Art curator Koyo Kouoh dies at height of career
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Koyo Kouoh, one of the most influential figures in the global art scene and a tireless advocate for African creativity, has passed away at the age of 57. Her death, reported to have occurred in Switzerland, comes at the peak of a groundbreaking career that saw her rise to global prominence as a curator and cultural leader.
The Cameroon-born Kouoh was on the cusp of making history. She had recently been selected to lead the 2025 Venice Biennale, making her the first African woman to curate one of the world’s most prestigious art exhibitions. Her untimely death has shocked the international art community and left a profound void in contemporary African art.
Born in 1967 in Cameroon’s vibrant city of Douala, Kouoh moved to Switzerland at the age of 13. There, she studied business administration and banking, but ultimately turned away from the world of finance. “I am fundamentally uninterested in profit,” she told The New York Times in a 2023 interview. Instead, she began her career supporting migrant women as a social worker, while quietly immersing herself in the world of contemporary art.
Her journey into art was deeply personal and transformative. In the 1990s, Kouoh gave birth to her son in Switzerland and later adopted three more children. Seeking a deeper connection with her roots, she returned to Africa in 1996, settling in Dakar, Senegal — a move she would later describe as pivotal.
“Dakar made me who I am today,” she said in an interview with the Financial Times just a week before her death. “It’s the place I came of age professionally, where I really became a curator and an exhibition-maker.”
In Dakar, Kouoh founded Raw Material Company, an independent center for art, knowledge, and society. The space quickly became a dynamic hub for contemporary art in West Africa, showcasing bold, politically engaged works and nurturing the careers of emerging African artists.
In 2019, Kouoh took over as Executive Director and Chief Curator of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA) in Cape Town, South Africa. The museum, the largest of its kind on the continent, was facing a leadership crisis following the resignation of its founding director amid misconduct allegations.
Kouoh’s appointment was seen as a turning point. Under her leadership, Zeitz MOCAA emerged from scandal and thrived despite the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. “For me, it became a duty to salvage this institution,” she said in an interview with The Art World: What If…?! podcast. “If Zeitz had failed, it would have been a failure for all of us African art professionals in the field.”
She went on to curate acclaimed exhibitions that elevated the visibility of Black artists globally. One of her most celebrated shows, When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Painting, is currently being exhibited in Brussels.
Tributes have poured in from across the art world. South African artist Candice Breitz remembered her as “magnificently intelligent, endlessly energetic, and formidably elegant.” Nigerian visual artist Otobong Nkanga called her a “source of warmth, generosity, and brilliance.” Even Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni noted her impact, saying Kouoh’s passing “leaves a void in the world of contemporary art.”
In a statement, Zeitz MOCAA expressed “profound sorrow” over Kouoh’s “sudden” passing and announced the museum would close until further notice in her honor.
Despite her death, Kouoh’s words in her final interview serve as a powerful reflection on her life and legacy. “I do believe in life after death,” she said. “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.”
Her legacy will continue to reverberate across continents — in the artists she empowered, the institutions she revived, and the global art community she helped transform.
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