In 1986 Gaba started his art career in the studio of the self-taught artist Zossou Gratien in Benin, after which he worked as an independent artist for ten years in the city of Cotonou. In 1996 he came to the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. During the Open Atelier Days of the Rijksakademie in 1997 he presented the Draft Room, the first room that initiated a project that he developed that year, called the 'Museum of Contemporary African Art' (MOCAA). Now his museum consists of 12 rooms, in the form of a series of installations, dealing with the relationship between art, money, power and politics. Other than in regular museums where visitors can only look, not touch, almost everything at the mocaa can be touched and even used. Gaba invites visitors to his museum as active participants. His rooms often feature money: shredded banknotes from Benin, Holland and Switzerland. For Gaba, money represents the skewed economic and cultural relations between the West and Africa in the world economy.

Meschac Gaba was resident artist at the Rijksakademie in 1996-1997.
He won the Will-Grohmann-Preis (DE) in 2002.

www.museumofcontemporaryafricanart.com