Musée International du Golfe de Guinée, famous for its large collection of West-African art and modernist architecture, had been closed for a long time and nobody seemed to know what was going on. Rumours circulated of the collection being sold to the Chinese and nobody knew what would happen to it.
On Villa Karo’s trip to the Togolese capital Lomé few weeks ago, we stopped to knock at the door of this institution located along the beach boulevard. Unexpectedly we found ourselves admiring the objects, still waiting to find their places in the exhibition rooms.
The rumours were not all wrong: the collection of this museum has indeed been sold to the Chinese. The buyer is a Chinese art collector, working in the field for the last 25 years. He has widened the already vast collection significantly and renamed the museum: it will become Musée international d’art d’Afrique.
The museum will be opened for the public officially in March 2013, but we were happy to get the opportunity to visit the museum already. There are plentiful of new objects and preparations are still going on.
