The Franco-Beninese Marie-Cécile Zinsou was appointed on October 28, 2021 president of the board of directors of the Villa Medici in Rome. At the origin of the Zinsou Foundation in Benin, a foundation dedicated to the promotion of contemporary art in Africa, she has become a key figure in the art world on the continent where her fight for the restitution by France of the 26 royal treasures of Abomey “carried away” of Benin in 1892 did not go unnoticed.
#Restitution : at the Museum of @quai Branly, a beautiful presentation of the 26 Dahomean works intended to be distributed in Benin in mid-November. To see until Sunday pic.twitter.com/7dxWZ1YE9l
– Marie-Cécile Zinsou (@McZinsou) October 27, 2021
Born in 1982, trained in art history in France and England, in 2003 she taught art history in Benin, at the SOS Hermann Gmeiner secondary school of crafts, in Abomey Calavi, specifies the press release from the French Ministry of Culture announcing his appointment. Two years later, she launched the Zinsou Foundation in Cotonou, the capital of Benin. For her work at the head of this cultural institution that she chairs and of which she is artistic director, she received the Praemium Imperiale – Grant for young artist in 2014 in Japan. A year earlier, in 2013, she opened the Museum of Contemporary Art in Ouidah, still in Benin, and as such joined the Global Museum Leader Colloquium of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Marie-Cécile Zinsou is an Officer in the Order of Arts and Letters.
In her new position, the Franco-Béninoise succeeds Thierry Tuot, who served three three-year terms, from 2011 to 2020. The director of the Villa Medicis, Sam Stourdzé, from the world of photography and cinema, is in position since September 2020. Created in 1666, the Medici villa offers a privileged setting for artists, writers and researchers in residence, and is a cultural place of exhibitions, festivals, concerts or conferences.
Marie-Cecile Zinsou is the daughter of Lionel Zinsou, Franco-Beninese economist and investment banker, former manager of the investment fund PAI Partners, then Prime Minister of Benin from June 2015 to April 2016. Since 2015, the young woman has sat on the board of administration of the Palace of Versailles and since 2019 on the board of directors of the Institut des cultures d’islam. She also chairs the board of directors of Maison Maria-Casarès, a cultural and theatrical center in a municipality of Charente.