“Style Congo. Heritage & Heresy” explores the politics of cultural representation and appropriation through contemporary artistic and architectural interventions as well as historic documents and materials from CIVA's Collections. The exhibition visually chronicles the representation of Congo in international expositions held between 1885 and 1958, using Art Nouveau as its anchor point. The movement—at the time also called “Style Congo”—coincided with King Leopold II’s exploitation of the Congo and reflects a widespread fascination with “exotic” materials and forms.
The works in the exhibition question and destabilize canonical histories and the colonial roots of this heritage. By examining marks of colonization in the city of Brussels and in the Congolese urban landscape, they present a decolonial resignification of private and public spaces, seeking to rewrite the margins of history into the center.
Tickets are sold on site at the CIVA reception desk. More info via this link.
Curated by Sammy Baloji, Silvia Franceschini, Nikolaus Hirsch, Estelle Lecaille
With works by Judith Barry, Rossella Biscotti, Peggy Buth, Ayoh Kré Duchâtelet, Jean Katambayi, Johan Lagae & Paoletta Holst, Chrystel Mukeba, Daniela Ortiz, Ruth Sacks, Traumnovelle
With selected works by Ernest Acker, Victor Bourgeois, Joseph Caluwaers, Jean-Jules Eggericx, Paul Hankar, Georges Hobé, Victor Horta, Henry Lacoste, René Pechère, Fernand Petit, René Schoentjes, Gustave Serrurier-Bovy
Tickets are sold on site at the CIVA reception desk. More info via this link.
