Contemporary art: disappearance of the founder of Afronova, Henri Vergon

Text by: Sabine Cessou Follow | Sabine Cessou Follow

The French gallery owner Henri Vergon, founder of the Afronova gallery in Johannesburg, died on May 15 at the age of 51 from a heart attack. He leaves a work of construction around a contemporary African art of which he was a fervent promoter.

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The South African art critic Sean O'Toole is the first to have taken up his pen to pay a vibrant tribute to Henri Vergon, a key figure in artistic Johannesburg. Tracing the journey of this Frenchman who became South African at heart, to the point of calling himself Henri "Nkosi" Vergon - a common South African first name - he quotes an interview that the young gallery owner had given in 2006 about his country of adoption. " I was born again here. I became a new man. Everyone I met was completely open. All had been fragmented by recent history. They wondered: where did they come from, what had their fathers done? They were trying to make sense and take a place in the future, by building a new world. I threw away all of my old shells and jumped forward into the same pool  . ”

A gallery in Newtown

Born in Brussels in 1968, Henri Vergon had a French passport, but he was a citizen of the world. Long before falling in love with his wife in the early 2000s in Japan, he settled in 1995 in Johannesburg, after a trip to New York, in the midst of post-apartheid euphoria. He quit his job at the French Institute in Johannesburg in 2005 to launch his gallery, Afronova, in the cultural district of Newtown . “  People said to him, ' You are crazy! The rich do not go to Newtown, it is a cut-throat ', remembers Emilie Démon, his wife and Franco-Japanese partner.

At the time, the explosion of contemporary African art on the international scene was still in its infancy. The market revolved around two or three historic and upscale galleries in South Africa, which were no longer suitable for contemporary creation. Henri Vergon is part of a revival carried by several other galleries born at the same time, like Momo in Johannesburg.

Its window was strategically located opposite the Market Theater, one of the largest cultural institutions in the country. Henri Vergon quickly established his notoriety with flair, enthusiasm, and a foolproof loyalty to artists. He did not only show for the first time in Africa - outside Mali - the great photographer Malick Sidibé, in collaboration with the French art dealer André Magnin. He also discovered one of the most highly rated artists on the South African market, Billie Zangewa.

A philosophy of celebration and inclusion

Forced to close his gallery due to the renovation work undertaken in Newtown, Henri Vergon moved it in the late 2000s to the - formerly administrative - district of Braamfontein, just outside the city center. At the beginning, Afronova represented a flagship address in the area, which wasted no time in "gentrifying" with real estate developments. "  In 2014, we were no longer interested in seeing people pass by with their organic beers," says Emilie Démon. We thought we were going to inject the money from the gallery's rent into the artists, to travel with them and accompany them differently  ”.

Instead of waiting in Johannesburg for museum directors and curators of English and American exhibitions, Henri Vergon invested to go with the artists to meet them. The gallery thus became “virtual” before the hour, its boss nevertheless continuing its epic celebrations. He has long organized very popular artists' dinners, every Friday evening at the legendary Gramadoelas restaurant, a Mecca for South African cuisine nestled at the entrance of the Market Theater.

In his blue-roofed villa in Parkhurst, a bohemian neighborhood in the residential suburb of Johannesburg, Henri Vergon continued his anthology parties, where he welcomed artists from all walks of life, including those from other galleries.

Artists whose ratings have continued to climb

This jovial and generous man, who liked to read the newspaper while having coffee in the morning, "  a little old-fashion in his manners gentleman  ", says his wife, has enormously counted in the career of young female artists like Lebohang Kganye and Senzeni Marasela, but also of Lawrence Leaomana. This artist born in 1982 in Johannesburg is known today for his highly political embroidered canvases. They carry messages such as: "  I did not join the struggle to be poor  " (I did not join the struggle against apartheid to be poor), or "  Idiots multiply when wise men remain silent  "

“  When we started working with Lawrence, he was convinced that he was a has-been, says Emilie Démon . At the 1-54 fair in London, he made a box that allowed him to pay his lobola (dowry) and to get married  ”. His paintings, which sold for around 4,000 euros in 2016, are now priced at 9,000 euros. The Louis Vuitton Foundation bought seven at once.

The influence of Henri Vergon went beyond the framework of his own gallery, since he was happy to show “his” Johannesburg to all curators, museum directors and cultural foreigners passing through. His vision open to the world, a fine connoisseur of the political issues that are those of African art, notably left a deep imprint on the exhibition "Being There" devoted in 2017 to contemporary African art by the Louis Vuitton Foundation , in Paris. “  Its specificity is that it wanted to make Johannesburg and the artists shine, without partitioning and being content with those of Afronova. It's so rare that people like it  . ” Emilie Démon takes up the torch at the head of Afronova and will bring to life the passion of Henri Vergon.

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