Malagasy billionaire Hassanein Hiridjee's Fondation H to close Paris art space in September

Fondation H, the contemporary art foundation created by Franco-Malagasy business magnate Hassanein Hiridjee, will close its exhibition space in Paris in September to concentrate exclusively on the African continent, the foundation confirmed to Billionaires.Africa.

The decision ends a five-year presence in the French capital and marks a strategic pivot rather than a retreat. Instead of dividing resources between France and Madagascar, the foundation will channel its support for artists from Africa and its diasporas through its 2,200 square metre headquarters in Antananarivo.

The closure affects the space in the Marais district that opened in September 2020, the foundation's first venue outside Madagascar. The Antananarivo building, which houses expansive exhibition halls, a library and studios, is unaffected and will become the sole base for the foundation's residencies, grants, local productions and international curation.

A five-year run in the Marais

The Paris site operated through a partnership with the Cité internationale des arts, where Fondation H rented a studio apartment for artist residencies alongside an adjoining exhibition space in the fourth arrondissement, close to the city's gallery district. It gave artists from Madagascar and the wider Indian Ocean region a foothold in one of the world's principal art markets.

The venue opened on September 3, 2020, with a solo exhibition by the Madagascar-born, Paris-based painter Malala Andrialavidrazana, whom Hiridjee described at the time as the godmother of the space. Her large photomontages, reworking maps, banknotes and symbols of precolonial and contemporary African culture, set the tone for a programme built around artists from Africa and its diasporas.

At the opening Hiridjee said he wanted the venue to bring the French and international public closer to contemporary African creation and to build new bridges and opportunities. The space continued exhibiting into this year, presenting a research residency project by the artist Priscilla Kennedy from late March.

Consolidating in Antananarivo

Hiridjee established Fondation H in Antananarivo in 2017, and Madagascar recognised it as a public utility the following year. It runs its programmes free of charge, among them the Prix Paritana for emerging Malagasy artists, residencies in Antananarivo and Paris, the Hay creative workshops for children aged 6 to 14, and the Ainga training courses for working artists.

The foundation had signalled its ambitions beyond Madagascar early, staging an exhibition on Malagasy art at the Musée du Quai Branly Jacques Chirac in Paris in 2018. It has argued that Madagascar has few dedicated art spaces and little formal training for young artists, and has positioned itself to fill that gap and help structure the art scene across the Indian Ocean.

Its Antananarivo building runs on solar power and holds a permanent collection focused on artists from the region, alongside a café and exhibition halls that host locally and internationally curated shows. Concentrating activity there aligns the foundation's operations with the continental focus that has defined its mission from the start.

The businessman behind it

Hiridjee, born in Antananarivo in 1975, is chief executive of the Axian Group, a pan-African conglomerate active in telecommunications, energy, real estate and financial services. He comes from a Khoja family, known locally as Karane, that settled in Madagascar, and graduated from the Lycée Français de Tananarive before studying at ESCP Business School in Paris.

He joined the family business, then called Hirimix, in 1997 after several years in the financial sector in France. The company was renamed Axian in December 2015. Its expansion beyond Madagascar began in the Indian Ocean and spread across the continent, including the takeover of Tigo's operations in Tanzania, entry into the capital of Togocom in Togo, and a partnership in Senegal. Axian Telecom is now among the larger telecommunications operators in francophone Africa, and the group holds interests spanning mobile money, renewable power and property.

Hiridjee has built his art patronage around the same regional focus that shaped Axian's growth, concentrating on Madagascar and the Indian Ocean rather than the more established art centres of the continent. The Paris space was the outward-facing part of that project, and its closure draws the foundation's footprint back toward its base and toward the continent it was created to serve.