Kaélé is the artist, ●K is the narrator, and the story begins a long time ago. [French]
KAÉLÉ WAS BORN IN CAMEROON IN 1988. After several years in the Sahel, he returns to Europe where he grows up without incident. Kaélé will retain from this period an immoderate taste for the distant, mathematics, and Scaramouche who "was born with the gift of laughter and the belief that the world was mad."
PHYSICIST BY TRAINING & OUTSIDER ARTIST. Kaélé continues to travel. From the United States to Central Asia, he stops for a while in the Land of Physics. With his doctorate in hand, he continues his journey as a self-taught individual and ventures into the realm of museums. There, he has his first decisive encounters: the Italian Renaissance and Conceptual Art.
TROA. Kaélé engages in Troa, a literary experience where words are formed from letters, letters from ink and meaning, and where the hero merges with the one who reads. Troa takes the form of a round book that distorts, folds, in which Kaélé traverses mirrors and labyrinths and eventually loses his authorial identity in favor of the reader. It is the birthplace of Kaélé the artist.
THE CARTEL AND THE VOID. The need to create seals the union between Kaélé the scientist and Kaélé the artist – one creates from reality, the other from his imagination. Even though the absurd has its virtues, Kaélé seeks to create a meaningful work. Where to find meaning other than in the absolute, in the universal, in the infinite, or its more humanly accessible counterpart: the void? How can the void become a work? What makes a work? Wandering from museums to galleries, from framed paintings to sculptures on pedestals, a certainty emerges: the cartel makes the work. The empty work without a cartel takes shape.
JOSEPH KOSUTH. The general economy of Who is Kaélé? is drawn from the empty work and the spirit of the Great Masters; the street dimension is essential to bring Art out of museums. Of all the works that Kaélé wishes to extend, only One & Three Chairs requires the agreement of its still-living author. Joseph Kosuth says yes! Everything falls into place, other prominent names in contemporary art agree to lend their voices to the project: Catherine Millet, Tania Mouraud, Arnaud Cohen, Philippe Méaille, Paul Ardenne...
FROM PARIS TO NANKIN. Ideas blossom, giving life to new works offered to private collections in Paris. Kaélé leads street expeditions with a group. The importance of social networks becomes urgent. Kaélé opens an Instagram account, and a Chinese gallery proposes to represent him from Nankin.
The story continues, and here we are today.