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In the courtyard of the Egmont Palace in Brussels on Wednesday morning, a small crowd patiently waited for the arrival of Her Majesty the Queen of Belgium, for the inauguration of the exhibition "AfricaMuseum @ EgmontPalace" on the occasion of the National Day.
In the presence of various artists including Baloji, the Belgian-Congolese musician, or Aimé Ntakiyica and many others, his majesty the Queen, accompanied by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign and European Affairs, Didier Reynders, took the time to discover each work in the idyllic setting of the magnificent marbled palace of Egmont.
This exhibition is not trivial. This is the last exhibition outside the walls of the Royal Museum of Central Africa, which will reopen on December 8, 2018 after five years of renovation. A museum whose collections represent some 10,000,000 zoological specimens, 6,000 insects, 1,000,000 fish, 200,000 rock samples, 170,000 photographs of Rwanda, Burundi and the DRC of 19 and and 20 e centuries, 650 films on the DRC, Rwanda and Burundi made between 1940 and 1960, 120,000 ethnographic objects, 80,000 wood samples, 40,000 aerial photographs, 20,000 geological maps, 17,000 minerals, 8,000 musical instruments, 3 Km from archives
The Egmont Palace has chosen to highlight 20 contemporary works by African artists, which shed light on the new approach to the renovated museum. On the ground floor, among tapestries and white marble statues, you will discover the work of Aimé Ntakiyica, a photographic self-portrait of Magritte's "Son of Man". An original way of appropriating works and European artistic codes. Opposite, you can appreciate the famous canvas "The path of exile" Chéri Chérin, his real name Joseph Kinkonda, typically Kinoise, which translates the incessant trips back and forth between the shores of neighboring Kinshasa and Brazzaville. Arriving at the end of the impressive staircases of the palace, stands the strange work of Maarten Vanden Eynde "They shared the world". A kind of immense wheel of fortune revisited, whose various pie-like areas evoke the distribution of Africa's economic and natural resources at the Berlin Conference and at the International Meridian Conference in Greenwich. An old solitary bell also took place in the palace of Egmont. This bronze bell, found in Central Congo in 1604, symbolizes for Eric Kabongo, the alarm bell. It reads in legend: " In the church, she announces the time of the prayer; I would like a big bell to announce to the world that it is time for the Congo to live in peace, that it is time for the Congolese people to wake up and take their destiny in their hands, that it is time for the Congo to go ahead … "
To close this event, accompanied by the melodies of singer Baloji , Didier Reynders took the floor to emphasize the importance of the links that unite Belgium and Central Africa: "This temple of diplomacy " which is the palace of Egmont will allow " highlighting what unites us in Central Africa .
The works question the relationship between Africa and the West. The ensemble, which combines works, masks and stuffed lion is a kind of showcase of the renovated Royal Museum of Central Africa, with a more critical look at colonization.
Infos: The Palace of Egmont On the occasion of the National Day, the exhibition will be open to the public and will be available free of charge from July 21st to August 31st.
Constance Brother
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