#  Simon Njami 

 

 



   ![Simon Njami](/sites/g/files/omnuum10831/files/styles/hwp_4_5__320x400/public/2025-11/IMG_9254.JPG?itok=sEg6ME9H) 

 



 





 

Simon Njami is a Paris-based independent curator, lecturer, art critic and novelist. Njami was the co-founder and editor-in-chief of *Revue Noire*, a journal of contemporary African and extra-occidental art. He served as artistic director of the first Johannesburg art fair in 2008, the Bamako photography biennale for ten years, and the Dak’Art Biennale (2016/2018). He co-curated the first African pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007. Njami was curator of the 2020 Abu Dhabi art fair and co-curator of the Sao Paulo Biennale 2002. He is member of the jury of MAST photography awards in Bologna.

Njami has curated numerous exhibitions of contemporary art and photography, including *Africa Remix* (2004/2007) and the first African Art Fair, held in Johannesburg in 2008. *The Divine Comedy* (2014), at the MMK (Museum fur Moderne Kunst) in Frankfurt, SCAD, Savannah (2014) and The Smithsonian in Washington DC (2015). *Xenopolis* (Berlin 2015), *After Eden, The Artur Walther Collection*, (Maison Rouge, Paris, 2015), *Afriques Capitales* (Paris, Lille 2017), *Metropolis*(Maxxi, Rome, 2018), *I is another* (Galleria Nazionale, Rome 2018), *Aujourd’hui* (National Museum of Cameroon, 2019), *The Studio* (Kampala Biennale 2019) *This space between us* (Centro Atlantico de Arte Moderno, Las Palmas 2020), *Materia Prima* (San Gimignano, 2021), *A collective Diary* (Tunis 2022), *Charades* (Marrakech 2022). Njami is the chief-curator of the international annual exhibition *Something* *Else*, at the Salah Adin Citadel in Cairo (2023). He curated Awakenings Abu Dhabi Louvres (2024) *Il* *Sole Nero,* Naples (2025), Maschere Naples (2025)

Njami studied literature, law, and philosophy at the Sorbonne University in Paris.



 

 

 



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