IT IS NECESSARY TO SPEND MILLION OF DOLLARS TO BETTER SERVE HIS PEOPLE IN 100 YEARS.” Yet the artist does not define “his people,” and thus blurs interpretations. CONCERNED FOR HIS PEOPLE SUFFERING FROM DEHYDRATION, CHERI SAMBA GOES LOOKING FOR WATER ON PLANET MARS, AS IF THERE WASN’T ANY WATER LEFT ON EARTH YES. Though a tempting reading, it is not a certain one: the diagonal composition may in fact be a formal device, with the stars simply a decorative pattern within it.Ĭhéri Samba has added a caption below the image: “LIFE IS PRICELESS. The arithmetic of the predominant, repetitive pattern of stars, 6 + 1, suggests another possible layer of meaning, evoking the flag adopted in 1960 during Independence, remobilized in 1997, and in use in 2004, when the artist painted his canvas. The slight diagonal of the composition, and its stars, suggest the flag of the DRC: the one in use since 2006, and from 1963 to 1971. In the period following the country’s two civil wars (1996–2003), in the contexts of organic corruption and, in particular, the dysfunction of the Congolese Regideso (the public water utility in charge of distribution), to seek water in space may have seemed easier than to resolve local tensions. Chéri Samba, born (David) Samba wa Mbimba N’zingo Nuni Masi Ndo Mbasi in 1956 in Kinto M’Vuila, in the Bas-Congo (now Kongo Central), is originally from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), called the Republic of Zaire from 1971 to 1997.Īt first glance, it is tempting to read Problème d’eau through the lens of the artist’s origins and to see it as an absurdist social and political critique of the DRC. Repetition is not unusual in Chéri Samba’s work. ![]() In both versions, the subject, coloration, and style evoke Hergé’s On a marché sur la Lune ( Explorers on the Moon, 1964), an impression reinforced by the resolutely retro-futurist rocket. Chéri Samba, though still positioned on the prow of the rocket, has traded in one of his buckets for a small yellow container. The composition and colors in this version differ slightly: the corresponding text is not situated at the top of the canvas but rather to the right, above a pebbled planet Mars rendered in moonlike colors. There is at least one variation, also from 2004, which is titled only in French: Où trouver l’eau. Originally in the CAAC (Contemporary African Art Collection) of Jean Pigozzi, this painting was notably on display in 2007 in the Italian Pavilion of the 52nd Venice Biennale. ![]() The bilingual title and English inscription below it float above the scene like a speech bubble in a comic strip, playing the dual role of heading and guide to its subject’s quandary: where to find water. Holding two buckets and a kerosene lamp, which illuminates his face, the artist looks concerned, eminently so, about a complex problem needing to be solved. He has ignored the rules of perspective and instead focused on the details of textures, on the dialogue between his silky, loosely fitting, blood-red suit draped as if on statuary, and a piece of rough rock-the planet Mars, which is poised to meet him. As if weightless, his pose evokes Auguste Rodin’s The Thinker, but turned on its side. In this self-portrait, made in 2004, the artist has depicted himself in the deep blackness of space, seated just right of center on the nose of a rocket and surrounded by hundreds of carefully arranged stars. Where to Find Water) is a large acrylic painting on canvas by Chéri Samba (Congolese, born 1956). ![]() ![]() As the artist notes, they are “a way of not allowing freedom of interpretation to the person who looks at my painting.” Chéri Samba. The cartoon-like texts with direct messaging that frequently figure in Samba’s complex visual universes function to maintain authorial control.
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