"I don't work, I take notes."
Frédéric Bruly Bouabré (1923, Zépréguhé - 2014, Abidjan, Ivory Coast) is one of the most significant figures of contemporary African art. Following a mystical vision on 11 March 1948, which earned him the prophetic name Cheik Nadro, "the one who does not forget", he devoted his life to observing, recording and transcribing the world. He invented a syllabary of 449 signs for his native Bété language, a foundational anticolonial gesture restoring an autonomous writing system to African culture, and produced thousands of postcard-sized drawings in ballpoint pen and crayon, gathered in the lifelong cycle "Connaissance du Monde". Presented in "Magiciens de la Terre" (1989), Documenta 11 (2002) and the Venice Biennale, his work was celebrated in the retrospective "World Unbound" at MoMA, New York (2022).
