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Culture in France

The magic of Bantu masks and sculptures on the Congo river

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The arts of central Africa are on display at the Quai Branly museum in Paris with an exhibition called Fleuve Congo (Congo River). It covers the immense Bantu-speaking region of central Africa which is seven times the size of France and extends from the Rift Valley to the Atlantic.

Musée Quai Branly
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The Congo River exhibition shows over 170 pieces – masks, sculptures, reliquaries – selected by the curator, Brother François Neyt, to illustrate the unity of this immense region which covers more than ten million square kilometres.

It crosses the south of Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Congo-Brazzaville, Congo-Kinshasa and part of Angola, covering the savannah in the south and the equatorial forest in the north.

 
François Neyt chose three themes to show the link among the Bantou peoples who share the same civilisation and the same culture from eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, all the way down to Gabon: the masks, the reliquaries and the women.

“The same heart-shaped masks covered with white colour is found from the Atlantic to the forest in the east [of the DRC] to express communication between the inhabitants in the same village, in the same region,” explains Neyt. The masks also represent the link with the ancestors and, as such, play an important role in the initiation ceremonies for young men.

The reliquaries illustrate the ancestral cult, a crucial element of central African culture. The skulls and bones are preserved in sculpted wood “to keep the traditions and the past of their families”.

Women occupy an essential place in the savannah.

“The mother becomes an important person because it is through the wife that life is coming on earth. So, she is the most important link between the ancestors and the new generation,” says Neyt.

For the museum's director Stéphane Martin, the pieces on display in the Congo River exhibition are the “classics” of African art that influenced European sculptors and painters from the beginning of the 20th century.

Musée Quai Branly

 
“This is the African art that Picasso, Derain and all major artists of the 20th century were impressed by. When you walk through this exhibition, you can find a piece that makes you think of (Picasso's painting] Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, or this sculpture is Modigliani. It is thrilling to see all those pieces that happen to be so important for the history of western modern art and are now part of our culture.”

Most of the pieces left Africa a long time ago and now belong to museums in France and Europe.

“I’m not sure that all the magic activities and the magic practice that those artefacts were used for are still in practice in those parts of Africa. Many of them would be meaningless in Africa but they have found a new meaning in Europe and a new kind of magic and this time the magician is called Picasso or Derain,” Martin says.

The magic of these masks and sculptures is not only belong to central Africa but are part of a universal heritage.
 

 

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