Sammy Baloji

In 2014, artist Sammy Baloji (BE/DRC) extended his solo show in MuZEE, Oostende in collaboration with the director Phillip Van den Bossche and the curator Anouck Clissen into an ambitious collective research exhibition: A colonial photo-album by a Belgian military man, showing his success in big game hunting, was contrasted with the images of the Congolese photographer Chrispin Mvano and Baloji's own acrimonious collages. Additionally, the artist invited half a dozen of contemporary artists who explore in their work the conflictive relations between Belgium and the Congo, particularly regarding the representation of exploitation of the country and it's inhabitants. Their works were displayed together with historical photographs from the collection of the Royal museum of Central Africa in Tervuren, Belgium, showing mainly images of big game hunting in the colonial era. Objects belonging to the private collection of one of MuZEE's staff members were arranged in showcases. These artworks and artifacts were contrasted to the works of Belgian artists from the twentieth and twenty-first century comprised in the collection. In the frame of a museum for modern and contemporary art, this singular encounter between artworks and historical photographs that are mostly presented in separated contexts allowed for a renewed gaze on the collection. Therefore, the exhibition opened up new approaches to critically inquire about the historical intertwinements of modern and contemporary art and colonialism.
The conception of the book translates the numerous layers of the artistic research into an experimental visual form. Five written contributions by art historians, curators and historians enlarge the approach by investigating selected themes, ranging from primitivism in Belgian art to the role of natural reserves in today's murderous civil war in Northern Congo. Art history and global economic relations appear as closely intermingled.

Wat kan de jacht op wilde dieren in het koloniale Congo en de exploitatie van de Congolese mijnen in het heden gemeen hebben met een collectie moderne en hedendaagse kunst in een museum in de Belgische badplaats Oostende?
In 2014 vatte kunstenaar Sammy Baloji een ambitieus onderzoeks- en tentoonstellingsproject aan waarin historische documenten samen worden gebracht met foto's van de Congolese fotograaf Chrispin Mvano, werken van Belgische kunstenaars uit de 19e en 20e eeuw uit de Mu.ZEE-collectie, bijdragen van hedendaagse kunstenaars over de exploitatie van Congo alsook zijn eigen fotocollages.
Dit boek vertaalt de vele lagen van de tentoonstelling in een experimenteel visueel essay. Vier teksten bieden diepgaande analyses, gaande van de vertegenwoordiging van Congo in de Belgische kunst tot de rol van de natuurlijke reserves in de huidige bloedige oorlog in Noord-Congo. Ook al zijn de kunstgeschiedenis en de mondiale economie ver van elkaar verwijderde realiteiten, in feite blijken zij erg verwant te zijn.
Artists:
Sven Augustijnen, Sammy Baloji, James Ensor, Jan Fabre, Guido Geelen, Jane Graverol, Oscar Jespers, Jan van de Kerckhove, Marie-Jo Lafontaine, Salomé Laloux-Bart, Chris Marker and Alain Resnais, Renzo Martens, Chrispin Mvano, Manu Riche, Georges Senga, Claus Sinzomene, Constant Permeke et.al.