Chéri Samba: Stupéfaction

The exhibition “Stupéfaction” presents some fifteen paintings never or rarely shown by Chéri Samba between 1983 and 2022. The exhibition includes “Le Couple d’artiste, circa 1983”, a historic work representing M’Pongo Love, the grande dame of modern Congolese music, “J’aime la couleur de la vraie carte du monde” a very large format work that takes up the painter’s iconic repertoire, and a moving self-portrait from 2022 entitled “La vieillesse d’un homme sans péché”.

As a bearer of messages and morals, and as someone who puts himself on stage, Chéri Samba produces works in which he invites the viewer to enter into stories that are vital, charming, amusing and colourful, but also concerned with African and human issues. For Chéri Samba, art has no boundaries. Both a great master of Congolese “popular painting” and an internationally recognised artist, he tackles universal themes, such as morals, daily life, the great personalities of the world, as well as the history of art, sexuality, social inequalities or corruption. The truculent painter attracts and arrests the eye with his striking colours. The texts written on his paintings, a kind of comic strip, sometimes humorous and often philosophical, provoke reflection and questioning while hoping to awaken consciences in relation to the subject matter.