![]() He raises the question of witchcraft in his painting not only because power in contemporary Zaire is inextricably linked to it but also because witchcraft fits into the West’s way of knowing Africa. Along with a recounting of his exhibition history, Chéri Samba tells competitor artists who accuse him of casting a spell on them that his success is due not to witchcraft or hysterics but to simplicity in life and hard work.īut, of course, Chéri Samba is not a simple artist. The text in Self-portrait, 1989, also concerns the theme of creativity. In L’Espoir fait vivre (Hope allows for life, 1989), a painting about his own success story, he explains that he made it to the top through diligence, patience, and the blessing of the ancestors and without resorting to witchcraft. Chéri Samba works within such tribal concepts as witchcraft, ancestor worship, and magic. His reclaiming of the stereotype of Africa in the modern imagination is one clue to his success. I found myself thinking, Chéri Samba is the Amos Tutuola of African art-the stereotype that strikes back. The depicted human figures were rendered in such a dark chocolate hue that they seemed to melt under the light. I found myself transported to Africa by these strong colors and the primacy of their exotic denotations. The Chéri Samba gallery was aflame with the artist’s palette of hot reds and yellows amid life-giving greens, sea blues, and flowery violets. More than most contemporary artists, his art treats head-on those same questions of power, fear, morality, and overt sexuality in representation found in the larger exhibition. It seemed impossible to avoid retaining the impressions of the tribal art, its beautiful, terrifying, and abstract symbolism, as one entered the gallery devoted to Chéri Samba’s paintings (the first show of the work of a single contemporary African artist in the museum’s history). To reach the Chéri Samba show, one first had to traverse the arresting exhibition of Nigerian masks and statues (the size and quality of which make one realize why some people felt that the Guggenheim Africa show underserved the continent). In 1982, Ngangura Mweze’s short film Kin Kiese (Kinshasa the Beautiful) featured the artist and his tableaux as a way of revealing the contradictory colors of the city. Like advertising slogans, his language often takes a shortcut to meaning, making use of a popularized expression like “ conjoncture,” for example, which means economic crisis, belt tightening, and resourcefulness all at once. They combine images that are accessible to a wide audience with narrative prose written largely in Lingala and colloquial French. Like other market artists in urban Africa, his paintings, influenced by narrative techniques borrowed from comic books, movie posters, and cartoons, deal, often humorously, with the faits divers of modernity and its impact on life on the continent. Samba emerged as a street artist in Kinshasa, Zaire, in the late ’70s, painting tableaux of market scenes, prostitution, and anecdotes about power and corruption. A jealous filmmaker friend of mine even describes him as the new chouchou de la ville. Since 1989, when he was included in the Pompidou’s controversial “primitivist” blockbuster “ Magiciens de la terre,” Chéri Samba has never ceased to surprise and tease the imagination of the French with his “naive” paintings. Never mind the fact that the French have shut the doors to African immigration-an image often found in his narrative paintings. Chéri Samba’s retrospective of thirty-eight works at the Paris museum could not have been better timed. ![]() The Musée National des Arts d’Afrique et d’Océanie recently showed 276 traditional pieces from Nigeria-a stunning exhibition including some of the most beautiful Igbo masks I have ever seen along with Benin, Yoruba, and Ogoni statutes and masks. African art flourishes on the Left Bank: there are antique shops on Rue de la Seine, and this summer brought shows of Ouattara at Gallerie Boulakia at the Rue Bonaparte and a combined photography and mask exhibit entitled “ Les Dogons” on Rue des Beaux-Arts. Paris likes to brag about being the capital of African art, ahead of London, Tokyo, and New York. Musée national des Arts d'Afrique et d'Océanie
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