« Bët-bi » Museum means eye in Wolof and will be built on a site in the Senegambia region of West Africa, where old stone monuments are part of four UNESCO World Heritage destinations. This space will be a new museum and cultural venue in Senegal being created by the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation and Le Korsa.
Built on a beautiful complex of elevated buildings with exhibition spaces, meeting places, a library, a bistro, and an area for artists to display and sell their work, « Bët-bi » Museum will be an organization where everyone can celebrate and encounter the unparalleled wonders of visual art.
Its central objective is to bring art to an audience that may never have approached galleries, as well as to a global audience, and to unite people through the artistic creativity of the continent. The space will be located in a place where old stone monuments, until recently little known to the general public, bear witness to the richness of the region’s creative practices.
It will showcase conventional and contemporary African art, diaspora art, as well as works from the Harlem Renaissance, and works from many different societies that demonstrate the comprehensiveness and immortality of different visual themes, from works by Anni and Josef Albers, to African materials, to American blankets, to Mesoamerican items, to Native American beads.
It will help rejuvenate the region’s economy, giving benefits all around shown other new social organizations in areas neglected by the travel industry.
« Bët-bi » Museum will be carried out with respect for local practices and with an acute awareness of ecological impact, for a generally minimal price, in keeping with the Albers‘ motto : “insignificant means for extreme impact“.