Lumumba as a symbol of decolonisation and as an icon in the Arts It is no coincidence that a historical figure such as Patrice Emery Lumumba, independent Congo’s first prime minister, who was killed in 1961, has lived in the realm of the cultural imaginary and occupied an afterlife in the arts.
Miller (Yale University), Elikia M’Bokolo (EHESS), Gayatri Spivak (Columbia University), Gert Huskens (ULB), Idesbald Goddeeris (KU Leuven), Isabelle de Rezende (Central Washington University), Jean Tshonda Omasombo (Africa Museum), Johannes Fabian (em., University of Amsterdam), Julien Truddaiu (CEC), Karen Bouwer (University of San Francisco), Leon Tsambu (University of Kinshasa), Luc Tuymans (artist), Mark Sealy (Autograph – ABP), Marlene Dumas (artist), Pedro Monaville (NYU), Pierre Petit (ULB), Piet Defraeye (University of Alberta), Raoul Peck (artist), Robbert Jacobs (artist), Rosario Giordano (Universita della Calabria), Tshibumba Matulu (artist), Veronique Bragard (UCLouvain), Zana Etambala (AfricaMuseum) This publication is GPRC-labeled (Guaranteed Peer Review Content)..
Contributors: Balufu Bakupa-Kanyinda (artist), Bogumil Jewsiewicki (em., Universite Laval), Christopher L.
Furthermore, Lumumba’s Iconography in the Arts offers unique testimonies by a number of artists who have contributed to Lumumba\'s polymorphic iconography, such as Marlene Dumas, Luc Tuymans, Raoul Peck, and Tshibumba Matulu, and includes contributions by such highly acclaimed scholars as Gayatri Spivak, Johannes Fabian, Bogumil Jewsiewicky, and Elikia M’Bokolo.
Film scholars, art critics, historians, philosophers, and anthropologists discuss the rich iconographic heritage inspired by Lumumba.
What is more, it considers every historiography as inherently embedded in iconography.
Rather than seeking to unravel the truth of actual events surrounding the historical Lumumba, this book engages with his representations.
If Lumumba – as an icon – lives on today, it is because the need for decolonisation does as well.
Artists observe the memory and the unresolved suffering that inscribed itself both upon Lumumba’s body and within the history of Congo.
Reverting to either beatifying or diabolising his persona, no art form has been able to escape and remain indifferent to Lumumba.
The figure of Lumumba has been imagined through painting, photography, cinema, poetry, literature, theatre, music, sculpture, fashion, cartoons and stamps, and also through historiography and in public space.
After all, his project remained unfinished and his corpse unburied.
Lumumba as a symbol of decolonisation and as an icon in the Arts It is no coincidence that a historical figure such as Patrice Emery Lumumba, independent Congo’s first prime minister, who was killed in 1961, has lived in the realm of the cultural imaginary and occupied an afterlife in the arts
