For many of his exhibition installations and vitrine artworks Adéagbo uses text/image collages to provide a meta-critical framework for the assemblage constructions. Sometimes he commissions paintings of his text/image collages from his sign-painter in Benin, who then reproduces them on canvases. This is the first time Adéagbo’s original collages have been made available in the Americas.
 
Contents: 6 collages, 2 rare exhibition catalogs, a copy of the Brooklyn Rail featuring an interview with Adéagbo, hard copy of the below interpretive material.
 
Collages 2023-1 to 2023-4 were made for his exhibition at Chesterwood, in Massachusetts, summer 2023.
Collage 2023-5 was for his exhibition at Reina Sofia, Madrid, a contribution to the theme show “machinations“.

Collage 2024-1 was for his contribution to an exhibition in Maison André Breton, St. Cirq la Popie.
 
Translations of texts on Georges Adéagbo’s collages and research by Dr. Stephan Köhler
 
1. 2023-1 size: 39 x 27 cm for a painting in the installation “Create to Free yourselves”..! at Chesterwood Massachusetts, July-August 2023, Daniel Chester French’s studio. https://www.chesterwood.org/georges-adeagbo-create-to-free-yourselves
 
“God the creator wanting the perfection of the human being”…!
 
Image of Daniel Chester French in front of the Lincoln memorial, that he created.
 
“In order to make one-self perfect, one has to make efforts, one can open the path for us, one can tell us how to walk, but no person can and could walk for us: the sacrifice of Jesus”..! Jesus paid the price to open the path: it’s us who have to advance..!

2. 2023-2 size 50 x 38 cm for a painting in the installation “Create to Free yourselves”..! at Chesterwood Massachusetts, July-August 2023, Daniel Chester French’s studio https://www.chesterwood.org/georges-adeagbo-create-to-free-yourselves
 
“One can see only well with the heart the essential is invisible for the eyes. I am the dark, the widower, the inconsolable”..!
 
Image: Photo of Georges Adéagbo visiting the Antonio Canova museum in Italy, standing next to the statue of Georges Washington clad as roman soldier. The sculpture was commissioned by the American Ambassador in Rome when Washington renounced the 3rd mandate.
 
“The Christ Jesus is resurrected from the dead, and through his death, he won over death, and to the dead, he gave life”..

3. 2023 – Chesterwood, size 65 x 46 cm for a painting in the installation “Create to Free yourselves”..! at Chesterwood, Massachusetts, July-August 2023, Daniel Chester French’s studio. https://www.chesterwood.org/georges-adeagbo-create-to-free-yourselves
 
“Abraham Lincoln with the author of the monument of him, Abraham Lincoln: art and the history of art. Art and nature, art is in nature”.
 
Images: historic photo of Daniel C. French standing in his studio in front of the original plaster version of Abraham Lincoln, which was brought to Brooklyn and transformed by six Italian stone masons into the giant marble version. https://www.chesterwood.org/daniel-chester-french
 
Portrait of Daniel Chester French painted by Robert Vonnoh in 1913. For details visit: https://www.chesterwood.org/the-collection
 
“it’s art that makes the artist, it’s not the artist who makes art. The artist is a missionary, who accomplishes the mission of art in nature: Abraham Lincoln with the person who realized his monument”…

4. 2023-4 size 74 x 29 cm for a painting in the installation “Create to Free yourselves”..! at Chesterwood, Massachusetts, July-August 2023, Daniel Chester French’s studio, https://www.chesterwood.org/georges-adeagbo-create-to-free-yourselves
 
Image: source not yet identified newsclip. At first sight it seems a boy standing in front of an Abraham Lincoln Memorial. Yet the picture was neither taken at Chesterwood, the museum dedicated to Daniel Chester French, nor in DC. Also, the object on the base to the left of the boy was not identified. Further research needed.
 
“Running does not help, and would not help, you have to start in the right moment.”
 
Image: Georges Adéagbo had a Smithsonian artist’s research fellowship in 2022, and was given access to the collection in storage of the National Museum of American history. He copied vintage photographs and lithographs published of Lincoln and his family. This photo shows Lincoln with his son Thomas, nick-named “Tad”, who died at age 18. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tad_Lincoln
 
photo Adéagbo took in Frederick Maryland, of a brass plate marking the house where Lincoln stopped to visit the wounded General Heartsuff. -https://www.visitfrederick.org/blog/stories/post/famous-footsteps-in-frederick-abraham-lincoln/
 
“It is not enough to say, that Jesus scarified himself to save us, but it is enough to say, that Jesus sacrificed himself to open the path so that we could save ourselves through our own efforts”.

5. 2023-5 size 50 x 74 cm collage for a painting in the assemblage: “The revolution and the revolutions” 2016 Shanghai Biennale- 2023 Reina Sofia Madrid. When doing research in Madrid, Adéagbo was fascinated by the royal couple of Spain. https://www.museoreinasofia.es/en/exhibitions/machinations
 
“They are born and made to be kings. One did not know it, yet when being there, one came to see it and know it, the head, the head”..!
 
Images: clippings from local newspapers in Benin. Traditional kings and politicians. The precises sources could not be identified yet.
 
“The head: I need a head, and it it’s my head that I need, given that the head of another person cannot and could not go with my person”..!
 
Images: clippings from local papers in Benin, left three with captions naming the persons on the photos. Followed by a photo of the exhibition “Art du Benin” that took place 2022 in the presidential palace of Benin. 26 art works werebstolen 1895 in Dahomey by the French Army and restituted from Quaie Branley Paris and exhibited together with 32 contemporary artists’ work. https://www.expoartbenin.bj/
 
Followed by photos with captions of various kings of the Rep. of Benin.

6. 2024 – 1 size 75 x 51 cm collage for a painting in the assemblage “La manifestation du Surréalisme.” in the exhibition Radicale 1924 in La maison André Breton, Saint Cirque La Popie, Lot, France. https://www.radicale1924.org/introduction-english Oct. 2024.
 
https://www.cahorsvalleedulot.com/en/patrimoine/maison-andre-breton-centre-international-du-surrealisme-et-de-la-citoyennete-mondiale/
 
Images: The friends of André Breton visiting him in St. Cirq La Popie, André Breton at his desk in his house.
 
“Walking, walking, not knowing where I am heading, still walking, walking, I finally saw and knew where I am going: André from Britany, a britan in Saint Cirq La Popie”..!
 
Images: Young André Breton, left, André Breton looking for interesting stones.
 
“Art and art: Art is a way you choose to show the truth, to tell the truth to your fellow human beings, to your brother, to your sister, and remain their friend, without becoming their enemy”..!