In a career launched from modest beginnings in Douala, Cameroon, that saw her become curator of one of the oldest cultural festivals in the world, Koyo Kouoh changed the way art is experienced, particularly in Africa, art lovers say.
Earlier this month the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA) in Cape Town announced its February 2026 gala in honour of its celebrated director and curator, who died, aged 57, in May.
“Koyo’s legacy is deeply embedded in the fabric of this institution. Her leadership challenged us to think differently, act boldly, and build with care,” says David Green, co-founder and co-chair of Zeitz MOCAA and CEO of the V&A Waterfront.
Kouoh played a key role in transforming the museum, positioning it as a vibrant, critical platform for dialogue, learning, and artistic excellence.
In early 2019, the fledgling museum — it opened in September 2017, built around the collection of Jochen Zeitz — was in trouble and its future uncertain. Green recalls at a meeting about the curatorship Kouoh told him: “I do not want to come to Cape Town, but somebody must do this. This is important.” At that stage she was running an art centre, Raw Material Company, which she had founded in Dakar in 2008.
She told Green she had spoken to artists who believed the art community needed the Zeitz museum. “It is here; we are here and we must make it work,” she told him.
She was appointed and in six years — two of them under Covid restrictions — she did just that.
Under Kouoh’s leadership governance was stabilised, exhibition excellence raised to world standards, creative programmes initiated and an uncompromisingly unique African curatorial style pioneered.
She and her team curated exhibitions of artists from Africa and the diaspora on a scale and depth never before seen in South Africa. Highlights include When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Painting, comprising 230 pieces by 170 artists, which resonated so deeply with audiences that it travelled to the Kunstmuseum Basel and the Bozar Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels. It moves from Bozar to the Liljevalchs Art Hall in Stockholm in October.
For me, building out institutions on the continent is a matter of urgency
— Koyo Kouoh
Kouoh told arts podcaster Charlotte Burns last year: “We need to take the time to do the things that are urgent, that are essential, that are necessary. And for me, building out institutions on the continent is a matter of urgency.”
She said if the Zeitz MOCAA had failed, “it would’ve been the failure of all of us African art professionals in the field. We need more Zeitz MOCAAs.”
Kouoh was raised in Douala in modest circumstances by what she described as “very clever, smart women”.
They taught her life has multiple dimensions, visible and invisible. “But the most important dimension of life is celebration.”
She was schooled by Jesuit priests before following her mother to Switzerland when she was 13. After studying business she became an investment banker at Credit Suisse, but her heart was not in it. She told The New York Times in 2023 she was “fundamentally uninterested in profit”. After a stint working with migrant women as a social worker in 1995, Kouoh moved to Senegal as cultural correspondent for a Swiss magazine. By then she had a son, Djibril, born in 1992.
“I didn’t want to raise a black boy in Western Europe in the late 20th century,” she told Burns. “I always thought that my strength comes from my upbringing on the continent.”
Zeitz, whose CV includes stints as chair of Puma and CEO of Harley-Davidson, reflects: “The upcoming gala is not just a tribute to her — it’s a commitment to the future she believed in: one where African and diasporic artists are given the space, support and respect they deserve.”
Kouoh lived and worked in Cape Town, Dakar and Basel. At the end of 2024, she was named curator for the 61st Venice Biennale, only the second African to be chosen for the job, and the first African woman.
She died the week before she was due to announce the biennale’s theme, In Minor Keys. The festival runs from May to November 2026 in various locations around Venice, “following the project just as she conceived and defined it, with the purpose of preserving, enhancing and disseminating her ideas and the work she pursued”.
Days before her death the Financial Times published an interview in which she said: “I do believe in life after death because I come from an ancestral black education where we believe in parallel lives and realities. There is no ‘after death’, ‘before death’ or ‘during life’. It doesn’t matter that much. I believe in energies — living or dead — and in cosmic strength.”
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.