Professor Chika Okeke-Agulu argues that the extravagant hypermodernity of Isek Bodys Kingelez’s architectural sculptures, as with segments of popular arts, constitute a distinctive form of imaginative resistance to official culture under Mobutu.
Slade Lecture Series 2023: Defiant Sculpture: Isek Bodys Kingelez and Mobutu Sese-Seko’s Authenticité, 1990s
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In this lecture, Professor Chika Okeke-Agulu discusses Mobutu Sese-Seko who, as president of the Democratic Republic of Congo (1965-1996), exemplified the theatrical Big Man ruler in postcolonial Africa. By deploying anti-Communist rhetoric, he secured Western Bloc support of his spectacularly kleptocratic regime and, through his anti-Western Authenticité program, created a national culture in his own image. Against Mobutu’s repressive political practice and ideology, Okeke-Agulu reads the architectural sculptures of Isek Bodys Kingelez (1948-2015). He argues that their extravagant hypermodernity, as with segments of popular arts, constitute a distinctive form of imaginative resistance to official culture under Mobutu.
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The Slade Lectures, which were founded in pursuance of the will of Felix Slade in 1869, focused on art historical topics, as they continue to do so today. John Ruskin delivered his first lecture as the Slade Professor of Fine Art in 1870. The Slade Professorship in conjunction with the University's museums, libraries and college collections helped to foster a wider interest in the history of art. Find out more about past Slade Lectures on the History of Art Department homepage:...