FIG. 35a & b (): Master of the Boma-Vonde Region, power fi gure of a seated female nursing a child, nkisi. Kongo peoples; Yombe group, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo, or Cabinda, Angola. 19th– early 20th century. Wood, metal, kaolin. H: 28.3 cm. Steven Kossak, The Kronos Collections, New York. FIG. 34 (above): Master of Kasadi Workshop, mask, nganga diphomba. Kongo peoples; Yombe group, Kasadi village, near Tshela, Democratic Republic of the Congo. 19th–early 20th century (inventoried 1937). Wood (Ricinodendron heudelotii Baill.), pigments, hide, metal tacks. H: 29 cm. Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren, Belgium (EO.0.0.37966). 32 106 number of different artists. Kongo: Power and Majesty assembles fi fteen of these from institutions in Germany, Italy, the U.K., Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Switzerland, and the U.S. as an epic confl agration.31 A catalyst for this exhibition is the great Kongo landmark in the form of a Mangaaka power fi gure that has been a centerpiece of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection since 2008 (fi g. 44). This massive sculpture of a formidable Kongo leader leans forward to confront the viewer with hands on hips. He is at once a physically commanding and deeply refl exive presence. Over the last seven years this work has undergone close examination and study in relation to comparative examples by art historians, conservators, and scientists. Discussion of these fi ndings in dialog with an interdisciplinary international network of specialists in museums and universities has afforded a more nuanced and expansive appreciation of the signifi cance of this outstanding sculptural achievement and its related works. Those fi ndings make it apparent that the Metropolitan’s Mangaaka power fi gure is the work in the corpus that has been most thoroughly divested and stripped of its original empowering matter. Ironically, although this work retains important traces of its original usage, its intentional desacralization has returned it to the state it was in when it left the sculptor’s hands. Gone now are the essential empowering additions in the form of consecrated medicines secreted within ocular and abdominal cavities and added around the perimeter of the chin in the form of a massive beard contributed by the nganga who once oversaw its use (fi g. 44b). The comparative analysis undertaken makes apparent the fact that this denuded state ultimately constitutes an act of defi ance. Once the guardian of a Kongo community, when obliged to resign that role, those it once shielded reduced it to pure sculpture before it was released into the world. Ultimately, the gifts of the sculptor were such that we cannot fail to discern its intended role. Kongo: Power and Majesty affords a once-in-a-generation opportunity to consider 139 works from sixty institutional and private lenders across Europe and the United States created between the sixteenth and early twentieth centuries in Central Africa by Kongo masters.32 This creative output refl ects half a millennium of direct engagement with the West and a continually evolving relationship between European and Kongo leaders. Kongo: Power and Majesty 18 September 2015 through 3 January 2016 Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York www.metmuseum.org sculptural form developed as a high point in Kongo expression in response to a moment of intense crisis. The sculptural representations feature attributes of chieftaincy and a formidable physiognomy that might obliterate those that defy authority and the rule of law. Slightly under life-size, the carving of Mangaaka’s fi gurative container required the talents and seasoned experience of a master sculptor. In light of its dramatic scale and the consistency of the iconography, art historian Ezio Bassani at one time proposed that they were the work of a single atelier. Close study of the corpus, however, has made it evident they instead relate to a single genre but are in fact the work of a
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