LA MATERIA DEI SOGNI. Radici dell’arte africana contemporanea

Buy the Ticket for the exhibition LA MATERIA DEI SOGNI. Radici dell’arte africana contemporanea at Museo Santa Caterina.

From 3 September 2026 to 15 January 2027, Santa Caterina Museum hosts an exhibition exploring the roots of contemporary African art, bringing together more than 120 works by 23 artists from 10 countries across sub-Saharan Africa.

“The Matter of Dreams” is the central theme of the exhibition at Santa Caterina Museum in Treviso, exploring the roots of contemporary African art. Through more than 120 works by 23 artists from ten countries across sub-Saharan Africa, the exhibition traces the origins of one of the most distinctive chapters in international contemporary art.

Treviso is preparing to host an exhibition set to become a major highlight of Italy’s upcoming exhibition season. Santa Caterina Museum will present “The Matter of Dreams. Roots of Contemporary African Art”, an exhibition offering a historical overview of the origins of contemporary African art.

Curated by Enrico Mascelloni, one of the European pioneers in the study of contemporary African art, the exhibition is the result of more than forty years of research. It brings together works created mainly between the 1970s and 1990s, a period when a new artistic era was taking shape in Africa, destined to establish itself on the international scene.

«This exhibition documents a cultural autonomy that needs no external validation,” says Enrico Mascelloni, curator of the exhibition. “We present artists who have learned to inhabit the ‘non-border’, transforming everyday life and ritual into a matter of dreams that still speaks to us today with undiminished power.»

The exhibition brings together paintings, sculptures, photographs and installations from major Italian and international private collections. Many of the works on display are regarded as among the most significant works by their respective artists and document a decisive period in the development of an autonomous artistic language.

The exhibition features works by Esther Mahlangu, Georges Lilanga, Seyni Awa Camara, Eloi Lokossou, Almighty God, Dago, Cyprien Tokoudagba, Twins Seven Seven, Sunday Jack Akpan, Paa Joe, Reinate Sadimba, Davide Ochieng, Richard Onyango Cheff Mwaii, Tchif, Peter Wanjau, Ismaïla Manga, Thérèse Mendy, Titta MBaye, Papisto Boy, Salla Cassett, Amébéde Moule and John Goba, key figures in a creative period that gradually gained recognition from critics and major international museum institutions. Some of these artists took part in the historic exhibition Magiciens de la Terre, held at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris in 1989.