Authentically African. Sarah Van Beurden
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in ethnography, believed his role was to assist in the modernization of the museum and to provide museum goers with more scientifically and historically founded information on the displays in the history halls.115
The focus of many of the historical exhibitions was on the explorers of Central Africa, Stanley in particular, and the early generation of Belgian military officials. This was clearly visible in the way the Memorial Hall was organized. The space was named after a monumental plaque engraved with the names of Belgians who had died on African soil before 1908. The hall was adorned with a series of military flags commemorating the military conquest and organization of the colony, covering both the period of the Congo Free State under Leopold II and the post-1908 period, when Congo became a colony of the Belgian state. Both the name of the space—Memorial Hall—and the exhibits themselves show the importance of remembrance in the way history was conceptualized. The museum goer was invited to participate by visiting the room, effectively sharing in a ritual that defined their citizenship as imperial.
“History” in Congo started with the arrival of the Portuguese in 1483, the visitor was told. In the middle of the central history hall was a reproduction of the padrão, or commemorative pillar, erected by Diogo Cão to commemorate his arrival on the Congolese coast. The surrounding display cases told a chronological story of the European presence in Congo. Starting with the relations between Portugal and the kingdom of Kongo, the bulk of the material referred to the political, administrative, and military reign of Leopold II and, later, the Belgian state in central Africa. The only artifacts produced by African people in the history displays were the metal crucifixes attributed to the Kongo kingdom. Central to this colonial story were the military victories against the so-called Arabized slave traders, the abuse of which Leopold II claimed to be freeing the Congolese from. Museum goers could thus admire the heroic efforts and humanistic intentions of Leopold II and his colonizing efforts.116
FIGURE 1.10. Memorial Hall, 1955. HP.1955.96.357, Collection RMCA Tervuren; photo Inforcongo, RMCA Tervuren ©.
In 1958 the fifty-year anniversary of the takeover of the colony by the Belgian state was commemorated with a special exhibition. The political significance of this exhibit at this moment in time is not to be underestimated, since rumblings about Congolese independence had started to surface both in Congo and in Belgium. Tervuren proceeded with an exhibition that celebrated not only the fifty years the Belgian state had been responsible for the colony but also the earlier reign by Leopold II. The official opening speech by the minister of colonies did not mention the current situation in the colony but focused instead on the heroics of Leopold II and his collaborators. The exhibition closed on January 4 1959, the very day political violence broke out in Congo’s capital.117
FIGURE 1.11. Visit of the Yaka king to the Tervuren museum, 1959. HP.1959.28.860, collection RMCA Tervuren; photo R. Stalin (Inforcongo), RMCA Tervuren ©.
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JUSTIFICATION OF the continued presence of Belgium in Africa depended not only on economic, but also on cultural politics that created an image of the colony as exceptional and valuable, a process in which the museum played a central role. In the 1950s Tervuren’s message about the mise en valeur of Congo suggested not only exceptional natural and economic resources but also exceptional and rich cultural resources in the form of art. The history of the ethnography and art displays at the museum shows very clearly how the meaning attributed to the objects on display changed over time, as did the image of Congolese cultures. Olbrechts’s administration was marked by the definitive shift of certain objects from the realm of ethnography to the realm of art. The Congo art room in the museum gave shape to the contours of what came to be considered valuable Congolese cultural heritage. These pieces became the prime carriers of cultural authenticity, defined as untouched, of the past, and traditional.
While a Congolese heritage was given shape in the halls of Tervuren, a Belgian heritage was also created. In the history displays, the struggle for Central Africa was presented as part of the past of the Belgian people, while their present and future were suggested in the displays of the many resources and riches, now including art, of the colony.118 The museum and its collections came to stand for the colony, were an essential part of Belgian heritage, and eventually served as a monument to Belgian colonialism itself.119 The rebirth of certain objects as art allowed for a shift in the interpretation of the “civilizing mission,” in which African material culture previously was used to underwrite the necessity of European colonialism to lift African societies out of primitiveness. Although they were still used to justify the colonial project, it was their preservation that now required the role of the Belgian state as a protector of “traditional” African cultures, and hence, as a cultural guardian.
One wonders about the—admittedly very few—Congolese visitors to the museum. On a number of occasions during the 1950s, mostly during the World Exposition of 1958, Congolese évolués visited the museum in Tervuren. What were their thoughts as they were guided through the halls of the monumental and rather pompous building promoting Congo as a natural unit and praising its riches, but undermining any regard for the lives of its subjects? The following chapter will explore how the contradictions between the colonial regime’s desire to advance and “civilize” on the one hand, and to protect and save African cultures on the other hand, played out in the cultural politics of the colony itself.
2
Guardians of Heritage
A Politique Esthétique and the Museum as a “Laboratory of Native Policy”
IN A 1955 article on the modest Museum of Indigenous Life in the Congolese capital Leopoldville, the museum’s director, Jean Vanden Bossche, enthusiastically described the museum as “a laboratory of native policy.”1 On the one hand, he hoped its displays might inspire and educate Congolese artisans, remedying the perceived decline in authentic traditional arts and crafts. On the other hand, perhaps museum visits could serve as a “civilizing ritual” and shape a modern Congolese subject.2 Through exposure to the sciences of ethnography and art history, a growing urban population would learn to value indigenous cultures as their country’s heritage and would develop a “pure gaze,” becoming modern subjects in the process.3
This chapter investigates how the changing ideas about African art impacted ideas about cultural policies in the colony, and how Belgian cultural guardianship was exercised in the colony.4 More specifically, it traces the activities of a set of metropolitan and Congo-based organizations active in the promotion of Congolese arts and crafts as well as the organization of workshops, art schools, and museums in the colony.5 What role did developing ideas about African art, heritage, the role of museums, sustainable and traditional artisanal production, and the growing influence of Western art education play in attempts to reinvent and control Congolese “traditional” cultures in the colony? Was cultural authenticity interpreted differently with regard to artistic life in the colony than it was in the halls of Tervuren? How was Congolese material culture collected and displayed in the museums in the colony, and how did they differ from metropolitan museums? By analyzing Belgian interpretations of Congolese cultures as a political project, I trace changes in the Belgian colonial regime during the 1950s and rising tensions between the colonial government in Belgium and cultural organizations and Catholic congregations involved with the organization of “indigenous” education in the colony. Although the archival material has been profoundly shaped by the colonial project, I attempt to trace how Congolese leaders, artisans, and artists responded to the various colonial initiatives aimed at the organization of artistic life. This exploration of the introduction of ideas about cultural authenticity and heritage to the colonial scene will shed light on the nature and content of postcolonial culture explored in the following chapters.
The chapter first sketches the creation of a framework