Unrivalled Art at the Royal Museum for Central Africa (Tervuren, Belgium)
Unrivalled Art
Temporary Exhibition
This room contains four display cabinets with a significant collection of artistic production in the domain of masks, statuary, sculpted ivory and ‘utilitarian’ art. The pieces brought together here almost all come from Congo and mainly date back to the 19th and the first half of the 20th century.
Other display cabinets deal with more specific themes, which really touch on considerations specific to the History of Art. For example, in some it is a matter of trying better to understand the notion of beauty from an African perspective. In other spaces, it is about better understanding the extent to which the Belgian presence modified certain aspects of the production and sale of sculptures in Congo. In a different part of the room, researchers will propose an alternative to the study of African material cultures outside the context of ethnography, by developing the discipline of the history of arts in Africa.
This approach, which owes a lot to the pioneering work of Belgians such as F. M. Olbrechts (former director of the RMCA), makes it possible to develop stylistic and iconographic analysis in African art, but also, and this is of paramount importance, the research carried out by the artist, the Man behind the object.
Exhibition Preview
From the Collections
Art of the Ancestors extends a special thank you to Pauline Malenga Mwanga.