in 1974 in Niamey, Niger. He lives and works in Marquefave, Pyrenees, France.
As is often the case in Yo-Yo Gonthier's work, poetry and politics, the marvelous and the manifest, are intertwined. The formal tensions exacerbated by the opposition between stability and movement, between light and dark spaces, act as the sinews of the dialectical forces inherent in human history. His photographs invite us to contemplate and journey: to lose ourselves in the drawing in order to engage in the search for meaning. Chimeras emerge from the visible, tangled in the immemorial struggle between bestiality and civilization. (...)
Art press 460, Marc Aufraise, November 2018
Yo-Yo Gonthier questions the erasure of memory in a Western society where speed, progress and technology seem to be the essential values.
In 2003, he published Les lanternes sourdes, with trans photographic press. He is also interested in the reminiscences of colonial culture in France in the project Outre-Mer, nominated for the Prix Kodak de la Critique Photographique in 2005, the fourth part of which he exhibited in 2012 at La Triennale, Intense proximity at the Palais de Tokyo and Bétonsalon, Paris, France.
His work has been exhibited in numerous museums and festivals in France and abroad. Center Pompidou, Paris, Parc de la Villette, Paris ; Dakar Biennale ; Nuit blanche, Paris , Nuit blanche Kosovo ; Fotomuseum, Antwerp ; Museum of the African Diaspora, San Francisco ; CCCB Centre de Culture Contemporaine de Barcelone ; Sala Rekalde, Bilbao ; Market Photo Workshop Gallery, Johannesburg ; Lianzhou International Photo Festival, Guangzhou ; Biennale de la photographie, Antanarivo ; Rencontres africaines de la photographie, Bamako ; Addis Foto Fest, Ethiopia.
His work can be found in the Pierre Bergé collections, Bibliothèque Nationale de France; Fond Régional d'Art Contemporain de l'île de la Réunion; Collection départementale d'art contemporain de la Seine Saint Denis; Centre National de l'Estampe et de l'Art Imprimé.
Since 2011, he has been building collective artistic and participatory projects. For example, he involved nearly two hundred people in the construction of an eight-meter-long embroidered aerostat, Le Nuage qui parlait, which was exhibited in Abidjan in 2015 during the performance L'empreinte, prologue to the collective exhibition Présences at Galerie Cécile Fakhoury. The same year, his Pieds de bois series is presented in the in situ installation À Découvert during the 10th Rencontres africaines de la photographie in Bamako. In 2016, Le nuage qui parlait reappeared in Niamey, on the Niger River, during the performance La traversée with the support of the Centre Franco Nigérien and many local residents.
In 2017, with François-Xavier Gbré, he created the collaborative project La Cour and reactivated the former El Hillal cinema in Medina Coura, Bamako, Mali, for several months. In Occitanie, he initiates the Les vivants project during a creative residency at the Chapelle Saint-Jacques Centre d'art contemporain, where he sets up a multidisciplinary creative workshop.
In 2018, at the Grand Palais, Paris, the project La cour and the film Une éclaircie are selected for the international Paris Photo fair, his work is noticed by critics and is the subject of an article in the international contemporary art magazine Art press.
In 2019, he is invited to the first Nuit Blanche in Kosovo, and in 2020 to Nuit Blanche Paris, where he reactivates a cultural space in Clichy Montfermeil with the support of Ateliers Médicis.
In 2021, in Occitanie, he creates Le labyrinthe, an artistic and civic worksite for the Les chemins festival, occupying a former poultry market. Using textiles and bamboo in a series of installations that he will continue with La tour bleue at the Bandjoun Station contemporary art center in Cameroon. The same year, his work received international recognition in the books African Artists: From 1882 to Now published by Phaidon, and also in France: Oh! AfricArt , published by Editions du Chêne, a book bringing together, for the first time, the works of 52 contemporary visual artists from Africa and its diaspora.
In 2022, he exhibits at MOAD, Museum Of African Diaspora in San Francisco, and his work enters the collections of Frac Occitanie.
In 2023, in Ariège, he begins the rehabilitation of an old building into a place of personal and collective poetic and political emancipation.
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