Authentically African. Sarah Van Beurden
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impression that COPAMI and AAI members cultivated was an abstract “traditional” identity in which regional differences were acknowledged but not much engaged. Regional identities were desirable as a basis for marketability and authentication, but the cultural identity of the category of products overall was imagined as “Bantou,” “Black,” or “Congolese.”
In 1956 the Ministry of Colonies followed COPAMI’s recommendations and created two workshops: one in Tshikapa, under the leadership of Robert Verly, and the other in Paulis, led by Lina Praet. This time, the language used by both the commission members and the government indicated a consensus with regard to the art versus artisanship question by defining the target as the artisanat d’art, or art craftsmanship, elevating it above the mere production of souvenirs, but still grounding it in craftsmanship. The workshops were to allow artisans to affirm their work’s “active cultural and social value.” The ministry emphasized that the workshops should be, above all, in service of the traditional community and the “prestige of the old cultures.”62 It is likely that Tshikapa was chosen because it was within reach of several traditional cultures rich in artistic traditions, such as Chokwe, Pende, Luba, and Lulua. It was also the location of the Forminière company, which exploited the rich diamond fields in the area.63 The Paulis (today named Isiro) area was probably chosen because of its proximity to the Mangbetu people, another group famous for its art and considered one of the “classic” Congolese cultures. Clearly the workshops were established in places where it would be easy to capitalize on existing traditions. This strategy demonstrated the preference for the mise en valeur of artisanship over an activation or regeneration of cultural production in underdeveloped regions.
FIGURE 2.1. Robert Verly in one of the Tshikapa workshops, 1957. HP.1957.1.747, collection RMCA Tervuren; photo C. Lamote (Inforcongo), RMCA Tervuren ©.
In 1957 a delegation of COPAMI members toured the colony for six weeks to get an overview of existing art and artisanal initiatives. While Maquet-Tombu, during her journey of the early 1950s, had reported on the art production organized by Congolese communities themselves, the 1957 delegation chose instead to visit workshops, museums, art schools, and other initiatives organized by Westerners (mostly Belgians). They devoted special attention to the Ateliers Sociaux d’Art Indigène, created the previous year. By that time Verly had set up a network of twelve workshops in and around Tshikapa. His efforts garnered praise from the delegation for stimulating the “creative spirit” and instigating the “return to a purity of forms” among “his” artisans. Praet had only been working for six months, but she had succeeded in establishing a series of workshops around Paulis, some of which already possessed commissions to send material to the 1958 world exposition in Brussels. Both she and Verly recruited artisans and artists, gave them a space in which to work, provided them with basic materials, and attracted young Congolese apprentices. Praet’s approach was somewhat different from Verly’s: she attracted the artisans to local centers under the assumption that they would provide the strongest presence of traditional leadership, while Verly maintained his workshops in more rural areas.64
COPAMI did not succeed in allying all the artisanal workshops scattered around the colony—far from it. The majority of workshops and schools remained unaffiliated with the colonial administration. Some of these unaffiliated groups had to adhere to a certain set of standards because they received subsidies from the government, but many others were independent. Among the subsidized were the Sisters of Charity in Kikombo and the artisanal school at the mission in Gandajika in the eastern Kasai region. Among the independent workshops that drew the commission’s attention was the one created in Leopoldville by the businessman Maurice Alhadeff.65 Of Greek origin but an American citizen, Alhadeff contracted with artisan and artists, provided them with materials and a wage, and took whatever they produced in return, hoping for a financial reward for his investment. He sponsored the work of painters, potters, and ivory sculptors. Leopoldville’s AAI and the visiting COPAMI members were not very happy with his approach, which they considered to be too intrusive in the artistic process and too heavily dependent on his own personal taste.66
A particular source of frustration for COPAMI was its inability to establish control over art and artisanal production among the Kuba. As one of the most, if not the most, admired form of Congolese art in the West, its “protection” was of prime importance. Mweka, a regional center in the Kuba region, possessed a cooperative for arts and crafts in which the local administration was involved. It had been created at the request of both the Kuba king and the many sculptors who produced pieces for sale at the railroad that passed just south of Kuba country. The sheer number of objects had a negative effect on the sales price, and the creation of the cooperative allowed a minimum price to be established. COPAMI and the AAI, however, felt that the quality of the work being sold by the Mweka cooperative was too low.
Also in the area was the artisanal school of the Josephite congregation in Nseng, which received subsidies from the colonial government.67 Fathers Antonin D’Haenens and Cyprianus focused on traditional Kuba motifs in wood and ivory carving. COPAMI felt that the fathers’ influence was “too modernizing” and encouraged too much serial copying. The supposed copying was a particular problem for the commission, since it was rumored to be done straight from the illustrations in Emil Torday’s and T. A. Joyce’s works on Kuba art.68 Elizabeth Cameron confirms that “the arrival of the Flemish priests imbued with European ideas of preserving heritage . . . forced the Kuba themselves to move to new production and profoundly changed the meaning of the ndop, making it export art.”69
COPAMI was worried that the school might develop a separate trading post through which they would be able to dominate the artisanal sales of the region.70 The Kuba king, who was allied with the school, pressured it to hire a Kuba sculptor, Jules Lyeen (son of the former king), in order to have more influence over production. The school, as a result, became something of a “joint venture,” as the Kuba historian Jan Vansina put it, effectively locking out COPAMI interference.71Clearly, the struggle to gain control over the landscape of workshops, sales initiatives, and art schools was an uphill battle.72 COPAMI repeatedly ran up against the strong and powerful presence of missionary congregations and schools. Although the commission’s relationship with these was not always negative, COPAMI preferred to see stronger state control of the artistic landscape.73
The Catholic monopoly on education in the colony wasn’t broken until 1958, and little was accomplished in the two years before independence in 1960. In the end, COPAMI never achieved the creation of a fully implemented system of regulation and control and had to satisfy itself with a few directly controlled workshops and constant negotiations with local colonials—be they administrators, company officials, or missionaries—who often resented the meddling from the metropole. Artisanal workshops and art schools, however, were not the only focus of concern for COPAMI and AAI members. Museums devoted to Congolese life and cultures were also accorded place in both organizations’ plans for the protection and revival of artistic and artisanal life in the colony.
MUSEUMS IN THE COLONY: A “LABORATORY OF NATIVE POLICY” OR THE DREAM OF A CONGOLESE TERVUREN?
As mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, a number of museums popped up in the colony during the 1930s. They were all the result of either private initiatives, the collection of artifacts by missionaries, or efforts by AAI branches. In addition to the Museum of Indigenous Life, created by the AAI in Leopoldville, the capital also had a museum of prehistory and a museum of geology. There were two ethnographic museums run by missionary congregations in the Mayombe region, one in Lunda territory and one intermittently under colonial administration in Mweka; geology museums in Jadotville and Bukavu; and of course the Leopold II Museum in Elisabethville, which focused on prehistory and geology.74 Other ethnographic museums existed, at some point, in Stanleyville, Coquilhatville, Lwiro, and Mushenge.75 Of all of these ventures, the MVI was the one that drew the most attention from Brussels, and was the most active in the promotion of Congolese cultures.
The colonial administration’s increased attention to the artistic life of the colony