Yango

Rob Voerman (1966) works in various media: sculpture, installation art, printmaking, painting and photography. His work has been shown extensively in Europe and the USA and work is in several private and public art collections including MoMa, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and Hammer Museum. His work is represented by Upstream Gallery in Amsterdam.

In early November 2014, after leaving the airport I am in a car together with two employees of the organization of the exhibition in which I will participate. We drive along a barely lit 6-lane highway towards the city center. To the left and right, makeshift shelters with scantily lit tables.
In front of us and behind us dark shadows running between cars trying to cross the highway. We are on our way to the l'Ecole des Beaux Arts in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo. It is my first time in Africa.

Six months earlier Sithabile Mlotshwa, curator of the exhibition, asked me if I wanted to participate in the Yango Biennial, the first art biennial in Congo. Because I am more and more interested in making large, more temporary installations - in addition to making work for the white box - it was immediately clear to me that this was a wonderful opportunity.

As it often happens with exhibitions, the essential conditions, both financial and practical, remain up in the air for a long time. The fact that I had to cancel a semester of teaching at an academy did not make the decision any easier. In the end I went for it, even though the final conditions only became clear at the last moment. A phenomenon that everyone in the art world gets to know after a while...

Some 25 artists from around the world would participate, including several Congolese artists. Only some would actually travel to Congo, to create a work on site or install existing work. The rest of the work would be sent to Congo and installed by third parties. I was expecting a rather chaotic work period, but upon arrival I found a number of well-organized people working for the biennial.
I stayed in the Maison des Passage at the art school for the first few weeks. A green oasis in the busy and chaotic city, which also housed the faculty of architecture and interior design. The accommodation was simple and consisted of four bedrooms, a living room and a kitchen. Madame Paola had been assigned to cook for us. 'Us', meaning different artists from different countries including China, France and Belgium. In the last two years, engagement has begun to play an increasingly emphatic role within my work, incidentally without becoming pamphleteering. I was 15 when I wrote a letter to the then Secretary General of the United Nations, asking if the UN could finally do more to stop the disappearance of the rainforests. I received a thick report in return, accompanied by a letter saying that everything was being done... Thirty-three years later, little has changed. And to this day, it is a subject close to my heart. Congo is the size of Western Europe in terms of area. Unlike Indonesia and Brazil, Congo is still largely covered in rainforest; cynically thanks to very poor infrastructure and a century of several conflicts.

It was immediately clear to me that my work would partly relate to these issues and that the work in Congo should not stand alone, but should be part of a longer-term project, also after my stay in Congo. Soon after arriving, I found a suitable location. A place around a large tree stump on the grounds of the art academy. A green oasis in the middle of the busy hustle and bustle of the city. A semi-public place, accessible to everyone, but with 24-hour supervision. Moreover, only 200 meters from my residence....

From the organization, I was assigned two recent graduates, Chris and Junior, who would help me for the next few weeks. It turned out to be great to be able to work with them and I had a very good time with them in those few weeks. The first week was spent entirely on making a model of the sculpture to be made and mostly on collecting materials and organizing tools. That in itself was quite an experience. There is no real construction market and the materials must be collected at different markets. The markets for building materials are full of improvised constructions and large quantities of often recycled wood, doors, roofing materials, etc. For me as a novice Africa traveler, a rather grim looking place. Not to go there alone as a Westerner and certainly not for someone who, moreover, doesn't speak great French. First you are harassed by several merchants and don't you dare to take pictures, as an assistant of mine did. He was forcibly pulled into a hut and had to delete his photos. The reason, by the way, is that people are often afraid of being ridiculed in the West. A few times I witnessed a thief being beaten up by a crowd at a market like that. After a week we had gathered all the materials and we could get to work.

The preparations and the actual construction went well and during the construction we were often surrounded by curious students whom I often had to explain in my poor French and with hands and feet what we were going to build, what the work refers to, etc. One part of the work, called Valeur Réelle, is somewhat reminiscent of the architecture of a classical bank building and the entrance to a vault. The inside of the work is strongly determined by the incoming light through the green plexiglass - taken with the plane - and a large tree trunk, which occupies about half the surface of the interior space. In terms of content, the work refers in part to the idea of a global tax system to make forest clearing no longer reasonable and the great flight of the population in the Congo from rural to urban areas. Apart from that, it is a sculpture that could be appreciated for its aesthetic value. After two weeks of construction, the work was finished, despite the absence of a jigsaw and a screwdriver. I soon realized that you shouldn't worry too much about that sort of thing and that you should adapt quickly and thus just go about sawing and hammering by hand. The work was a work of art in which you could stay. It was very much appreciated and also very quickly and frequently used by the students. The day after the opening I found my assistant Chris on the bench in my sculpture reading a book together with two other students... The work was left behind in Congo and is probably still there now.

Rob Voerman2

Later I heard that there was a lot of discussion within the art academy about my work and the biennial in general. You have to imagine that the academy is still quite conservative: mainly figurative sculptures and a lot of woodcarving. The biennial was co-organized by former students, who were trying to bring about a modernization of art education. Now that a debate seems to have begun, that mission has succeeded.

Another remarkable thing was the following. I was the first foreign artist to arrive and actually start working. I heard later that the fact that I was just getting started gave a big boost to the dynamics of the biennial. Sponsors initially did not really dare to believe that the biennial could actually become a reality. But now that a foreign artist was actually carpentering and sawing, the situation shifted.

The beauty of such a work period is that, unlike a tourist, you get to know the country and the people even more. I frequently hung out with Congolese artists, you visit companies and neighborhoods where you normally never come as a tourist. Apart from the fact that tourism is still almost non-existent there. The country is only now beginning to get back on its feet and open up. But Congo is still in a bad way and there is a lot of poverty. It is potentially a rich country, but most of the money disappears into the pockets of the elite. With some artists, we were invited for a program on national TV. A particularly good interviewer and what was very remarkable in my opinion: we could be openly critical of something like the above-mentioned corruption.

The construction of the rest of the exhibition was difficult. Poor communication and lack of tools. One of the other locations, the nascent museum of modern art, for example, still had to do without a drill and stairs... The opening was postponed for a week, but finally it was there. A beautiful presentation of work from different disciplines. Work from the Western world mixed with that of Congolese artists, many of whom had also studied or worked in Belgium or France for short periods.

A lot could be improved in the organization of this biennial: the PR, the fundraising and the coordination. It could have been done earlier, better and faster. But what sticks in my mind is what an incredibly courageous undertaking this biennial is. It is to be hoped that all the knowledge gained can be used to organize a second exhibition in two years' time. After many years of oppression and poverty, the art world is yearning for interaction, for opportunities to work outside Congo. There is hardly any cultural infrastructure. There are no collectors, no galleries, and a fledgling museum with few resources and barely a collection. A series of biennials could perhaps mean something in this regard in the long term.
For me it was a very special experience, one that has also greatly enriched my work and ideas.

yangobiennale.org
www.robvoerman.nl

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