Single-Faced / Rhino Mask, 2018-2019
Hervé Youmbi (b. 1973) produced in the workshop of Alassane Mfouapon (carver), Frederic Feudjeueck (coiffure), and Marie Kouam (beader)
Western Grassfields region, Cameroon
Wood, glass beads, cowrie shell, human hair, cloth
Courtesy Axis Gallery and the Artist
This mask emerged through a collaboration with the German visual artist and environmental activist Christophe Both-Asmus. He requested Youmbi conceive a mask for him to perform in the African equatorial forest, as part of his project The Treewalker. Youmbi produced a Rhino Mask for him/this purpose, and afterwards decided to make a variation of it for his Visages de masques series. After an initial 2016 exhibition at Doual’art Contemporary Art Center, Douala, Cameroon, Single-Faced / Rhino Mask was first ritually activated and performed by Désiré Chouopi at a Ku’ngang Society initiation ceremony on January 18, 2018 at Balassié-Bandja Village in Upper Nkam, which Youmbi filmed and photographed. Single-Faced / Rhino Mask was also ritually danced in Cameroon on February 26, 2018 and February 10, 2019, before being exhibited in Youmbi’s solo exhibition, Masks on the Move at Chaufferie Gallery, Haute École des Arts du Rhin (HEAR), Strasbourg, France. Thereafter, the mask returned to western Cameroon, where it featured in another important Ku’ngang Society event in Fondanti on February 15, 2020 for the funeral of the father of King Fo Gabriel Ndjiemeni. Subsequently, the artist traveled with the mask to Germany, and then shipped it to CRAC 19, Montbéliard, France to feature in the exhibition, “Se souvenir du présent, Espirits de l’assamblage, from September 29, 2021 to January 16, 2022. The installation was then shipped to Axis Gallery in New Jersey, USA, prior to being shown in Reimagining the People’s Collection, North Carolina Museum of Art, September 2022 to July 2023. In 2025 it was transported from Axis Gallery to the New Orleans Museum of Art for exhibition in New African Masquerades: Artistic Innovations and Collaborations.
Tso Scream Mask, 2015-2023
Hervé Youmbi (b. 1973) produced in the workshop of Alassane Mfouapon (carver), Kingsley Ngwa (robe), and Nadine Chewo and Marie Kouam (beaders)
Western Grassfield region, Cameroon
Wood, glass beads, velvet, wool, cloth
New Orleans Museum of Art, Museum purchase, Robert P. Gordy Fund, 2023.38.1-.7
Dedicated to the Nka’a Kossié society in west Cameroon, this hybrid mask was inspired by the “Ghostface” mask that featured in the 1996 horror film Scream, directed by Wes Craven. Realized in collaboration with craftsmen during Youmbi’s creative residency for his project Visages de masques at Bandjoun Station in Cameroon, this mask was featured in his related solo exhibition at Bandjoun Station Museum in 2015. The following year it featured in his 2016 solo exhibition Visages de Masques, at Doual’art, Douala, Cameroon. In October 2017, the work traveled to the United States to feature in Axis Gallery’s twentieth anniversary exhibition, Unmasked, in Chelsea, New York City. In January 2022, the mask was shipped back to Hervé Youmbi’s studio in Douala for him to prepare the mask for its first ritual ceremony. Youmbi commissioned a ceremonial robe and horsetail switch to accompany the mask to be activated for ceremonial events in the Nka’a Kossié Society.
Tso Scream Mask was authorized by the elders of the Nka’a Kossié Society, and ritually empowered and performed by Joseph Tcheudji on Saturday, December 3, 2022. This event, which Hervé Youmbi filmed and photographed, was the funeral for Papa Foyang and the installation of his son, Latta Christophe, as his successor. On February 2, 2023 the work was transported by the artist from Douala to Axis Gallery in New Jersey where it was loaned to the North Carolina Museum from April 4-August 7, 2023, after which it was transported to the New Orleans Museum of Art for acquisition and inclusion in the traveling exhibition New African Masquerades: Artistic Innovations and Collaborations.
Predator Ku’ngang Mask, 2022
Hervé Youmbi (b. 1973) produced in the workshop of Alassane Mfouapon (carver), Frederic Feudjeueck and David Kegne (coiffure), and Marie Kouam (beader)
Western Grassfields region, Cameroon
Wood, glass beads, cowrie shell, human hair, pigment, cloth
Courtesy Axis Gallery and the Artist
Dedicated to the Ku’ngang society in west Cameroon, this hybrid mask was inspired by the predator mask from the popular 2018 sci-fi film The Predator, directed and co-written by Shane Black and Fred Dekker. Predator Ku’ngang Mask was ritually activated and performed by David Ngueliatou at a Ku’ngang Society initiation ceremony on April 7, 2022 at Bakoven Meka, a village affiliated with the Banka chieftaincy in Bafang, west Cameroon, and filmed by Hervé Youmbi. The mask appeared in another Ku’ngang Society ceremony on May 28, 2022 in Demven village in Banja, performed by Hervé Yamguen, and on November 19, 2022 at a burial ceremony in Balassie village for Queen Kameni Jaqueline. On February 2, 2023, Hervé Youmbi transported the mask from Douala to the United States to Axis Gallery’s storage until the New Orleans Museum of Art was ready to receive it for the traveling exhibition New African Masquerades: Artistic Innovations and Collaborations.