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The vitality of a century of Congolese art, sculpture and photography is showcased for the first time in a major exhibition.
Paris is hosting the first ever retrospective exhibition of art from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Most of these works have never been displayed internationally before, being held in private collections in Belgium, France and Switzerland, while others were found in the colonial archives in Brussels and a few more brought over from Kinshasa, direct from the artists themselves.
Looking back over 90 years, there are over 350 paintings, photographs, sculptures and comic books by 41 artists. The curator of the exhibition is world expert on Congolese art André Magnin. He first travelled to Kinshaha in 19S7, where he found a thriving popular artistic scene, with artists who had begun as billboard painters, decorators and illustrators, setting up their studio on busy streets so that their canvases would be seen by everyone.
"I was struck by the freedom, variety, humour and beauty of the paintings that were passing before my eyes," he says. "I was at the heart of an art form that required no theorising...