Slade Lecture Series 2023

Defiant Sculpture: Isek Bodys Kingelez and Mobutu Sese-Seko’s Authenticité, 1990s

In this lecture I discuss Mobutu Sese-Seko who, as president of the Democratic Republic of Congo (1965-1996), exemplified the theatrical Big Man ruler in postcolonial Africa. By deploying anti-Communist rhetoric, he secured Western Bloc support of his spectacularly kleptocratic regime and, through his anti-Western Authenticité program, created a national culture in his own image. Against Mobutu’s repressive political practice and ideology, I read the architectural sculptures of Isek Bodys Kingelez (1948-2015). I argue that their extravagant hypermodernity, as with segments of popular arts, constitute a distinctive form of imaginative resistance to official culture under Mobutu.

 

This final lecture will be delivered online on Friday 10 March at 5pm.

Listen Now

Defiant Sculpture: Isek Bodys Kingelez and Mobutu Sese-Seko’s Authenticité, 1990s

Professor Chika Okeke-Agulu

https://ox.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Pages/Embed.aspx?id=126b3341-337c-4a4e-9b6d-aff600993642&autoplay=false&offerviewer=false&showtitle=true&showbrand=false&captions=false&interactivity=none