WORD! WORD? WORD! Issa Samb and the Undecipherable Form is a comprehensive monograph on the work of seminal artist Issa Samb, aka Joe Ouakam. The monograph collects, for the first time within a single publication, emblematic works made by the artist over the past twenty-five years. These include paintings, drawings, sculptures, assemblages and installations as well as essays, plays, sketches, notes and poems. The publication contains critical essays by independent curator and novelist Simon Njami and art historian Sylvette Maurin, as well as a conversation between the artist and the publication’s editor Koyo Kouoh, to cover a span of five decades of artistic practice and engagement.
The anthology WORD! WORD? WORD! Issa Samb and the Undecipherable Form also aims to bring to light Issa Samb’s work as an author and to make available to an English-language context a collection of his writings, which constitute a central part of his overall production. Poto-Poto Blues: A Collection of Poems and The Locusts: A Play, among many other texts, are translated into English for the first time, appearing alongside a selection of previously unpublished manuscripts.
The anthology follows 'WORD! WORD? WORD! Issa Samb and the Undecipherable Form', the first solo exhibition in Europe by Issa Samb, organised and presented at OCA from 4 May to 23 June 2013 and on view at Raw Material Company in Dakar from 29 October 2013 to 4 January 2014.
The book is made possible by O3-funds as designated to OCA by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
