The Swiss family banking group CBH can boast a fine collection of works by big names in Swiss and European art such as Ferdinand Hodler, Jean Tinguely and Vera Molnár. But she also undertook to build a collection of modern and contemporary art from sub-Saharan Africa, a “private collection, open to the future, and which highlights a part of the history of art that is still too largely unknown”according to Simon Benhamou, general director of the CBH and director of the collection. As it approaches its 50th anniversary, the Geneva bank intends to change scale and infuse a museum perspective into this new collection.
Compagnie Bancaire Helvétique has, from the beginning of the project, benefited from the expertise of Jean-Yves Marin, president of the French committee of the International Council of Museums (ICOM) in the 1990s and director of the Geneva Museums of Art and History from 2009 to 2019. “All banks have collections of works, but very few are established with the help of professionals who monitor acquisitions, and according to museum requirements”enthuses the former museum professional, who since 2020 has served as museum and heritage consultant and artistic advisor to the CBH.
With 220 works, the collection, built up in just 5 years, is the result of prospecting work carried out by Jean-Yves Marin in African, European and American galleries and in major contemporary art events in Africa, such as the Dakar Biennale. Albert Lubaki, Malick Sidibé, Frédéric Bruly Bouabré, Abdoulaye Konaté… The most famous artists of 20th century sub-Saharan Africa rub shoulders with contemporary art celebrities like Barthélémy Toguo, Thandiwe Muriu and Amoako Boafo.
The bank also gives pride of place to young, still unknown artists and forgotten figures of modern art. For the moment, the fund includes around a hundred artists from around twenty countries – Democratic Republic of Congo, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Cameroon, Benin, Kenya, etc. If the collection is essentially focused on painting, photography and sculpture, Jean-Yves Marin wishes to open it to other mediums such as video art and engraving in the coming years.
The collection benefits from respectable conservation conditions: the works are stored in reserves in Geneva, and are the subject of monitoring and maintenance work by Andrea Hoffmann, a conservator-restorer based in Geneva. “At the moment, we are thinking about the status of the collection, further confides the former director of the Geneva Museum of Art and History. It could perhaps give rise to the creation of a foundation”.
The collection should soon be able to leave Switzerland to be loaned to various actors around the world. “One of our objectives is to make the collection known and to circulate it”says Jean-Yves Marin. The latter also cherishes the dream of seeing part of the fund take off for Africa as part of a traveling exhibition, supported by several museums. For now and until November 23, it is on display at the Rath Museum in Geneva.
