On May 17th, the Baku Museum of Modern Art hosted the launch of "Afrovision - Contemporary art from Africa" exhibition. 
The opening ceremony was attended by Azerbaijani first lady, president of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, Mehriban Aliyeva, and the Foundation`s vice-president, Leyla Aliyeva.
Speaking to the ceremony, Leyla Aliyeva said the exhibition featured samples of contemporary art by 11 African artists. She said some of them were already famous and established, while others were young and promising.
She said the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, which was promoting the Azerbaijani culture worldwide, had always showed big respect to other cultures.
"The Heydar Aliyev Foundation has always supported artists. We organized ‘Fly to Baku' exhibition in Paris and London, and gave the opportunity to 21 artists from Azerbaijan to show their works to the world."
"We haven`t finished this exhibition yet. We plan to conduct it in New York, Moscow and other cities and countries," Mrs. Aliyeva added.
She thanked Bernd Kleine-Gunkm a German collector, for his contribution to the exhibition.
"I want to thank doctor Bernd Kleine-Gunk as all works displayed here are from his personal collection."
Mrs. Aliyeva also thanked Romuald Hazoume, an artist from the Republic of Benin.
"I also want to thank Mr. Hazoume, who is a big sculptor and the author of one of the works here."
The vice-president of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation said the exhibition would give the opportunity to residents of Baku to discover African culture.
"And what is especially important is that this exhibition is taking place at a very exciting time because we are hosting the Eurovision song contest in a few days. I hope that through the eyes of artists Afrovision will give us the opportunity to discover a part of the world that we don`t know much about," Mrs. Aliyeva noted.
Bernd Kleine-Gunk said he had been collecting African art for a long time.
"To bring African art from a German doctor to the Azerbaijani museum is not an easy thing to do. So there is a lot of people that I have to thank."
"But I especially want to thank the first lady and her daughter, who made it possible that this exhibition came here."
"I think there is a lot Azerbaijan can be proud of, but having a first lady like this with this beauty, with this charm, with this intelligence, I think it is something exceptional. And these words can be said also of her daughter," he said.
The exhibition features 63 works by 11 artists from 7 African countries.

AzerTAc