Julien Creuzet is a Franco- Caribbean artist born in 1986. His work was recently the subject of a solo exhibition at the LUMA Foundation in Zurich in 2023. Chosen to represent France at the Venice Biennale 2024, Julien Creuzet is the first artist from the French overseas territories to occupy the historic pavilion.

The panel entitled Solitary, sun, memory, solid (the inseperable feathered ones separated, the messages never arrived, today it is necessary to smile) was created during the artist's residency at the Centre d'Art de Neuchâtel in Switzerland, in September 2019. The composition is punctuated by scattered and glued book pages, which the artist then sandblasted. On the smooth, luminous lemon-yellow surface, a sinuous engraved design reveals the raw material and unfolds like a visual interpretation of the poem the artist wrote as the title of the piece. In this work, we find the essence of Julien Creuzet's art: poetry as a starting point and thread, but also enigmatic drawings charged with symbolism. Cutting-edge techniques and raw materials intermingle to deliver this incredibly powerful panel tinged with voodoo culture.

Athi-Patra Ruga is a South African artist born in 1984. Most of his works are linked to the mythology of "Azania", a utopian dreamland with a matriarchal system, which he uses to rewrite his personal history within the broader framework of the traumas of Apartheid and the collective history of South Africa.

The tapestry The Exile According to the Elder offered for the auction depicts the character "the Elder", the only male figure in Azania, and is also a self-portrait of the artist. In this invented mythology, "the Elder" is in exile after Azania's First War. This tutelary figure echoes the story of his father, who was himself in exile during South Africa's liberation struggle. Through the materials used, the artist underlines the ambivalence of this situation of exile, sad in its uprooting but also rich in the new cultural experiences it brings. The abundance of artificial flowers and the predominance of black evoke mourning, an image of hieratic devotion, while the accumulation of jewels and the staging blur the lines and lead us toward the vision of a pop-culture icon.

Born in 1987 in Tamale, Ghana, Ibrahim Mahama takes a keen interest in common materials, whose flows and constants enable him to examine the politics of migration and globalization.

The piece entitled SOSSG is based on the artist's preferred materials. These burlap bags, manufactured in South-East Asia, are imported en masse by Ghana for the transit of cocoa beans. After this initial use, the bags are reused to transport rice, seeds, and, at the end of their "life", coal. Marked by their various uses and owners, these bags represent the hands that have handled them, the silent labor of the workers. The variations in texture, color, and wear tell us the unique stories and trajectories of each of them. By assembling all these remnants of our daily lives, Mahama suggests that every human imprint left is intentional and invites us to observe the poetry of uniqueness in multitude.

Other artists included in the Twenty One Contemporary auction are Ephrem Solomon, Tafadzwa Masudi, Kutlo Mabua, Option Dzikamai Nyahunzvi, Lisa Vandy, Tuli Mekondjo, Serge Attukwei Clottey, Marion Boehm, Salah Elmur, Sadikou Oukpedjo, Aimé Mpane and Florine Démosthène.