Kings of Africa. Art and Authority in Central Africa. Erna Beumers, Hans-Joachim Koloss.

(Gabon, Kamerun, DRC, Angola)

Na pierwszy rzut oka to solidny, oprawiony w twardą okładkę album przedstawiający sztukę Afryki Środkowej. Jednak po zaglądnięciu do wewnątrz okazuje się, że znajdziemy tam bardzo ciekawy opis (blisko sto, dużego formatu, stron) afrykańskich królestw będących w rozkwicie przed epoką kolonialną. Album został wydany przy okazji wystawy eksponatów Berlińskiego Muzeum Etnograficznego w Holandii w roku 1992. Moim zdaniem jest to bardzo cenne źródło wiedzy o sztuce Afryki. Zobaczymy rzeźby i maski plemienia Kota i Fang z Gabonu, Oku i Bamum z Kamerunu, Kuba, Kongo i Luba z terenów dzisiejszej Demokratycznej Republiki Konga oraz Chokwe z Angoli. Cytaty:

„By 1920 African resistance was finally totally broken (by Europeans – przypis autora), and the western Bantu tradition was overwhelmed”.

„Fang masks, therefore, can be arranged on a continuum between awesome power and playfulness”.

„The kingdom of Oku is situated in the centre of the Cameroon Grasslands, an area virtally identical to the northwest province of the Republic of Cameroon”.

„The smallest social unit is the family, represented by the man, his various wives, and their unmarried children”.

„This meeting marked the beginning of peaceful relations and cooperation between Germans and the Bamum”.

„In the eyes of the Chokwe, masks were spiritual powers, akishi (sing. mukishi), which the bearers incarnated when they wore them. They dispensed various favours to humans: fertility, successful hunts, riches”.

„Chiefs today continue to play a key role in the political hierarchy, as intermediaries between past and present. Only now they bridge the realm of their ancestors and the national administrative apparatus. They navigate in and out of two worlds, still abiding strictly by the taboos and regulations of kingship when in their villages, but also attending schools in Europe, travelling to America on exchange programs, and keeping one house in their village and another in the regional capital”.

„-Men are chiefs in the daytime, but women become chiefs at night (Ngoy Kasongo, Kinkondja, 1988)”.

„Luba art os not overtly sexual, but it is explicitly erotic (Roberts 1988, 1989; Nooter 1984, 1985, 1990)”.