Art Basel’s Meet the artists series presents contemporary creatives shaping today’s cultural landscape

Drawing on  the magic and histories he finds in everyday objects, French-Malian artist Ladji Diaby creates works that tell stories at once personal and collective. A graduate of Beaux-Arts de Paris, the young artist has been gaining momentum since 2024, when he staged his first institutional solo exhibition at Kunstverein Nürnberg in Germany. Last year, he presented ‘Who’s Gonna Save the World ?’  at Lafayette Anticipations in Paris, marking his arrival on the international scene.

Diaby opens the doors of his studio in Ivry-sur-Seine, in the Paris suburbs, where he grew up and still lives, and shares his artistic process. ‘As an artist, I see my gestures as tilling a soil made of memory. I imagine my mind as land that I cultivate, where things gradually rise to the surface.’

At the Caverne des Particuliers, a local secondhand furniture store where he once accompanied his mother on her shopping sprees, the abundance of materials and their spiritual resonance continue to inspire him. ‘Constraints become choices, and you build an entire narrative around them: a political and artistic dialectic,’ he says.

Ladji Diaby is represented by Crèvecoeur (Paris). His exhibition ‘Godspeed You Black Emperor’ is on view at Crèvecoeur until November 28, 2026. 

Meet the artists | Ladji Diaby was produced in collaboration with Nowness.