After being in London for the 1:54 art fair I rushed off to Paris for a couple of days to look at sinks and faucets for a little house that I am renovating in France. To my surprise I found out the exhibition at the Fondation Cartier, Beauté Congo- 1926-2015 that opened in July had been extended until January 2016. So here I was off to the boulevard Raspail and lined up with a refreshingly diverse queue of eager people of all ages and ethnicity.
I was in for a series of wonderful surprises, most of them on the lower floor of the exhibition. Curated by André Magnin the exhibition focused on two urban centers in Congo (DRC) at opposite ends of this huge land mass that is Congo: Kinshasa or Leopoldville which is West of Congo and Lubumbashi or Elizabethville miles away to the east and south near Congo’s border with Zambia. That was left a bit unclear, as there was a dearth of maps.
One was led to believe that there were particular styles that dominated each period in each location. I tended to be cautious and resisted this inevitably reductive and subjective narrative but I appreciated very much discovering the rich artistic production of earlier decades of the 20th century and the sense of artistic continuity over the last century.
The early works located at the lower level were the jewels of the exhibition in my view.
The earliest works were the watercolors made by local artisans in the Katanga region, Albert and Antoinette Lubaki and Djilatendo who once given paper and watercolors produced these delicate and beautiful watercolors.
In that same region of Katanga but in Elizabethville (today Lubumbashi) in1946 a school of indigenous art was founded by a French painter Pierre Roman-Desfosses. He encouraged the artists to not imitate European art but instead let their imagination run free and turn to their own world for inspiration. I was struck by the delicacy of the work, a tendency to create patterns by repeating motifs inspired by the natural fauna.
Pilipi Mulongoy
In the 1950’s coming from Angola Jean Depara photographs Leopoldville’s (today Kinshasa) nightlife.
In the 1970’s art is flourishing:
Bodys Isek Kingelez who is quite aware of the chaotic nature of the rapid urbanization that is taking place creates utopian African cities out of cardboard and plastic.
In painting Moke is one of the first generation of painters who worked in a popular style in the streets. Moke captured street scenes and nightlife.
Inspired by daily life, politics and social issues a particular style developed that is characterized by bold and flat color, a cartoon like simplicity of form and use of text.
Cheri Samba.
Cheri Cherin
A younger generation comes out of this school of painting and continues this critical approach and finds formal inspiration in the photographic work from Bamako with its emphasis on decorative patterns.
This narrative brings us to the 21st century with the works from artists belonging to the collective Eza Possibles in Kinshasa, and Kiripi Katembo and Sammy Balojy.
Kiripi Katembo photographs a Kinshasa reflected in the water puddles; the order of things can no longer be apprehended. The viewer is forced to let go of making sense of what is shown and is left with a profoundly poetic and moving image. I met him actually a few years ago at Bamako and many of us liked his work. Sadly he just passed away.
Additional reviews provide further useful background.
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