His works of art testify to Africa’s as well as Europe’s mutual longing for paradise, each side believing that it is to be found on the other side. Romuald Hazoumè (*1962), who works in Porto-Novo, the capital of the West African country of Benin, became known in Germany for his contribution to documenta 12: Dream, an open boat made from over four hundred plastic jerrycans, for which the artist was awarded the Arnold Bode Prize in 2007. In his most recent photographs, sculptures, and installations, the jerrycan also plays an important role, for in Benin it is both a tool and an object of survival. By creating, for instance, masks out of these containers and declaring them to be modules of his artistic vocabulary, Hazoumè not only refers to his own Yoruba traditions, but also to the discourse on international contemporary art—and in so doing, breaks through the patterns of colonialist thought. Exhibition schedule: Herbert Gerisch Stiftung, Neumünster, June 6–October 17, 2010