Kongo: Power and Majesty
Source: The Met
September 18, 2015–January 3, 2016
Exhibition Location: Special Exhibition Gallery, first floor, Gallery 199
Press preview: Wednesday, September 16, 10:00–noon
A landmark presentation that will radically redefine our understanding of Africa’s relationship with the West, Kongo: Power and Majesty,
opening at The Metropolitan Museum of Art this September, will focus on
one of the continent’s most influential artistic traditions, from the
earliest moment of direct engagement between African and European
leaders at the end of the 15th century through the early 20th century.
The creative output of Kongo artists of Central Africa will be
represented by 146 works drawn from more than 50 institutional and
private collections across Europe and the United States, reflecting five
hundred years of encounters and shifting relations between European and
Kongo leaders. From a dynamic assembly of 15 monumental power figures
to elegantly carved ivories and finely woven textiles, the exhibition
will explore how the talents of Central Africa’s most gifted artists
were directed toward articulating a culturally distinct vernacular of
power.
The exhibition is made possible by the Gail and Parker Gilbert Fund and the Diane W. and James E. Burke Fund.
The story of Central African art has been
told until now with a focus on the 19th century. This exhibition will
take a longer view, establishing that Kongo’s great sophistication and
spectrum of artistic expression was a continuum, from the time of the
first incursions by Europeans along the coast through the colonial period.
“The electrifying Mangaaka power figure
acquired by the Met in 2008 was the impetus for this exhibition,” said
Alisa LaGamma, the Ceil and Michael E. Pulitzer Curator in Charge of the
Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “On view
in our galleries for the past seven years, this iconic symbol of law and
order has been the object of universal fascination, so we decided to
delve deeper into the history and circumstances of its creation. While
exploring Kongo’s centuries-long cultural interaction with the outside
world, and the full spectrum of Kongo aesthetics, our research led to
new discoveries and to this unprecedented opportunity for the full play
of the artists’ ingenuity to be admired across a range of genres.”
European Powerbrokers and Kongo Luxury Arts
Nearly a decade before Christopher
Columbus set foot in the New World, the Portuguese explorer Diogo Cão
disembarked along the coast of modern day Angola. This turning point in
world history brought about significant exchanges of material culture
across the Atlantic. Cão commemorated his arrival in 1483, as an
emissary for King Joặo II of Portugal, by marking the site with a
limestone monument that had been carved in Lisbon. That limestone
landmark will now mark visitors’ entry into Kongo: Power and Majesty.
Among the earliest African artifacts
preserved in the West are prestige items created by Kongo artists who
were active in a series of distinct polities positioned across a region
that spans what is today northern Republic of the Congo, Angola, and
southern Democratic Republic of the Congo. In addition to the celebrated
state known as Kongo, the exhibition considers its less well-known
culturally related regional neighbors such as the Kingdom of Loango. The
Kingdom of Kongo’s elite embraced literacy from the earliest moment of
contact, and the survival of their writings on religious and political
matters set the kingdom apart, making it one of the best documented
pre-colonial African states. Featured in the exhibition are 16th- and
17th-century missives from Kongo sovereigns to their European
counterparts, affording a critical African perspective on world events.
From the same period—and a focal point of Kongo: Power and Majesty—are
the creations of regional artists that were prized for their refined
workmanship and rarified materials. These exotic ivories, inscribed with
delicate geometric designs, and woven raffia fiber textiles adorned
with related abstract motifs, entered into the collections of European
princes and wealthy merchants from the 16th through the 18th century.
Most of these, including a series of ivory oliphants believed to have
entered the Medici collections under Giovanni de’ Medici (1475–1521)
(Pope Leo X), appear to have been sent by Kongo leaders as diplomatic
gifts. The scope of this little-known Kongo pre-colonial corpus has
never before been presented in an exhibition. Kongo: Power and Majesty
will introduce a critical mass of these exquisite, rarely displayed
works that are dispersed internationally. Among the celebrated and
prestigious historical collections lending to the exhibition are the
Royal Kunstkammer of King Frederick III of Denmark in Copenhagen, the
Württemberg Kunstkammer in Stuttgart, the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II’s
Prague Castle collections, and Queen Christina of Sweden’s Royal
Collection, Stockholm.
For the first time, Kongo masterpieces
will bring to life a critical chapter of Central African history that
precedes colonialism by some 400 years. These early Kongo creations
attest to the exceptional complexity of Kongo artistry predating contact
with Europe as well as the degree to which its most talented
practitioners immediately embraced the ensuing influx of ideas
introduced from the outside.
A Container for Power in Kongo Society: The nkisi
The seminal form of expression associated with African art is that of the power figure, or nkisi (pl. minkisi). In the West such works are invariably conceived of in generic terms, but Kongo: Power and Majesty
will explore some of the specific historical contexts that led to the
development of such complex works. Following his adoption of
Christianity in 1491, the Kongo sovereign Nzinga a Nkuwu called for the
destruction of all local idols, or minkisi, in his kingdom. At
the same time he and successive generations of Kongo kings requested
that Christian devotional artifacts be sent from Europe. The exhibition
will feature examples of Kongo Christian works that were initially cast
from these prototypes as well as those that eventually reinterpret
Christ according to a Kongo aesthetic. Outside the Kongo capital of
Mbanza Kongo, Christianity was less influential and the creation of minkisi
continued to be a significant dimension of the region’s devotional
life. Although a Portuguese Jesuit Father is reported to have at once
burnt some such “fetishes” and sent others back to Portugal in 1631, no
examples of minkisi are known to have been preserved in the
West before the second half of the 19th century, when massive numbers of
works were gathered through European colonial networks. In recent
decades the work of specialists in the fields of Kongo religion and
anthropology has defined nkisi as a portable shrine designed to house a
spiritual force. Among the important questions addressed in Kongo: Power and Majesty
are why no examples of this tradition were preserved in the West before
the colonial moment; what were the respective contributions of a Kongo
carver and priest to the assemblage of such creations; and what
deliberate interventions altered the condition of certain nkisi before they were released into the outside world.
Kongo Chiefly Attributes of Power
Kongo art is associated with the intimidating and aggressive aesthetic of nkisi
sculptures depicting male subjects riven with hardware. However, such
works were intended to be experienced as part of a far broader spectrum
of representations identified with power and leadership in Kongo
society. Just as prominent a visual metaphor to the definition of Kongo
power is the nurturing and regenerative role of women. Kongo: Power and Majesty
will present the full array of forms that framed the person of a Kongo
leader—from the distinctive regional regalia of knotted fiber capes and
caps studded with leopards’ claws, to staffs of office with finials that
take the form of exquisitely carved ivory miniatures, to the seated
female figures carved from wood that are positioned in shrines above a
Kongo chief’s final resting place.
Kongo Master Hands
Kongo society’s most gifted artists were
in great demand by patrons who required their talents for the production
of a diverse array of forms of expression. While the identities of
individual sculptors have not been documented, their achievements are
known through the surviving artistic record of their creative output
preserved in Western collections. Over the last generation, the work of
art historians has made evident the aesthetic qualities and carving
styles associated with a number of distinctive workshops. These have
been identified according to the sites associated with their
creations. The presentation of Kongo: Power and Majesty
will assemble for the first time the majority of works produced by
three of Central Africa’s most talented master sculptors: the Master of
Kasadi, the Master of Makaya Vista, and the Master of Boma Vonde.
The Ultimate Manifestation of Law and Order: Mangaaka
A catalyst for this exhibition is a great
Kongo landmark that has been a centerpiece of The Metropolitan Museum
of Art’s collection since 2008. This massive sculpture of a formidable
Kongo leader leans forward to confront the viewer with hands on hips. He
is at once a physically commanding and deeply reflexive presence. The
carved wood figure was conceived as the nkisi receptacle for an
immaterial force known as Mangaaka, invoked over the course of its use
through the hardware added to its exterior by petitioners. Over the last
seven years this work has undergone close examination and study in
relation to comparative examples by art historians, conservators, and
scientists. Discussion of these findings with an interdisciplinary
international network of specialists in museums and universities has
contributed to a more nuanced and expansive appreciation of the
significance of this outstanding sculptural achievement.
During the second half of the 19th century, an unprecedented array of minkisi were developed along the coast in response to incursions by colonial traders into the interior and related social concerns. Mangaaka,
the undisputed “king and master” among these, was the personification
of an abstract force charged with the arbitration of trade disputes. As
the supreme adjudicator of conflicts and protector of communities across
the Chiloango River region, it was the most ambitious and monumental
sculptural form developed as a high point in Kongo expression. Mangaaka
features attributes of chieftaincy and a physiognomy that might
obliterate those who defy authority and the rule of law. Its displeasure
was manifested through chest ailments and spitting blood. It likewise
had the power to cure these literally and symbolically acute physical
ailments. Slightly under life-size, the carving of Mangaaka’s figurative
container required the talents and experience of a master sculptor.
Because of the dramatic scale of the representation and the consistency
of the iconography, the Italian art historian Ezio Bassani had at one
time proposed they were the work of a single atelier. Close study of the
corpus, however, has made it evident that they relate to a single genre
but are in fact the work of a number of different artists. This will be
made apparent to an international public for the first time in Kongo: Power and Majesty.
Approximately 20 of these impressive Mangaaka figures survive in
institutional and private collections in Europe and the United States.
The exhibition will provide an unprecedented opportunity to view 15 of
them together, from institutions in Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom,
Belgium, Switzerland, and the United States.
Credits and Related Resources
Kongo: Power and Majesty
is organized by Alisa LaGamma, Ceil and Michael E. Pulitzer Curator in
Charge of the Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the
Americas at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Coordination and support
have been provided by James Green, Research Associate; Christine
Giuntini and Ellen Howe, Conservators; Marco Leona, David H. Koch
Scientist in Charge, and Adriana Rizzo, Associate Research Scientist,
both of the Department of Scientific Research; Helina Gebremedhen and
Remi Onabanjo, graduate interns; and Kristen Windmuller-Luna, graduate
intern and Jane and Morgan Whitney Fellow, all of the Metropolitan
Museum. Exhibition design is by Brian Butterfield and Yen-Wei Liu of the
Met’s Design Department.
A major catalogue—published by The
Metropolitan Museum of Art and distributed by Yale University Press—
accompanies the exhibition, with essays by Alisa LaGamma, John Thornton,
professor of African history, Boston University; Phyllis Martin,
professor emeritus of African history, University of Indiana; and Josiah
Blackmore, professor of the language and literature of Portugal,
Harvard University. The publication incorporates original research
undertaken at the Met by Ellen Howe, Conservator in the Department of
Objects Conservation; Adriana Rizzo and Marco Leona, research
scientists, Department of Scientific Research; and Christine Giuntini,
Textile Conservator, Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the
Americas.
The catalogue is made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Education programs will be offered in conjunction with the exhibition, including a Sunday at the Met on
October 18 at 3:00 p.m. in the Museum’s Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium.
A panel will examine Kongo society’s history and artistic traditions in
the context of changing relations between Africa and Europe over half a
millennium. Featured speakers will be photographic artist Jo Ractliffe,
author David Van Reybrouck, and dancer-choreographer Faustin Linyekula.
This multi-disciplinary Sunday at the Met program will also include a round-table discussion moderated by critically acclaimed journalist and New Yorker staff writer Philip Gourevitch.
The exhibition will also be featured on
the Museum’s website, including a blog that will host weekly posts by a
variety of contributors—designers, scientists, musicians, historians,
and others— offering fresh perspectives on the themes of the exhibition.
Among the topics addressed will be the significance of body language in
Kongo sculpture, exhibition design, scientific analyses undertaken on
Mangaaka power figures, and gender and power dynamics in Kongo art.
# # #
August 17, 2015
Image: Power Figure (Nkisi N’Kondi:
Mangaaka). Kongo peoples; Yombe group, Chiloango River region, Cabinda,
Angola, 19th century, inventoried 1898. Wood, iron, resin, ceramic,
plant fiber, textile, cowrie shell, animal hide and hair, pigment, H.
461⁄2 in. (118 cm), W. 181⁄8 in. (46 cm), D. 133⁄4 in. (35 cm).
Manchester Museum, University of Manchester (0.9321/1)
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