Theater of extraordinary cultural vitality, creation in the Democratic Republic of Congo is highlighted in the exhibition Beauté Congo - 1926-2015 - Congo Kitoko presented to the Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art with André Magnin, general commissioner.

Photo: DR

Photo: DR

Modern painting in the Congo in the 1920s

Taking as its starting point the birth of modern painting in Congo in the 1920s, this audacious exhibition traces nearly a century of Congolese artistic production. If painting is at the heart of the exhibition, music, sculpture, photography and comics also have their place there and offer the public the unique opportunity to discover the diversity and liveliness of the artistic scene in this country. .

The pioneering artists

From the end of the 1920s, while the Congo was still a Belgian colony, the "precursor" artists Albert and Antoinette Lubaki and Djilatendo delivered the first known works on paper, thus writing the beginnings of the history of modern Congolese art. . Often figurative, sometimes abstract, their works deal with poetry with themes linked to nature, daily life, local fables and dreams. After the Second World War, the Frenchman Pierre Romain-Desfossés moved to Élisabethville and founded the Atelier du Hangar. Within this painting school which will remain open until the death of its creator in 1954, the artists Bela Sara, Mwenze Kibwanga and Pili Pili Mulongoy learn to give free rein to their imagination and create, in their own styles of amazing inventiveness, bright and jubilant works.

Popular artists

Twenty years later, the exhibition Art everywhere presented in Kinshasa (1978) reveals to the general public many artists who proclaim themselves "popular artists".
Fascinated by the urban environment and concerned with the collective memory, Chéri Samba, Chéri Chérin and Moke produced a new form of figurative painting inspired by daily, political and social events, in which the entire population recognized themselves. Papa Mfumu'eto also explored everyday life and ordinary struggles in his prolific comic book creations, the dissemination of which was very successful in Kinshasa in the 1990s. A current that is perpetuated today by young artists connected to the world news like J.-P. Mika or Monsengo Shula.

For more information : foundation.cartier.com