CONGO AS FICTION – Art Worlds Between Past and Present 22 November 2019 – 15 March 2020

Media release | Zurich, November 2019 CONGO AS FICTION – Art Worlds Between Past and Present 22 November 2019 – 15 March 2020 Today, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is world famous for its vibrant art scene. No- where else in Africa is artistic creativity so diverse, inventive, and at the pulse of time. How- ever, in the past, too, the Congo produced impressive masks, figures, and designer pieces, many of them today icons of African art. Now, for the first time, historical works and photographs are juxtaposed with contemporary artworks in an exhibition on the art of the Congo. In an attempt to avoid a biased Western view of Congolese art, CONGO AS FICTION shifts renowned contemporary artists from the Congo into the limelight, including Sammy Baloji, Michèle Magema, Monsengo Shula, and Sinzo Aanza. The exhibition shows how artists – past as well as present – critically deal with the impacts of colonialism, missionaries, and global trade. Ever since the age of discovery, through the era of colonial repression up to the present, the Congo has served as a projection screen for Western as well as African ideas and fictions. Significant hallmarks of Congolese art and history include, from early on, the close entanglement and creative exchange of ideas, forms, and objects in a globalized world. At the same time, the art of the region bears the traces of colonialism, religious conversion, and the exploitation of natural resources. These transcultural and postcolonial issues are not only of significance for understanding the past, but also massively impact on the shaping of the present. This is one of the reasons why the historical perspective is set side by side with contemporary artistic positions from the Congo itself as well as from the Congolese diaspora. The exhibition embarks from objects and photographs which the art anthropologist Hans Himmelheber (1908–2003) brought back from his travels to the Congo in 1938/39 and which are now presented to the public, some of them for the first time. The colourful masks, power figures, and artfully designed objects of daily use bear testimony to the aesthetics and significance of artistic creativity in those days. His photographic legacy represents a unique snapshot of the aesthetic and cultural practice common to the Congo of the 1930s while, at the same time, documenting the social upheaval experienced during the apogee of Belgian colonial rule. But Hans Himmelheber’s visual and written archives, since recently held by the Museum Rietberg, also reflect his own, personal beliefs and ideas concerning the Congo which are clearly influenced by the zeitgeist of the time. However, CONGO AS FICTION is not only an attempt to embed historical objects and photographs in the art history of one of Africa’s most eminent centres of cultural production and its early entanglement with the wider world. The old works are juxtaposed with artistic positions of contemporary, internationally renowned artists from the Congo who apply a critical focus to their country’s past and colonial history. In an artist-in-residence programme, the artist and co-founder of the Lubumbashi Art Biennale, Sammy Baloji, and the young writer Sinzo Aanza have dealt in depth with Hans Himmelheber archives and exploited them to create their own Congo fictions. The Paris-based artist Michèle Magema and Fiona Bobo, who was born and grew up in Zurich, have realized commissioned works for the exhibition, along with the artist David Shongo whose intervention is to be shown in Zurich and at the Biennale Lubumbashi almost simultaneously. With additional works by Angali, Steve Bandoma, Hilary Kuyangiko Balu, Aimé Mpane, Chéri Samba, Yves Sambu, Monsengo Shula, and Pathy Tshindele, the exhibition presents in total fourteen artists who relate to traditional art and their own cultural heritage, with regard to either form or content. EXHIBITION NARRATIVE Visitors set out on their own exploration with the multimedia projection “Arrival and change of perspective” which focuses on the travels Hans Himmelheber undertook in colonial Congo eighty years ago. Between May 1938 and July 1939, he journeyed through the Kasaï and Katanga regions – at times carried in a hammock (called tipoye), a typical mode of transport in the colonial days. His diary and photographs document how strenuous travelling could be in those days. At the same time, the projection questions the African agency in carrying the tipoye. Thus, visitors delve into the Congo’s (colonial) history and art scene with a mixture of curiosity and discomfort. The main part of the exhibition is made up of three sections with the focus on the aesthetics and significance of artistic creativity. Here the works and photographs from the 1930s are set against a selection of contemporary artistic positions. The first section “Design and Elegance” is dedicated to splendidly designed prestige objects and items of everyday use made of wood, glass beads, and cowrie shells, and collected among various Kuba groups. Especially impressive are the dance cloths made of raffia which measure over six metres in length and whose abstract patterns and motifs inspired artists such as Paul Klee, Pablo Picasso, and Henri Matisse. The huge significance that luxurious accessories and performative elegance have played ever since the colonial days, today finds expression in the flashy look boasted by the fashion aficionados known as sapeurs, as two photo series from Kinshasa (Yves Sambu) and – surprisingly – from Zurich (Fiona Bobo) highlight. The second chapter “Power and Politics” focuses on the efficacy and political dimension of traditional sculpted figures and masks from the Benalulua, Songye, and Pende regions in the past. But even then, the colonial system and the work of the missions impacted on the political and religious power relations along with the arts associated with them, be it that secret societies were forbidden, that new cults emerged, or in the sense that art was transformed into a symbol of resistance. Furthermore, the power figures known as mangaaka and nkisi, respectively, were charged with magical substances and materials for the purpose of healing, for warding off misfortune, and for detecting evil powers. With the help of the latest imaging techniques, the exhibition also reveals that the figures’ inner life was just as important as their impressive outer appearance. The Kinshasa-based artist Hilary Kuyangiko Balu transforms old power figures with the help of electronic scrap, thus conjuring up a dark vision of the future for the Congo, a country in which consumerism and global capitalism have left their indelible mark. Among the exhibition highlights are certainly the masks and costumes of the Pende, Yaka, and Chokwe peoples; these are presented in the third chapter called “Performance and Initiation”. The colourful mask figures performed on the occasion of the mukanda initiation in which, to this day, young boys are prepared for their role as grown men by having to undergo a series of trials. The artists responsible for the Yaka masks were expected to give their utmost regarding creativity and novelty. In the performances, local ideals of beauty and notions of masculinity and femininity were given expression, next to humour and eroticism. The artists Steve Bandoma and Aimé Mpane, both based in Kinshasa, make reference to the unusual, because asymmetrical mbangu mask of the Pende. While Bandoma seriously questions the role of Christian missionaries in his painting Papotage (“gossip”), Mpane raises the question of the reception of African art in the Western avant-garde with his double portraits. Over and above the three main chapters, the exhibition also addresses the issue of “Research and the Acquisition of Art” in the Congo under colonial rule with the aid of a multimedia installation. In order to finance his research, the art anthropologist Hans Himmelheber had to rely on trade with locally purchased art objects and artefacts. As far as the Congo is concerned, his main sponsors included the ethnographic museums in Basel and Geneva along with the Weyhe Gallery in New York and the Galery Chales Ratton in Paris. His 1,500 images and his written documents not only provide valuable insight into the production and use of local artefacts, they also allow us to draw conclusions as to the conditions under which Himmelheber purchased the objects in the context of Belgian colonial rule and shipped them to Europe. In their works specially commissioned for the exhibition, the artists Michèle Magema and David Shongo question and analyse the role of photography in colonial Congo. In the final chapter “My Congo Vision”, the threads laid out in the exhibition are drawn together again and commented on. In filmed interviews creative artists and culture professionals from the Congo and the Congolese diaspora in Switzerland and Europe get a chance to speak. The multiplicity of voices will help visitors gain a differentiated view of the history and art scene in the Congo in the sense of a “global turn” in art history and, at the same time, encourage them to reflect postcolonial concerns with regard to colonial collections in conjunction with the ongoing debate on restitution. The exhibition ends with Monsengo Shula’s popular paintings of satellites crowned by figures from traditional art and orbited by colourfully dressed afronauts. Herewith, the Kinshasa-based artist is not only alluding to the ambitious space programme in Congo of the 1970s but actually envisioning a new world order with Africa and the Congo as its hub, quite in the sense of the words of Patrice Lumumba’s: “Africa will write its own history, and it will be, to the north and to the south of the Sahara, a history of glory and dignity” (1961). CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS CONGO AS FICTION is more than an attempt to simply embed historical objects and photographs in the art history of one of Africa’s most significant creative centres and its early entanglement with the world.

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