Post-Colonial Artwork in the Congo: The Lubumbashi Movement

The Kingdom of Kongo rose in the 13th century. For centuries following its inception, Kongo wrote itself into history as one of the richest artistic regions in Africa, producing countless works inspiring awe, admiration, and fear. More than five hundred years after Kongo’s inception, part of it became designated the Congo Free State, a private holding of Belgian King Leopold II. Associate Professor Chika Okeke-Agulu of Princeton University’s Department of Art and Archaeology describes King Leopold II’s subsequent treatment of the Congo as “a symbol of the terrors of imperialism and colonialism” and that his various dramatic exploitations of the land and its people caused the Congo to be “where the idea of international human rights [was] more or less born.” In the words of African art collector Christian Sulger-Buel, “King Leopold treated the people and the land like his private property. He owned Congo the way you’d own your car.” Needless to say, decades of political strife and injustices suffered by the people of the Congo have created movements of reactionary artwork seeking to document and negotiate the darkness of Congo’s turbulent history. 

One of the largest postcolonial reactionary political artwork movements is the “Lubumbashi Movement.” The movement developed from a group of artists living and working out of the southeastern Congolese city of Lubumbashi in the 1970s. Artwork from the Lubumbashi Movement commonly depicted scenes from the 16th and 17th-century slave trade, acts of brutality by colonial masters, and more contemporary issues such as miner strikes (with Lubumbashi being the copper mining heartland of Congo) and independence. One popular subgenre within the Lubumbashi movement that particularly symbolizes the spirit of the movement is “Colonie Belge.” The subgenre consists of paintings that depict a white man (a representation of a colonial master) impeccably dressed, doing nothing except watching a black man flog another black man. As Salimata Diop, head of programs at London’s Africa Centre, said, “these artists were [clearly] not making ‘airport art’ - art for foreigners or tourists to buy. They saw themselves as artisans and made art for local people.” 

In many ways, reactionary postcolonial African art, like that of the Lubumbashi movement, signifies a newfound sense of identity that had been ripped away from Africans in colonial times. Not only are the images these postcolonial artists created striking for their raw and truthfully graphic content, but they are also remarkable for their use of color and fine lines. Due to the extreme poverty much of Africa was submerged in after decades of conflict and political strife, these artists only had access to basic primary colors and large brushes. The fact that these were able to overcome these obstacles to create artwork that would come to represent the metaphorical ghosts of the Congo (and colonial Africa as a whole––forced labor, civil war, violent repression of protests) is a testament to human resilience and the power of art forms in dark times. 

Jasmine Chen
Mr. Tommolino
Independent Study
Adelphi University

SOURCES:

https://www.cnn.com/2015/05/27/africa/congo-drc-53-echoes-of-zaire-exhibition 

https://artmuseum.princeton.edu/story/idea-kongo-contemporary-art 

https://biennialfoundation.org/biennials/lubumbashi-biennale/