Koyo Kouoh, globally renowned art figure and Zeitz MOCAA chief curator, dead at 57

Daily Maverick

11-05-2025

The biennale organisers announced, along with Koyo Kouoh's company, Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA), on Instagram that the world-renowned figure died on Saturday, 10 May 2025. Details of the death were not shared.
Born in Cameroon in 1967, Koyo grew up in Douala before moving at the age of 13 to Switzerland, where she eventually studied business administration and banking and worked with migrant women as a social worker.
She lived in many countries including Cape Town where she was appointed executive director and chief curator for Zeitz MOCAA in 2019. She was slated to be the first African woman to curate the 61st International Art Exhibition (the Biennale) in Venice, Italy. The exhibition will run from 9 May 2026 to 22 November 2026.
Background
In 2007 and 2012, Kouoh joined the curatorial teams for the documenta 12 and 13 exhibitions in Kassel, Germany. She was also on the search committee that chose Polish curator Adam Szymczyk as artistic director for documenta 14. Between 2013 and 2017, Kouoh was curator of the artistic programme at the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair. She was the co-founding artistic director of the Raw Material Company art centre in Dakar, Senegal in 2008.
Body of work
In her independent curatorial practice she organised meaningful and timely exhibitions such as Body Talk: Feminism, Sexuality and the Body in the Work of Six African Women Artists, first shown at Wiels in Brussels in 2015. She curated Still (the) Barbarians, 37th EVA International, the Irish Biennial in Limerick in 2016 and more recently participated to the 57th Carnegie International in Pittsburgh with the deeply researched Dig Where You Stand, 2018, a show within a show drawn from the collections of the Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History. She was the initiator of the research project Saving Bruce Lee: African and Arab Cinema in the era of Soviet Cultural Diplomacy, co-curated with Rasha Salti at the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow and Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin (2015 to 2018).
Art world reacts
Many industry giants and organisations expressed heartfelt condolences. Biennale said they were saddened and dismayed to learn of Kouoh's sudden and untimely death. They said Kouoh worked with passion, intellectual rigor and vision on the conception and development of the Biennale Arte 2026.
'Her passing leaves an immense void in the world of contemporary art and in the international community of artists, curators and scholars who had the privilege of knowing and admiring her extraordinary human and intellectual commitment,' their statement reads.
Liberation Films executive producer Josephine Curtis said on LinkedIn that Kouoh was a visionary curator and powerful advocate for artistic expression across the African continent and diaspora. 'We were honoured to have been professionally acquainted with her, and looked forward with great anticipation to her role as artistic director of the 2026 Venice Biennale – a moment that would have marked a significant chapter in the history of global curating. Her voice, presence and legacy will endure through the many artists, institutions and ideas she championed.'
In an interview with the New York Times she said: 'My professional background is certainly rooted in an African space.'
Zeitz MOCAA said: 'It is with profound sorrow that the Trustees of Zeita Museum of Contemporary Art Africa received news in the early hours of this morning, of the sudden passing of Koyo Kouoh, our beloved executive director and chief curator.'
The museum, which opens on weekends, has closed its doors and all programmes have been suspended until further notice. DM