Remembering the Present: Painting and Popular History in Zaire

by Johannes Fabian

This book combines ethnography with the study of art to present a fascinating new vision of African history. It contains the paintings of a single artist depicting Zaire's history, along with a series of ethnographic essays discussing local history, its complex relationship to forms of self-expression and self-understanding, and the aesthetics of contemporary urban African and Third World societies. As a collaboration between ethnographer and painter, this innovative study challenges text-oriented approaches to understanding history and argues instead for an event- and experience-oriented model, ultimately adding a fresh perspective to the discourse on the relationship between modernity and tradition.

During the 1970s, Johannes Fabian encouraged Tshibumba Kanda Matulu to paint the history of Zaire. The artist delivered the work in batches, together with an oral narrative. Fabian recorded these statements along with his own question-and-answer sessions with the painter. The first part of the book is the complete series of 100 paintings, with excerpts from the artist's narrative and the artist-anthropologist dialogues. Part Two consists of Fabian's essays about this and other popular painting in Zaire. The essays discuss such topics as performance, orality, history, colonization, and popular art.

Genres: Nonfiction, Anthropology, Africa

385 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

Reviews

[Mir · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't really "read" this book, I just looked it over. I am not reviewing it so much as telling you about the contents in case you might be interested in this topic. I picked this up because I liked the artist's painting on the cover of "Speaking with Vampires: Rumor and History in Colonial Africa". But there are only a few color repros here so it was disappointing to me, but I'm glad Fabian undertook this project and recorded what Tshibumba Kanda-Matulu had to say (especially since the artist disappeared not many years later).

First there is a preface by Fabian about the project, which is a record of what Kanda-Matulu had to say about the history and current situation of Zaire.

There's an interview between the two.

Then a long section where each page has a reproduction of painting like this below, only small and NOT in color, boo! With Tshibumba Kanda-Matulu's oral account verbatim of what he is depicting in the scene.


In the center of the book there are a few color repros, include some other non-political subjects like mermaids and landscapes.

Then the last two hundred pages are ethnographic essays which I only read the first of.

[Lucy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful book. Interesting look at popular art and its portrayal of history in Zaire.

[Lorraine M. Thompson]

This is an excellent book...and Fabian does a great job weaving the details/stories behind the paintings together in a coherent tale.

[Einar Jensen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This weekend I read a marvelous book on the history of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (aka Zaire, aka Belgian Congo, aka another round of Zaire). Johannes Fabian wrote Remembering the Present to navigate discussions with Congolese artist Tshibumba Kanda Matulu (known among friends as TKM). Starting in 1972, TKM painted a series of images documenting his nation’s history, which is why the book’s subtitle is Painting and Popular History in Zaire. I ordered the book because I sought paintings from African artists for the research I’m doing. I found paintings that fit my project, but the history— graphic and written — is so interesting, I read the whole thing.

That nation’s story is riddled with violence from its time as a Portuguese colony through the 20th Century. Slavery continued into the 1950s under Belgian rule, but when Belgium granted the nation independence, decades of brutal civil wars and infighting commenced.

The author, a professor of anthropology, uses the second half of the book to explain the ethnographic importance of TKM’s paintings. This investigation also was engaging because he didn’t write down to his readers. Nor did he try to impress readers with his grand knowledge. In fact, his eye for semiotic details adds wonderful depth to the paintings and challenged me to “reread” the paintings I’ve already encountered and included in my project. For the art historians, anthropologists, and art appreciators in my midst, I recommend this book.