Dancing with Smoke

In honor of Mujinga Tanga AngéliqueIt is striking how the language of trauma is circulating across the social spectrum in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The source is probably NGOs concerned with public health and human rights, although Toma Muteba Luntumbue intuits that people begin to speak of trauma when they have been denied a source of consolation.1 In addition to the unresolved psychological wounds left from colonial occupation, Congolese have experienced an unrelenting litany of massacres in the past few decades, such as the Kamwina Nsapu rebellion (2016-2019), that receive no public acknowledgement, no national day of mourning. Grief must always be driven inwards.2 Artist Géraldine Tobe, inspired by her grandmother, Mujinga Tanga Angélique, to believe that art can serve society, takes trauma as her subject, as in her wide-ranging 2024 exhibition Création Sans Visages. Sur les traces des oubliés (Without Faces: On the Track of the Forgotten), which challenged her audience in Kinshasa to remember all those rendered invisible to power—including enslaved Congolese sent across the Atlantic (Fig. 1).Tobe's career has been building steadily since 2015. In addition to European residencies, which have proved important to many Congolese contemporary artists, Tobe has been able to travel to an unusual degree in Africa, including formative experiences in Ouidah (Republic of Bénin) and Antananarivo (Madagascar). In 2020, her work created a splash at the Jinan Biennale in China where it was exhibited near the pavilions of Xu Bing and Song Dong (Tobe and de Wolf 2022: 69-73).3Tobe will say that she turned to figuration in order to engage viewers in philosophical, moral reflection. She revels in exhibitions as she prefers to work in suites of images that open the space of the canvas into the room. She makes her viewers confront suffering but there is no cheap pathos here. Her subjects are too active—they look out, look across, look down, and sometimes challenge us directly. The artist knows her anatomy and her ability to depict people that one can imagine meeting on the street is matchless. Few artists show such tenderness to the ravages of age and impoverishment (Fig. 2). And yet, she does not work with models. Instead, it is almost as though she conceives of the body as a collage to be assembled from fragments. The suffering on display spurs viewers to search for a narrative but the artist effectively thwarts any sense of resolution. There is something that prevents us from tying up the story: a missing face, a body in fragments, the mysterious universe composed according to its own personal vocabulary (or ”individual mythology” as Harald Szeemann would have worded it), in this case, involving the portentous arrival of a crow and a plethora of insects (Szeemann 2018 [1972]).4Her images fascinate because they often verge on the grotesque (Fig. 3). However, this is not the “grotesque realism” celebrated by Mikhail Bakhtin, who insisted that in carnival the drunken, defecating, farting, guffawing bodies of the folk are “not individualized” as they incarnate “the people who are continually growing and renewed” (Bakhtin 1984 [1965]: 18-19). Instead, Tobe decries the separation of individuals from the human community. What is repellent are the acts of rejection—figures who have lost their faces (identities) (Fig. 3) or the ferocity of the mighty hell bent on exterminating the weak from the face of the earth (Fig. 11). Tobe's technique with its restricted palette works in tandem with the fragmentation of bodies to invite reflection on the troubling distanciation of modern society.As she relates in the conversation that follows, Tobe received a rigorous classical education at Kinshasa's respected Academy of Fine Arts and struggled to find her own path. Finally, in an act of autoiconoclasm, she burned all of her paintings in 2012 and was inspired to create her own medium involving the manipulation of smoke on canvas. Elsewhere, she has said that watching the bonfire triggered childhood memories and that interacting with the dance of smoke allowed her to “recuperate” part of herself, which she could then open to others. She begins by making stencils directly from her own drawings; alternatively, she may print out a photograph from her archival research in large format and cut out the desired image.5 Given the richness of the tonal gradations, it would be easy to mistake her compositions in reproduction for charcoal drawings (Fig. 3). Instead, she affixes paper stencils to the surface of the canvas and mounts it overhead. Then with a small, handheld kerosene lamp, she reaches overhead to pass the flame across the surface, also moving in and out. The stencils will be peeled off at different stages in the process in order to vary the depth of the shading. She will also sometimes make use of pencil-like wands to shift the position of the stencils as she works in order to create a fine boundary line or to channel the smoke toward or away from a particular area. Tobe may apply collage elements or use a small gouge to create a white line by removing some of the surface of the smoke left on the canvas (Fig. 4). In the end, the artist sprays the image with a fixative. The result yields a surprisingly complex textured surface that suits the phantasmagoric apparitions of her imagination (Fig. 5). Depending on their frames of reference, viewers may struggle to find analogies in the history of art, reaching for figures as different as Hieronymous Bosch, Barthélémy Tuguo, or the Cuban printmaker Belkis Ayón.Like El Anatsui, who also invented his own medium (in his case, using bottle-tops), Tobe's technique is always experimental and evolving. Whereas many art historians think of a medium as a mode of creative expression determined by its materials (as in the “medium of oil painting”), Anatsui draws on the vocabulary of “microbiology, where the medium is ‘that which enables.’ A medium is an enabling environment which allows it to grow. It's not just the materials but live media which form or cause ideas to grow.”6 For Tobe, the dance of the smoke enables meditations on transience, death, social justice. Her figures are never fixed but always in a process of transmutation, “evaporating” before our eyes (de Wolf 2022: 94-95). One of her mentors, Prof. Jean Kambayi Bwatshia, interprets her work in the Kalunga Series (Figs. 6-7) as inviting the viewer to “dive into the psyche” and to discover oneself as always in the state of becoming, at one with the divine (Bwatshia 2022: 16-17).7Ironically, as more Congolese travel in the Global South, they are often inspired to renewed interest in their own past. Jeanpy Kabongo realized how detached he was from his own culture only while studying digital filmmaking in India when fellow students asked him to teach them something about Congolese art history.8 This experience inspired him to research Kuba textile designs. He and Tobe plan to open a discussion space in Kinshasa where people are invited to examine the reasoning and values of the past and what might be selectively incorporated into contemporary life.Tobe is particularly concerned that the manner with which missionaries (re)introduced Christianity during the colonial era has led to a situation in which Congolese pastors today of evangelical churches (églises de reveil) reject all ties to indigenous spirituality as “satanic.” Her grandmother, her older brother, and she herself were harmed by these attitudes and Tobe believes that Congolese need to reconcile themselves with their past in order to move forward. Other artists are looking with new openness to historical Congolese spiritual leaders such as Kimpa Vita and Simon Kimbangu, who inspired powerful resistance movements.Géraldine Tobe spoke with Z.S. Strother on June 27, 2023 about her creative mission. Readers will be struck by how often fire is referenced in this exchange. Although Tobe acknowledges her autobiographical inspiration, Henri Kalama Akulez, director of the Academy of Fine Arts of Kinshasa, recognizes that Tobe's art aspires to purge the collective memory of Congolese, which has too long been relegated to private, voiceless repression. As he writes, the smoke makes visible the “‘toxic life experience’ of a society in which the traumas of painful histories are intertwined with every individual's personal quest for self-knowledge” (Akulez 2022, translated by ZSS).Z.S. Strother: Géraldine, welcome.Géraldine Tobe: Thank you, Zoë.ZSS: I recommend that everyone read the excellent catalogue for your exhibition Kalunga in Brussels [Tobe and de Wolf 2022]. I appreciate that you invited artists to comment on your work and I found the approach of Lhola Amira inspirational. I would like to follow their model. They begin by asking how are you: Are your bones strong and your lungs healthy? They write that “we find ourselves wondering about your wellbeing ... [and] what scars you are holding” because there is “always the shadow in your work that pulls us closer” (Amira 2022). You gaze into the fire, into the smoke, but how do you fortify yourself to take up this charge? What do you do to be strong?GT: If I can answer this question, I would say that first of all ... I am stronger mentally, than physically. When people compare me to my work, I appear fragile to them and yet my work strikes them as.ZSS: CourageousGT: Courageous.ZSS: That's what we're asking: how do you keep strong?GT: How do I keep strong? I'm going to digress—I think this is linked to my upbringing. I was born into a family of five children. I'm the fourth. My mother became a widow at a young age. Her husband died when she was around 23-25 years old. Imagine a young woman left a widow. She suddenly had to stand up to the rest of the world to protect her children. As a consequence, my mother is a very strong woman. I take her as an example. So every time I find myself in a critical situation, I always tell myself that I can find a means to transform this problem, this worry, into a source of inspiration that will make me strong.I give an example from 2015, I was giving a performance dedicated to the women priests who existed in ancestral society, the women who were healers. Commonly they are called “Mama Ndona” or “Mama And today these women no because of the strong of evangelical churches de what are fire in the of the performance and I my How an to because my the of my it all For a I on my because I how to up or I was that some of my were I no because was was a very the I was very very I was at the of my and I could no I had my ... I to because it was too I And I would say that I was on the verge of when a very you give You for because you how many people you will you for the people who on And to the of this I about my who is because I was the one who of My was that he have to take of him and that he could up on the was my I I to for I will do it for the people who on I that the from the traumas that you and your mother One must open oneself to one must their and one must take for That's You were burned your And you work with You not with fire this say that was by the of how the of a trauma in the or of you have this technique which you use fire and How I must say that many what you have would be They would be with their with their society, with And yet, I do not sense any in you ... a of with I will I do not have the of who others. That's not for What would that from my personal I that every time you your you make them for You And in a position where you the of the will you from going This is I On the I to do all that I can for So I say that I am with with I would like or as a contemporary artist is that the the keep an open give an example. When I was I was one of those of was like a when the churches every family had who were of You experience is what me who I am I'm not that I with this it me it So who am I to take a position in to what the is a form of that I can of is to have an open I was in Republic during the The of and the who for the he it all to me very He is but he to the spirituality of his This is something that no find in Kinshasa, in For a a form of from the spirituality of image is part of a that I during my at the de from historians at the in 2018 about the missionaries in and the they in people from their ancestral This is in my I think that missionaries to do do work, it would be to the that our to their would be an and How do these with your with your mysterious How long does it take to make such a complex with the the There are some that take but at a or a and a there are also that are There is that must be into When I work with smoke, I say that I have the out from the I I'm going to do this or that but when I to the where I the canvas my and I begin the that I what going to be I have a but the result is not up to me to It's the smoke, the the always something I say like a I I the smoke my it is it has its own according to its So like a in that So when I I stand but I am more that I can follow the dance of And you what you have What the paper stencils that you use I I have a technique that When I use paper I pass the flame the surface, not the paper will ... You that the a of when they to the So they give they think would to This is what It's different to For I was in a I in I but I am What is is that I would not like to what I experienced and I would not it on I to be this is a or What has been your experience of I can answer this question, that my experience with fire, an experience that up my work a If you the of my work, before my and my can Géraldine, but I turned to the human because this experience allowed me to how fragile life And in my the of is but it is not in the What is in the is the the the that this the will I about I have been by a form of I that in 2015, during my in I to an exhibition at the des Arts was my first time to the work of when I I a of and but it was exhibition that me from to the the the was a I as though to So this was the exhibition that in my And to this I remember In 2015, I was but I said to I have the to make I would like would like to have this of on You sent me some images from your exhibition including of this a How to imagine your own that it a body out at a her body with the face of the by in the I a that my me when I was She that when she was a in the as there was no no to the then the a they a fire, but not a fire to the but a fire to the body to its was a of the body in order to to travel from for the this is an that the is my I am the one there in I'm not the one It's a of my Tanga she rest in I that she were she would be because it was important to her that at one of her honor their my family is For her and some of her ancestral education is be about because it is And as for I was always a If you me to where I was going to I but I always something me to to that And when I at her I up at her and teach because I that you no have many years left on this experience I am a who was born in the I am by my experience with my So I to I have also some of her personal When in Kinshasa, she the So she had her that she every to to on which was So there you have is to is the And what about these compositions that the with bodies of the are while are and When I was at there was our art history who us about the of And at that I was particularly by the of his when I was at the I anatomy and how to figures in So in this work I of takes the of a and I myself of the I make works that have a that a in the that these works will to the public who I also must myself be by what I have a of the That's I'm part of the So is the the compositions the I to and myself that no no how many no all will up it all us one The world is like are born to because when the what This is I this I'm not it for but I'm it to be an example for others. This the different attitudes of these different people who body at the There are those who are who you had my I have to make for the new the to they the of an exhibition from a the and you the When I was this work, I on images on one on the and one at the are part of the of And the that show that only time the of all pass There are in the There are always What does the for it because a it because it can it What is it for The for me This is the to to to what you were in How I to work with the there is an like a ... it very The in is called There was a looking for a to give every her one in a found her a where she could take she the became and the I myself with this or years When I at the Academy Fine Arts in I and found it to from classical I said to I'm going to the and And I I burned all my paintings and how I the the inspiration to work with fire and So as the of the that I had burned were in also speak of your work as an What about this on as the The viewer the of the the of the as he every of his to his is (Fig. although the begin to by just as one in the of the and in the of What must be is that in my I inspiration from what is in my society and the I called this work “the “the In this work, there are There is a struggle on one on this there is who is who who is on the of And there are always the say that the figures are I use the as an to the body of my And also the the people who They that are not and that they have the to do but they They just in the there are the And these also And I to Congolese is to you have been one of your family has been or he has been by and you to the one who has you will the of his social This is when everyone to the for the is of Kalunga will do one It's an expression of Toma also sent some He is in your work at the you an to by the and I the is a that are in with the the of and the is by artists, and who are in this form of is first and an to also to some who the to to and to make a For you remember the who as an is because he does is very for the who have the with a and when have more will of because there are who would like to how to and there are also those who to make Toma also where do you yourself in five That's a to answer What is I will always be an artist and I will always to work with long as I speak of the you the day your with For you the of the in the in of the do you think that Congolese, or more more with across the world because of their experiences with I have been on that with my called Sans a (Figs. What do I by a It's all the people who live in the shadow of who are and are not today has it has find ourselves in in which are I like giving myself think about like with Lhola us with their have asked your to you and (Amira me a the I to with the spirituality of my was my personal was only my at in when I had the of making it a collective by inviting to Amira is one of or artists who were invited to work on the of the Lhola their body with their are They also work as an exhibition when they are by the In I had a very long meeting with on So when she is a she is When she into a at that it is her Lhola Amira who the body and They as an So I you to that it is not but the who Thank

Art · Conversation · Geography · Meteorology · Smoke · African history and culture studies · Communication · Psychology

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