Paul Kodjo
Born 1939 in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. Died 2021 in Abidjan, Ivory Coast.
Paul Kodjo is a key figure in the visual history of post-independence Ivory Coast. His career began in Abidjan in the early 1960s, before he moved to Paris in 1967 to study photography.
After completing his training, he worked as a photojournalist and opened his first photo studio in the city. In 1970, upon returning to Ivory Coast, he founded the MAMEDIS (Mass Media Service) agency at the intersection of photography, cinema and publishing, an agency whose core activity was the production of photo novels. At the same time, he undertook numerous commissioned works for bars and nightclubs, fashion designers and private clients. At the heart of the cultural dynamism driven by the youth of his time, his work offers a distinctive visual account of this period of social transformation.
Paul Kodjo: Photoromance is the first major solo exhibition of the Ivorian photographer in France. A central figure in the development of a post‑independence Ivorian visual culture, he was among the first African photographers to explore the photo novel, not only for its narrative potential but also for the new possibilities that cinematic language offered for the creation of still images.
Showing photographs from his photo novels as well as a broader body of work—much of it never before exhibited—this exhibition focuses on Kodjo’s production following his return to Abidjan in 1970, when he established the avant‑garde agency MAMEDIS (Mass Media Service), which offered services in photography, cinema and publishing. It was in this context that Kodjo produced his first photo novels,
which soon became the agency’s central activity. Published from 1971 onward in the weekly Ivoire Dimanche, these romantic comedies filled with twists—drawing on European, particularly Italian, photo novels—developed the aesthetic and narrative codes of a distinctly Ivorian visual sentimental education.
These forms durably shaped Ivorian audiovisual production, particularly during its golden age in the 2000s.
Shot in public spaces as well as domestic interiors, these photo novels also reflect the country’s social and economic transformations during the “Ivorian miracle,” a period of prosperity in the 1960s and 1970s that fostered cultural dynamism and enabled new forms of participation in global consumer culture. As a chronicler of this “Ivorian miracle,” Kodjo brought his artistic eye, cinematic framing and taste for narrative intrigue to his documentary work, immersing viewers in the festive nightlife of Abidjan, as well as in the fashions and urban social life of the time.
The body of work presented here has been preserved thanks to over fifteen years of work by the organization Les Rencontres du Sud, founded by Ivorian photographer Ananias Léki Dago.
A new phase in the preservation of Kodjo’s negatives began in 2025 with the support of the Modern Endangered Archives Program at UCLA.
Amandine Nana
Venue
Croisière
Curation
Amandine Nana
Exhibition co-produced by the Rencontres d’Arles and the Palais de Tokyo, Paris.
Tirages
Prints, Paris
Mounting
Atelier Image Collée, Montreuil
Framing
Circad, Paris
Practical Information
Festival dates: July 6 July – October 4, 2026
Opening Week: 6–12 July, 2026
All-exhibitions pass: €42 (reduced: €33)
www.rencontres-arles.com/en
