Showcasing Congolese

.... INTERNATIONAL NEW YORK TIMES TUESDAY,JULY28, 2015 | 7 Culture art music ANDRÉ MORIN REVUE NOIRE Works from the Fondation Cartier show, clockwise from above: an untitled photo by Jean Depara; ‘‘Sooner or Later the World Will Change,’’ a 2014 painting by Monsengo Shula; an untitled water- color from 1929 by FABRICE GOUSSET/CORNETTE DE SAINT CYR, PARIS Albert Lubaki; an untitled 1974 painting by Moke of the Ali-Foreman ‘‘Rumble in the Jungle’’ boxing Showcasing bout in Kinshasa. Congolese art PARIS the broader public exceptional works the worksinthe exhibition shyfromdi- from acontinent wherethe television rect political confrontation. Mr.Samba, only presents dark, disastrous images one of Congo’s best-known artists, veers In Paris, ‘Beauté Congo’ of war and illness,’’ he added. into the political with a work depicting a features 90 years of work Mr. Magnin said the survey was inten- FLORIAN KLEINEFEN child soldier with the words, ‘‘I am for ded as a‘‘political and historical’’ ges- peace, that is why I like weapons.’’ rarely seen outside Africa ture that sought to disprove the common space at the foundation, which is housed In the 1950s, the photographer Jean artists,’’ Mr.Bandoma said at the exhi- ‘‘Beauté Congo’’ has received posi- misconception that art in Africahad in a glass box designed by Jean Nouvel. Depara, born in 1928, captured a mo- bition opening. ‘‘I define myself as an tive reviews in France since it opened BY RACHEL DONADIO skipped several generations from the In the late 1920s and early 1930s, work ment in Léopoldville, where rumba was artist, not an African artist.’’ on July 11, but therehas also been some traditional worksof the past to those by the Lubakis wasshown in important allthe rage and ladies of the night wore Today, Moke’s cousin Monsengo Shula, criticism. Pascale Obolo, a filmmaker The art practically leaps off the walls. A made after many African countries be- museums and galleries in Europe. cocktail dresses. His images, in rich sil- 55, a self-described autodidact, worksin and the editor of Afrikadaa, a cultural striking painting of President Obama, came independent of their European Djilatendo wasrepresented in an exhi- ver gelatin prints, recall those by the the popular vein, but with an ‘‘Afrofutur- journal, found fault with the ‘‘very neo- Nelson Mandela and Patrice Lumumba, colonizers. (Belgian colonial rule in bition in Brussels along with Magritte. Malian photographersSeydou Keïta ist’’ twist. The exhibition features his colonial and paternalistic’’ attitude of the Congolese leader who was assassin- Congo ended in 1960.) Although much of But after 1935 and a fight between curat- and Malick Sidibé, but unlike Mali, 2014 painting ‘‘Sooner or Later the World Mr. Magnin and other European curat- ated in 1961. Luscious black-and-white this show is dedicated to contemporary ors, they stopped producing and were Congo isn’t a Muslim country, and its Will Change,’’ depicting African astro- ors who bring African art into European photographs of 1950snight life in Léo- artists like Chéri Samba, who painted eventually lost to history. Mr. Magnin night life is racier. nauts in outer space, with an African museums. ‘‘We’re in a world of global- poldville, nowKinshasa. Whimsical wa- the image of world leaders, the earliest said he went in search of their work Various worksin the show arededic- statue at the center of their satellite. ization,’’ she said. ‘‘We don’t need tercolors from the 1930s. workshere have rarely been shown in after learning about it in abook he ated to the ‘‘Rumble in the Jungle,’’ the Also on view are colorful futuristic France or Belgium in order to show art These are among 350 works by 41 such numbers, and the exhibition makes stumbled upon in 1989 in Zaire, as the politically charged 1974boxing match in cityscape sculptures, architectural from Africa.’’ artists in ‘‘Beauté Congo,’’ an electric, a strong case for the continuity of rich country was then called. (It is nowthe Kinshasa in which Muhammad Ali de- models gone wild, by the artist Bodys Some questioned why the only wom- eye-opening survey of art from Congo artistic production over the last century. Democratic Republic of Congo.) Isek Kingelez, (‘‘Phantom City,’’ 1996) an included in the exhibition wasAnt- from 1926 to 2015 at the Cartier Founda- ‘‘Beauté Congo,’’ which runs through ‘‘Beauté Congo’’ also showcases the The exhibition offers a window and Rigobert Nimi (‘‘TheCity of Stars,’’ oinette Lubaki, from the 1930s, and why, tion here that offers a window into a dy- Nov. 15, begins in the 1920s, when the artists who participated between 1946 into a dynamic art scene. 2006), who uses found material and for instance, the show did not include namic art scene not often showcased in husband-and-wife painters Albert and and 1954 in an academy ‘‘for popular in- castoff electronics. Born in 1965, Mr. the prizewinning artist Michèle Western museums. Antoinette Lubaki and the artist known digenous art,’’ as the catalog puts it, Nimi lives in Kinshasa without electric- Magema, who was born in Congo in 1977 ‘‘We wanted to create a narrative that as Djilatendo moved from decorating started by a former French Navy officer feated George Foreman, amoment of ity, Mr.Magnin said. At the show’s and has been exhibited widely in reintroduces these exceptional artists traditional huts to creating works on pa- and artist, Pierre Romain-Desfossés. black pride in a newly liberated country. opening, Mr.Nimi and other artists in Europe. ‘‘I’m surethey exist,’’ Mr. into the history of art,’’ said André per at the request of aBelgian colonial They include vibrant, naturalistic un- These include photos and a colorful 1974 the showspoke of the challenges they Magnin said of female artists in Congo. Magnin, a boisterous Frenchman who administrator. The Lubakis’ watercolors, derwater scenes of fish and of birds in painting by Moke, who worked in the face. ‘‘For an artist to become a ‘‘Unfortunately, I haven’t met them.’’ curated the show. He has traveled to often of animals or leaves, fallsome- trees from the 1950s by the artist known popular style and died in 2001. Steve celebrity, he has to go to Europe,’’ Mr. Others questioned the possible com- Congo for decades, cultivating relation- wherebetween realism and fantasy, as Bela, who worked as a night guard for Bandoma, born in 1981, revisits the Nimi said. mercial implications of the show, since ships with some of the artists featured while Djilatendo’s geometric patterns Romain-Desfossés before taking up match in his 2014 ‘‘Cassius Clay’’ series, Congo’s current government has Mr. Magnin acquired work by some of as well as buying work on behalf of a hover between traditionalism and mod- painting,which he did with his finger- done in papier collé with ink. ‘‘I try to go come under fire by human rights groups the artists featured herein building up major collector. ‘‘We wanted to show ernism. The show fills all of the exhibition tips, without a brush. against the stereotypes of African for its repression of dissent, and most of CONGO, PAGE 8 Cheers, but small impact, for revisionist ‘Tristan’ BAYREUTH, GERMANY famous love potion rather than drink- With anonymously contemporary dé- Despite the production’s stage-filling ing it, taking radical responsibility for cor (by Frank Philipp Schlössmann and sets, the overall impact on Saturday BY ZACHARY WOOLFE their actions. Matthias Lippert) and timeless cos- was modest. It makes few ideological The second act is not the lovers’se- tumes (by Thomas Kaiser) that are si- claims but also, more problematic, few It’s the season of re-evaluating well- cluded summer idyll but a fleeting union multaneously medieval and futuristic, emotional ones. Despite the terrors im- loved characters we thought we knew. in a dystopian prison yard into which this ‘‘Tristan’’ is cleaner than ‘‘Die plied by its settings, its mood is never First Atticus Finch, a saintly warrior for Marke’s thugs have thrown them to be Meistersinger,’’ its divergences from persuasively disconcerting or persuas- racial justice in Harper Lee’s‘‘To Kill a watched over by guards and pursued by the original text carefully considered. ively much of anything. It is fluent and MocKingbird,’’ was revealed as a patron- harsh floodlights. This is a post-Stasi, No, there is not the ‘‘tentlike cabin’’ that sensible, but that may not be enough izing bigot in Ms. Lee’s newly published post-Snowden ‘‘Tristan,’’ or perhaps it the libretto gives Isolde aboard Tristan’s when approaching one of the most dis- shows that the composer anticipated ship, but that tent does find its way into orienting works in operatic history. OPERA REVIEW what we have tended to consider a re- Ms. Wagner’s second act, when the lov- One of the production’s greatest cent phenomenon: the death of privacy ers cobble together a makeshift shelter strengths may be a weakness: Christi- companion novel, ‘‘Go Set a Watchman.’’ —even, in this production, in death. an Thielemann’s conducting was per- Now the revisionists have come for Ms. Wagner has made the opera a ver- The new production makes haps too subtly colored, too easily flow- King Marke. In a new production of itable taxonomy of gloomy nightmares. few ideological claims, but ing, too effortlessly responsive for its Wagner’s ‘‘Tristan und Isolde’’ that The first act, set aboard Tristan’s ship, is own good. opened the Bayreuth Festival on Satur- a labyrinth of shadowy staircases to also, more problematic, few Mr. Thielemann’s approach to Wagn- day, the thoughtful, melancholy king of nowhere, a combination of M.C. Escher emotional ones. er has unique naturalness. In the first the opera’s libretto, saddened by and Piranesi.

Load more