Helene Love-Allotey
Head of Department
Lot 2*,W
Aime Mpane(Democratic Republic of Congo, born 1968)La Ramasseuse De Mains Coupées (2014)
2 May 2019, 14:00 EDT
New YorkUS$15,000 - US$20,000
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Aime Mpane (Democratic Republic of Congo, born 1968)
La Ramasseuse De Mains Coupées (2014)
signed and dated 'Aime Mpane 2014' (lower right)
wooden mosaic
208 x 158cm (81 7/8 x 62 3/16in).
signed and dated 'Aime Mpane 2014' (lower right)
wooden mosaic
208 x 158cm (81 7/8 x 62 3/16in).
Footnotes
Following a period at the Fine Arts Academy of Kinshasa, Mpane continued his studies at the prestigious La Cambre National School of Visual Arts in Belgium, where he graduated with a master degree in painting. Although his studio is based in Brussels, he remains deeply attached to his place of birth, making regular visits to Kinshasa.
Many of Mpane's works explore the legacy of colonialism on the DRC. 'La Ramasseuse De Mains Coupees' depicts a scene from 1895, a decade after King Leopold II of Belgium established personal sovereignty over the region, renaming it "the Congo Free State". It tells the story of a young woman forced to work on a plantation gathering rubber. Labourers who failed to meet the quotas set by the Belgian officers were flogged or had their hands severed. This woman cradles her mutilated arms and turns her head to right, staring mournfully at the outline of her disembodied hands.
The history and traditions of the region are written into the very medium of Mpane's artwork. The wooden mosaic has been cut from a thin strip of plywood using an adze, an ancient tool used by Congolese craftsman for centuries. The pieces are held together with fishing net. Despite his formal training as a painter, Mpane states that he prefers the aroma and feel of working with wood.
He claims that he was inspired to work with the mosaic format following an afternoon's contemplation of a brick wall across from his studio:
"I break things down to put them back together. I didn't want to choose the form of a painting, preferring instead a planar surface. I like brick walls and reproduce them as 'trompe l'oeil', creating optical illusions. I had the idea of reinventing the mosaic, a technique dating back to antiquity which existed across civilisations, when I was looking at the wall made of small bricks that I stand across from in my studio in Brussels. I made the mosaic malleable, so it could be folded up and transported in a normal suitcase. It is light in structure, but it bears a cosmic message."
The fragmentary nature of Mpane's medium reflects the many cultural influences that have informed the DRC. The work reveals that all aspects of the country's heritage must be remembered if we are to understand its identity, no matter how painful. A comprehensive picture only emerges once all the pieces are brought together.
Mpane has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Station Museum of Contemporary Art, San Antonio, TX (2007); Museum of Katanga Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of the Congo (2011); University of Wyoming Art Museum, Laramie, WY (2016); and Mill - Musée Ianchelevici, La Louvière, Belgium (2017). He has also been included in group exhibitions at Glazen Huis Amstelpark, Amsterdam, Netherlands (2010); Fondation d'art contemporain Francés, Paris, France (2013); Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA (2013); Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO (2015); Brooklyn Museum, NY (2016); and McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, TX (2017). Mpane's work has been collected by public and private institutions in Africa, Europe and the United States including The Brooklyn Museum, NY; Fondation Jean-Paul Blachére, Apt, France; Royam Museum of Central Africa, Tervuren, Belgium; and National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. He was the recipient of the Prix de la Fondation Jean-Paul Blachére at the Dak'Art Bienniale, Dakar, Senegal (2006) and was later presented with the Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Award (2012).
