A Congo Chronicle: Patrice Lumumba in Urban Art features Congolese urban art that portrays the life and tragic death of Patrice Lumumba, the first Prime Minister of the Congo after its independence from Belgium in 1960. The exhibition consists of approximately ninety works, including a series of nearly fifty paintings by Tshibumba Kanda-Matulu, an influential artist of the 1970s, and a number of recent works by other Congolese contemporary artists who emulated his style. Painted with available materials — often domestic gloss paint on canvases of burlap flour sacks — these works demonstrate how memories of Lumumba were transformed into a powerful visual narrative of a popular cultural hero.

A Congo Chronicle introduces the genre of Congolese urban art, or popular painting, a primary medium of urban cultural memory in the Congo. Urban art is traceable from early 1920s paintings depicting colonial “modern life,” through to 1970s representations of social and political memory. Idealistic in its historic documentation, this African “social realism,” focuses on themes such as social injustice, street violence, political arbitrariness, and gender and generational conflicts.

These popular depictions of Patrice Lumumba exemplify the Congolese tradition of venerating mythic or cultural heroes. Just as classical African sculptures portrayed cultural innovators, urban art helped transform Lumumba into a powerful symbol. Made to be within the buying power of the urban middle classes, these paintings could be reproduced, hung in homes, and have major political effect in a country where many people did not read or have access to mass media. Through these paintings, the viewer gains insight into the popular issues of the era and understands how visual arts can shape national consciousness. 

The works trace Lumumba’s story from his winning the national elections during the period preceding the Congo’s accession to independence, his daring independence tirade, and his subsequent removal from power and execution. He embodies the dream of national unity, democracy, and independence, despite being largely omitted from official Congolese histories of the Mobutu era. With the recent upheavals in the political leadership and social fabric, A Congo Chronicle is a timely examination of how Lumumba became not only a Congolese hero, but also an African and African-American hero.

An optional installation is the Kinshasa Café — a re-created urban café with popular paintings hanging on the walls reminding customers of current issues. It was in these informal “village squares” where people socialized, discussed politics, and exchanged the latest news, that the popular movement took hold in pre-independence Congo. The café serves as an ideal educational environment featuring Congolese music and documentary footage on Lumumba.

The accompanying 110-page full-color catalogue written by guest curator Bogumil Jewsiewicki of Laval University, Quebec, includes essays by contributing scholars Jean Omasombo Tshonda, Nyunda ya Rubango, Dibwe dia Mwembu, and Mary Nooter Roberts and Allen F. Roberts, discussing popular urban art, Tshibumba’s series of Lumumba paintings, Congolese cultural heroes, and the myth and memory of Lumumba.

A Congo Chronicle: Patrice Lumumba in Urban Art is available for travel. For more information please e-mail travellingexhibitions@africanart.org