From a Kontempo perspective
Serge Matuta
Since the outbreak of the Librist movement’s rebellion against academicism and its rules of beauty in 1996, Congolese artistic practice, and Kinshasa’s in particular, has undergone profound structural change. New mediums, previously unknown, emerged on the scene. Artists found themselves free to create, emancipating themselves from academic constraints. And several artists’ collectives were born, one after the other.
“Kontempo” is an appropriation of the word “contemporary” and its reference to the local art scene in Kinshasa. Over time, this neologism has come to describe a current artistic movement in Kinshasa. It’s a trend that is inevitably motivated by resilience and anti-conformism. It is in this logic of reappropriation that “Contemporary” has become “Kontempo”.
The aim of this work is to take a critical look at contemporary Congolese art. Looking at kontempo as an artistic practice and method, the project explores the Congolese art scene through an exhibition of photographic, documentary and sound archives. These materials bear witness to different eras, in tandem with a compilation of viewpoints from various actors such as Eddy Masumbuku, Fransix Mampuya and Iviart Izamba.
Born in 2000, Serge Matuta lives and works in Kinshasa. He graduated in visual communication from the Académie des Beaux-Arts de Kinshasa in 2022. He is currently pursuing a second degree in conservation and restoration at the same institution. At the same time, he devotes himself to artistic research and art criticism. He is particularly interested in the paradoxes and peculiarities of the Congolese art scene in general and Kinshasa in particular. As a theorist, he studies urban modes of artistic production, socio-cultural phenomena and contemporary art. He is interested not only in aspects of postcoloniality and the traces of colonialism in contemporary Kinshasa, but also in the current conditions of local artistic production and research and their impact on aesthetics and forms of presentation.
On the contemporary art scene, he is notably active as head of production at Ciné-club Minzoto and in the administration of Krithika Artprojects. He was artistic director of Ciné Bala Bala (2022) and deputy curator of the “Alternative” exhibition (2023), and a member of the organisation of the play “The Ghosts are returning” by the group 50:50 and the conference “The time for denial is over” in collaboration with the University of Lubumbashi in Kinshasa. He has also taken part in several literary writing workshops with authors such as Paul Kawzack and Véronique Tadjo.