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100 × Congo: A Century of Congolese Art in Antwerp

2021; UCLA James S. Coleman African Studies Center; Volume: 55; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1162/afar_r_00672

1937-2108

Hugo DeBlock,

Global Maritime and Colonial Histories

The exhibition at the Museum aan de Stroom (MAS), a new building in the harbor of the city of Antwerp (opened in 2011), centers around a hundred Congolese art objects from the rich Congo collections of the museum, added by several valuable loans from, amongst others, the AfricaMuseum in Tervuren. The foundations of the Antwerp collection were laid in 1920 when the city bought approximately 1600 Congolese objects from Antwerp-based African art dealer Henri Pareyn and, later in that same year, received a donation of about a hundred pieces by then Minister of Colonies, Louis Franck, who had, just prior, returned from an inspection tour through the then Belgian Congo and the mandate territories of Ruanda-Urundi. It was only then that Antwerp finally became a serious contender and a competitor in the collection and exhibition of African—and particularly Congolese—arts with the then Musée du Congo Belge (now the Royal Museum for Central Africa or AfricaMuseum) in Tervuren, which had opened its doors in 1910.The aim of this exhibition was to show the marvels of the lesser-known Antwerp collection of Congolese art as well as to attempt to curate colonialism, by providing context and critical reflection and by offering a platform to Congolese, Belgo-Congolese, and young Afrodescendent voices, in text and film, through testimonies based on lived experience. In doing so, it also tackled openly difficult historical issues relating to colonial violence and abuse, and delved into current concerns with decolonization of collections and restitution claims.The hundred selected Congolese art objects from the MAS collections are positioned centrally in the exhibition space, with a second trajectory alongside the walls that goes into the context of the presence of African arts—and African people—in Antwerp. Upon entry, visitors are immediately confronted with two remarkable female minkisi statues, defined generically as “Kongo,” that originally formed part of the donation by Louis Franck of 1920 and that have since been owned by the Vleeshuis Museum and, thus, by the city of Antwerp (Fig. 1). These, as well as most other selected artworks, undisputedly deserve the somewhat questionable label of “masterpiece,” being infused by monetary value and market mechanisms in the tribal art business. Simultaneously, in the second trajectory, along the walls, two other marvelous objects draw attention: one is a powerful Kongo nkisi nkondi statue, the other a zoomorphic slit drum (Figs. 2–3). Both these high art pieces are on loan from the collections of Tervuren, but they have a history in Antwerp. The nkisi nkondi statue was first exhibited in Belgium during the World Fair of 1885 in Antwerp, while the slit drum was exhibited at yet another World Fair in Antwerp, a couple of years later, in 1894. Instead of remaining in Antwerp, both items made their way to Brussels. The nkisi nkondi first made its way to the then Musée Royal d'Antiquités, d'Armetures, d'Artillerie et d'Ethnologie (now Porte De Hal Museum, which is part of the Royal Museums of Art and History in Brussels), before it came to be part of the collections in Tervuren. The slit drum was long thought to have only been part of the 1897 World Fair in Brussels and Tervuren.The nkisi nkondi statue and the colossal slit drum are positioned prominently, between the walls that contextualize their presence in the exhibition and the center stage that showcases the high arts from the MAS collections. In addition, the slit drum is accompanied by a photograph, taken inside the zoo humain (the exhibition of Congolese people) during the World Fair in Antwerp of 1894 (Fig. 3).1 However, the history of African arts—and Africans—in Antwerp, a harbor city on the Scheldt River through which colonial goods came into the country for a long time, predates the subsequent World Fairs of 1885 and 1894. The context alongside the walls also goes into earlier (contact) history, showcasing, amongst others, a beautifully crafted Edo-Portugese ivory saltcellar dating back to the sixteenth century, donated to the then Ethnographic Museum by Frans Olbrechts' widow in 1974 (Fig. 4); photo reproductions of two famous drawings made by Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer; a painting by Constantin Meunier (between 1890 and 1905) which is a reproduction of an original painting by Pieter Paul Rubens (between 1613 and 1615, kept in the Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels) showing four studies of the head of a Black man; and a painting by Jacob Jordaens (between 1645 and 1650) of Moses and his Ethiopian wife Zipporah. Of all these, it is Katharina, drawn by Dürer during his visit to Antwerp in 1521, who draws most attention. The young woman described by Dürer as Katharina, who was 20 years of age at the time he drew her, belonged to the household of João Brandão, who at the time was the representative of the Portuguese King in Antwerp. Katharina might have been a slave, or a servant, or possibly Brandão's wife. In the drawing, we see her with gaze cast downwards, but also possessing a certain stature (Schreuder 2020: 30).While moving throughout the two trajectories of the exhibition, one passes by, amongst others, a beautiful art nouveau poster for the 1894 World Fair in Antwerp, photographs of both World Fairs, as well as the arts of the Kongo Kingdom and of Yombe, Yaka, Suku, Chokwe, Kuba, Luba, Luluwa, Pende, Songye, Hemba, Tabwa, and Lega. These tribalized artworks stand there, a bit isolated but somewhat contextualized by written word of Congolese creative writer Patrick Mudekereza. Some of his poetry is projected on the glass cases containing the age-old pieces. Sound that penetrates the room and that (re)connects the historical context on the walls with the high art in the center, is of two films that are on view in the exhibition. The first film, by Matthias De Groof, made in 2020, is entitled Onder het Witte Masker (Under the White Mask) and is a critical remake of Paul Hasaerts' film Onder het Zwarte Masker (Under the Black Mask) of 1958. De Groof reuses the artworks that were originally used in Hasaerts' film (some of which are on view in the exhibition). The statues look and speak back at the audience, reciting excerpts from Discourse sur le Colonialisme by Aimé Cesaire of 1950 that, for the film, were translated from French into Lingala (and subtitled in Dutch, French, and English) and that offer a critical mirror to the viewer. The second film is by the Belgian-Congolese Collectif Faire Part (which translates in English as Sharing Collective), made specifically for the exhibition, and is entitled In Vele Handen (In Many Hands) (Fig. 6). This film, in many ways, is a blow to White innocent consciousness, in the sense that it is contemporary people talking back to the viewer, to White and non-White audiences who might know or not know the histories of such ancient artworks and their involvement with contemporary Congolese society.The exhibition closes by showcasing the influence of colonialism and the missions in the arts through a range of objects, from missionary to customary arts, made in contexts that incorporate alien presence such as colonial officers or missionaries (Fig. 7).2 A special section of the exhibition is devoted to the introduction to Congolese girls of lacework by congregations of Belgian nuns, and wood and ivory carving to Congolese boys by Belgian friars. The lace style and technique was brought in via Tenerife, which was the waystation for Belgian missionaries on their way to Congo: the so-called dentelle de Tenerife (or Ténériffe), indigenized by the use of raffia and turned into what became known as Congolese lace (Van Beurden 2020: 95–99). The boys, in different mission stations and schools, were educated in carving and ivory inlay work that served as handicraft more than art and that was sold off in order to further support missionization and conversion in the Congo (Van Beurden 2020: 99–105). Some of the lacework and carving of these Congolese girls and boys, as well as the context of mission schools and education, is on view in the exhibition in photographs.The “whole” story of history and art coming together as a concept, however, never really does come together: the high art remains largely silent inside its' glass boxes (cf. Ames 1992). These artfully made objects of social, political, and religious life serve as remnants of the past, disrupted by colonialism. Testimonies by contemporary Congolese and Belgo-Congolese people, on the glass and through sound, reverberating through the exhibition space, add more to this sense of strangeness than they clarify. The visitor starts to critically question what is actually on view. Questions of ownership and property and of knowledge reproduction and epistemology are tackled, but it is the poems by writer Patrick Mudekereza, spread throughout the exhibition, that maybe tie all that is on view together in the best possible, fragile, but often also uneasy and inconvenient ways:For the exhibition and the catalogue, edited by Els De Palmenaer, a range of Congolese writers were involved, one of whom, Donatien Dibwe dia Mwembu of the University of Lubumbashi, has done additional provenance research on one of the objects in the exhibition: a Songye nkishi of Chief Nkolomonyi (Fig. 8). As Dibwe dia Mwembu's research unveils, this statue is an object of war booty, acquired in violent colonial circumstances somewhere in the early twentieth century. The city of Antwerp acquired it in 1940 as part of a donation by the Osterrrieth family. Paul Osterrieth, an Antwerp-based entrepreneur of German descent and a trader in colonial goods, had acquired it in 1923 in Lusambo, the capital of Sankuru Province in DRC (Dibwe dia Mwembu 2020: 85). Dibwe dia Mwembu has carried out additional fieldwork in Lubumbashi and Kabinda and archival research, with De Palmenaer, in Brussels, and uncovered that Nkolomonyi was a Songye chief from Eyimono village, near Lufebu in today's Lomani Province. The exact circumstances of Nkolomonyi's death and the theft of his powerful nkishi statue are, to date, unclear, but the story is at least starting to come to light. Questions remain, however, about how the statue came into the hands of Belgian colonial officials after Nkolomonyi's death and how Paul Osterrieth acquired it back in 1923 in Lusambo. This history of violent interruption and theft bears resemblance to another recently uncovered story, that of the Kongo nkisi nkondi that I introduced above, that was first on view in Belgium during the 1885 World Fair in Antwerp and that later made its way into the collections of Tervuren (see Fig. 2). That story, to date, serves as the best documented case of Congolese war booty in Belgium. The story was brought to light, recently, after the patient and arduous provenance research by Maarten Couttenier, a historian and an anthropologist who works at the museum of Tervuren (see Couttenier 2018). This particular Kongo nkisi statue was stolen during a violent raid on the village of Kikuku, near Boma, in 1878, led by Alexandre Delcommune, who would later become an officer in King Leopold II's armed Force Publique. The statue sparked up the restitution debate in Belgium, but the AfricaMuseum itself has been remaining largely silent. While in the museum in Tervuren, the nkisi statue is exhibited in an exhibition, entitled Unrivalled Art (showing the museum's masterpieces), inside the MAS, where it is on loan from Tervuren, its history as war booty is now finally being told to a wider audience.100 × Congo thus shows high Congolese arts while at the same time providing the often uneasy context that usually accompanies such marvelous age-old art pieces that, really, remain what they are: estranged cultural items of people in different places of a bygone era. In that sense, these art objects are still—whatever attempt is being done to recontextualize them—alienated and contested cultural property. Many people seem to want to reconnect to these things that still form an integral part of cultural pride and heritage, even if this heritage is removed in time and space for many who claim allegiance. Since these things, once they were in the “mother countries” (Britain, France, Belgium, and so on), were first regarded as curiosities and, later, transformed into the even more problematic category of “masterpieces of tribal art,” they did not “need” much provenance. They were meant, for a long time, to serve as grotesque, or dramatic, or expressionistic examples of otherworldly beauty, for bourgeois consumption only. By tying in with current debates on decolonization of museums and collections and restitution, the exhibition at the MAS does not avoid difficult questions or uneasy situations. Rather, it confronts them, inviting the visitor to think about issues of colonialism and power and violence, and about the disrupted and fragmented histories of Congolese material culture and art.The museum published a catalogue, in Dutch and French, edited by Els De Palmenaer (MAS BAI Books, Antwerp, 2020: 301 pp., 178 Figs., price: 40 Euro): 100× Congo: Een Eeuw Congolese Kunst in Antwerpen; 100 × Congo: Un Siècle d'Art Congolais à Anvers. Guided tours were conducted in Dutch, French, English and Lingala and Swahili, the two main languages of the DRC.