
Since the mid-1990s, Meschac Gaba has investigated constructions of cultural identity along with systems of trade as they relate to exchanges between Africa and the Western world. Addressing ideas of value and revaluation, perceptions of African art, the politics of museum display, and roles of both artist and visitor, Gaba inaugurated his major work, Museum of Contemporary African Art, in 1997. Over a period of five years, the artist progressively installed twelve interactive “rooms” of this nomadic museum at institutions throughout Europe, culminating with his presentation of the final room, the Humanist Space, at documenta 11 in 2002. At once critical yet playfully sincere, this project—like much of the artist’s work to follow—addresses and overturns codes of national and shared identity, along with their inherent value, by blurring the political, the artistic and the everyday. The project was re-initiated most recently at the Tate Modern in 2013.