Sammy Baloji Explained

Sammy Baloji (born 1978) is a photographer from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He works in Lubumbashi and Brussels, and held exhibitions in Amsterdam, Paris, Brussels, Bilbao, Cape Town and Bamako.[1] [2]

Biography

Baloji was born in Lubumbashi on December 29, 1978. He graduated in literature and human science at the University of Lubumbashi.[3] [4]

After his study he first began to work as a cartoonist. Later he specialized in video art and photography. He made much of his work in his own province of Katanga. Recurrent in his work are ethnographic exploitation, architecture and urbanism, like the exploitation of man and environment in the Congolese urban landscape.

When the artist was younger, he and his family were in the midst of the growing poverty that followed the ending control of Belgium over the Katanga province. His father, Célestin Baloji, lost both his job and house as a result to this. During a day in 1998, when Baloji was leaving school, he was given a camera by his brother-in-law, and then later given a Canon camera from his aunt in 2003. After obtaining his first camera, Baloji had trained under photographer, Simon Mukundayi.[5]

The artist also cofounded the biennale at Lubumbashi with Gulda el Magambo Bin Ali in 2008, with the intention of art being more accessible within the area, as there were little resources for it at the time.[6]

Theme and works

Baloji is commonly known for his photographic works, which usually pertains to Lubumbashi's 20th century history, including Mémoire, The Album, and his Kolwezi series.[7] [8] [9]

The theme within most of Baloji's works is in relation to Lubumbashi's colonized history, which was initially controlled by Belgium. This includes the time where the Belgium king, Leopold II, was in possession of the Congolese people in the province, but they were eventually passed off to the Union Minière du Haut-Katanga. The union started to control the Congolese people into forced mining labor in 1911. The land that held Lubumbashi was rich in valuable materials, with the most abundant source being copper, something that can be seen in Baloji's sculpture work.

Photographic Essay on Urban Planning was also a collection of photographs created by the artist himself. The series contained twelve images within a grid, depicting half as aerial images of Lubumbashi and the other six filled with flies and mosquitoes. This was in relation to the forced division by the Belgian colonizers on the Congolese people, under the disguise it was meant to separate the people from the malaria holding insects.[10]

Baloji also has works in sculpture as well. Two copper sculptures, Sociétés Secrètes and The Other Memorial were similar pieces that both depicted the texture of scarification, which were in reference to the artist's culture. Sociétés Secrètes contained eight bas-reliefs, which are all unique to one another due to the varying scarification patterns. The Other Memorial is dome shaped and also contains the patterns of scarification, but its historical meaning this time reflects certain instances that happened during World War I.

Baloji and David Nadeau-Bernatchez co-directed the 2020 documentary film Rumba Rules, New Genealogies (Rumba Rules, nouvelles généalogies), about the music scene of Kinshasa.[11]

Mémoire

Mémoire is a series of images composed by Baloji himself, sharing the historical events of Lubumbashi during its colonization in the 20th century. The artist uses black-and-white archival photos of the Congolese people and crops them out onto a colored, contemporary background of mine sites they were forced to work on. Baloji does these compositions and edits in Photoshop. Multiple images within the series portrays the vulnerability and uneasiness of the figures presented on each of the photographs.

The series was also done in a video adaption format, for Baloji's first use in time-based media. This over fourteen-minute video still follows the lines of the original photo series’ meaning, but is now presented by the dancing performance of Congolese choreographer, Faustin Linyekula.[12]

Exhibitions[13]

Solo shows

Group shows

Awards

In 2007 Baloji was twice awarded at the African Photography Encounters in Bamako, Mali, with the Prize Africa in Creation (Prix Afrique en Creation) and the Prize for the Image (Prix pour l’image).[16] In 2009 he was honored with a Prince Claus Award from the Netherlands, for "his highly original inscription of the painful history of human and environmental exploitation into the present-day landscape, for bringing Congo's current realities to an international platform, for his important contribution to the memory of the Congo providing a new reading of the present, and for his challenging demonstration that development can only be realized after duly taking into account the traumas of the past."[17]

He received two Prix Iris nominations for Rumba Rules, New Genealogies at the 24th Quebec Cinema Awards in 2022, for Best Documentary Film and Best Cinematography in a Documentary.[18]

Notes and References

  1. Témoin Africa, Sammy Baloji Né le 29 décembre 1978. Works and lives in Lubumbashi/Bruxelles
  2. Afrika Museum, Sammy Baloji & Patrick Mudekereza
  3. Brakke Grond (2010) biography
  4. Web site: Divine Comedy - Heaven, Purgatory and Hell Revisited by Contemporary African Artists - Kerber Verlag . 2 December 2014 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20140322174354/http://www.kerberverlag.com/en/contemporary_art/divine_comedy/product-2930.html . March 22, 2014 .
  5. . Bogumil . Denial and Challenge of Modernity: Suffering, Recognition, and Dignity in Photographs by Sammy Baloji . 2014 . Suffering, Art, and Aesthetics . 51–74 . Hadj-Moussa . Ratiba . New York . Palgrave Macmillan US . en . 10.1057/9781137426086_3 . 978-1-349-49069-1 . 2021-11-14 . Nijhawan . Michael.
  6. Web site: Louise . Darblay . January 18, 2021 . Artist Sammy Baloji on Colonial Legacies, New Stories and Creating the Lubumbashi Biennale . 2021-11-14 . artreview.com . en.
  7. Nugent. Gabriella. 2019. Mining Time in Sammy Baloji's Mémoire. African Arts. 52. 3. 62–71. 10.1162/afar_a_00482. 199545243. 1937-2108. free.
  8. Web site: Demos. T. J.. 2014. Sammy Baloji and Alice Seeley Harris. 2021-11-14. www.artforum.com. en-US.
  9. Jewsiewicki. Bogumil. Roberts. Allen F. French by. 2016. Leaving Ruins: Explorations of Present Pasts by Sammy Baloji, Freddy Tsimba, and Steve Bandoma. African Arts. 49. 1. 6–25. 10.1162/AFAR_a_00267. 57567753. 1937-2108.
  10. At the Edge of Ruin: Seeing Art Under Perpetual Conflict. UC Santa Cruz. 2016. en. Rachel E.. Nelson.
  11. Philippe Renaud, "«Rumba Rules, nouvelles généalogies»: la loi de la rumba". Le Devoir, September 17, 2021.
  12. Milbourne. Karen E.. Roberts. Mary Nooter. Roberts. Allen F.. 2015. Senses of Time: Video and Film-Based Arts of Africa. African Arts. 48. 4. 72–84. 10.1162/AFAR_r_00255. 24720722. 57572019. 0001-9933.
  13. Web site: ArtFacts. Sammy Baloji Artist. 2021-12-29. ArtFacts. en.
  14. Web site: 2019-11-11. Radical Revisionists: Contemporary African Artists Confronting Past and Present. 2020-06-13. Moody Center for The Arts. en.
  15. Web site: Shen. Aviva. January 24, 2012. Remembering "The Beautiful Time" at the Natural History Museum. 2021-11-14. Smithsonian Magazine. en.
  16. PICTET. portfolios
  17. Prince Claus Fund (2009) biography
  18. Stéphanie Nolin, "Gala Québec Cinéma 2022 : Vincent-Guillaume Otis sacré meilleur acteur". Showbizz, June 5, 2022.

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