FEATURE
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amples appear to be unique, at least until new
discoveries are made. Moreover, masks more
than fi gures also refl ect the internal diversity
that characterizes the culture as a whole, suggesting
that some distinct styles are representative
of subgroups or even certain workshops and
their lead artists.
Testifying to the limitations of ethnic labels
and illustrating the affi nity between the art of
the Luluwa and that identifi ed with their closely
related but little-studied Luba-Kasai and Luntu
neighbors, my monograph includes images
of half a dozen works the attributions of which
cannot be confi rmed. While a degree of subjective
preference lies behind each of the illustrations
included, this observation most obviously applies
to those of these peripheral cultures with their often
mixed or blurred styles. An attractive sculpture
that was meant to feature in my book as an
example of this periphery but was accidentally
omitted during the design process is a half-fi gure
sculpture that was included in my Art and Power
in the Central African Savanna exhibition in
2008 (fi g. 2). Leaving aside such hazards of human
error, my Luluwa monograph, like any other
such endeavor, can only aspire at being encyclopedic.
In addition to its object choices, my work
also refl ects subjectivity in terms of its analysis of
the literary and other sources that I have relied on
to interpret and understand things. Assuming full
responsibility for possible errors and misunderstandings
in my readings of my colleagues’ work,
I welcome any feedback and criticism.
Luluwa: Central African Art between Heaven
and Earth is comprised of six chapters. The
book’s introduction addresses some of the limitations
imposed by collections and the literature,
as discussed above, and highlights that
in-depth dedicated research on the subject has
been scattered and scant. Of the more recent
fi eld-based investigations conducted by Congolese
scholars, only a few have focused on art.
Another issue being discussed is that the significant
cultural diversity within the broader Luluwa
region makes it diffi cult to generalize and
hazardous to apply fi ndings from one period of
time to objects acquired during another. Indeed,
most collections were established in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but
FIG. 6 (right):
Male fi gure, bwanga bwa
bukalenga.
Luluwa, Democratic
Republic of the Congo.
Wood, pigment. H: 56.6 cm.
Field acquired by Paul Le Marinel,
Belgium, c. 1885.
Ex Guillaume De Hondt, Brussels,
Belgium, by 1937; Jacques
Kerchache, Paris, France; private
collection, France; Alain de
Monbrison, Paris, France; James J.
Ross, USA.
Laura Ross Collection, USA.
Photo: © John Bigelow Taylor, New
York.
One of the earliest collected
examples of the genre, this
celebrated fi gure, whose carved
attributes suggest it represents a
high-ranking chief of the leopard
order, was fi rst displayed in the
West in the Kongo-Kunst exhibition
curated by Frans Olbrechts and held
in Antwerp in 1937.