...if someone seems very sure of themselves,
it doesn't mean they are telling the truth, so take the time to doubt and think about things, time is your greatest ally...

(N. Kouagou, from the video work Heaven’s truth, 2026)

On the occasion of the 2026 European Photography Festival, titled Ghosts of the Everyday, the Collezione Maramotti presents Heaven’s truth, the first solo exhibition in Italy by the French artist Ndayé Kouagou, bringing together recent works and a project created specifically for the show.

Kouagou's new ambitious production, which also gives the exhibition its title and occupies the first rooms, is inspired by the narrative device of the photo novel and includes a video creation, three-dimensional elements, and wall works.
The video, divided into three chapters, constitutes the central and theatrical work from which the others emanate. The artist himself introduces and narrates the protagonists of a simple story, about life and death, guiding the visitor through the adventures of four universal "types". The events of these characters - canine, human, physically masked and psychologically revealed, archetypes of the Western world - intertwine with the fate of the narrator in a hypothetical Paradise that reflects the dynamics of the earthly world, subject to the intricate dilemmas of Judgment.

Aware of the impossibility of truly distancing oneself from oneself and being completely objective, impartial, uninfluenced by the context, Kouagou reveals, with irony, the inevitability of personal opinions and the inability to completely detach from the reality in which we live.

In the subsequent rooms of the exhibition, some works from recent years are presented, from which the new production Heaven’s truth derives.
The video installation Here & Elsewhere (2024) stages, as described by the artist himself, a "message for all". The narrative alternates between fictional news reports and dissertations with a paradoxical tone, illustrated by a contemporary bard with the artist's body and a female voice, who ends up delivering advice and guru-like statements to a crisis-stricken audience.
Within the body of works related to the video work A coin is a coin (2022) - already part of the Collezione Maramotti's archive - the artist performs an allegorical monologue that challenges the understanding and perception of reality. Starting from abstract conceptual considerations about the two sides of a coin, Kouagou manipulates the viewer's beliefs and prejudices, leading to questioning the power and true meaning of freedom.

Kouagou's creative practice, articulated between visual art and performance and often inhabited by his alter ego, is activated by language. The texts elaborated by the artist - seemingly familiar, confused, and ironic at the same time - are the origin and beating heart of videos, installations, and live performances in which the instability of language, the opacity of words, and the shifts in meaning inherent in media and interpersonal communication emerge, creeping and powerful. Through dialogues, monologues, questions, and statements that escape any clear definition of the topic at hand, Kouagou manages to touch deep chords of consciousness and the unconscious, questioning individual and collective attitudes towards the world.

Generating a disconcerting narrative experience, both playful and existential, the artist guides the visitor through a goalless path, where reference points appear blurred, if not completely incoherent.
His works trigger a reflection on truth - real, potential, or imaginary - on vulnerability, discomfort, and power dynamics, insinuating themselves into the folds of the contradictions of our subjectivity and the paradoxes of contemporary society.