Chéri Samba exhibition at the Maillol Museum
Good deal alert!
According to Chéri Samba, it would be totally “ impossible not to love his work”. To be sure and form your own idea, the Maillol Museum is breaking prices by inviting you every Wednesday to discover the irresistibly self-centered universe of a true star of contemporary art. A single price of €12.50 for everyone in the hope of capturing the humor and self-deprecation of a singular artist who - let's say it - is unlike anyone else!
Will you be able to unravel the mysteries of the “Sambaian brand”? Bright colors, rhinestones and sequins in abundance, seductive texts... No doubt, the Congolese painter Chéri Samba honors us with his presence in the capital for an unmissable exhibition at the Maillol museum{11 }. A rare appearance for this artist who was able to impose his style and his strong personality in a figurative and narrative painting that is both cruel and very colorful, between murderous critiques of power and painful visions of hope.
It must be said that this essential and perfectly self-taught figure of Congolese “popular painting” alone found the recipe for success: integrating comic bubbles or texts in the form of cartels at the heart of his paintings to challenge us, force us to to watch, to read, to understand. We have been warned, the work of Chéri Samba can be tamed like a book that should be taken the time to decode.
Chronicles of everyday life, morals, geopolitics, environment, social conflicts... The artist slips into most of his paintings a corrosive political message to the point of offering the image of a black Picasso freely inspired by the primitive arts! But do not get me wrong. The real star of the exhibition is... himself. A central element of his painting, his self-portraits irrigate his work throughout, most often with humor, for better and for worse.
