Kongo exhibition in Leipzig

May 7, 2013

Until June 2nd you still have the chance to visit Minkisi. Skulpture vom unteren Kongo at the Grassi Museum in Leipzig, Germany. The majority of the 118 objects are shown for the first time to the public. Many of them were acquired from Robert Visser, who worked for the Dutch trading company Nieuwe Afrikaansche Handels-Venootschap on the Loango coast of West Central African between 1882 and 1904. Visser sent home to Germany at least four large collections of ethnographic objects which he distributed among the ethnographic museums of Berlin, Leipzig and Stuttgart. Other minkisi in this exhibition were collected during the Loango-expedition between 1873 and 1876; in other words: well worth a visit!

 

Read more about it here

 

MINKISI-Skulpturen-vom-unteren-Kongo-GRASSI-Museum-für-Völkerkunde-zu-Leipzig-1

  

The exhibition is also accompanied by a catalogue.

 

23 x 30 cm, 256 pages, 140 pictures
23 x 30 cm, 256 pages, 140 pictures
 

UPDATE: I just received the exhibition catalogue and it’s a must-have. 139 minkisi are presented, many accompanied by the original contextual information and published for the very first time. Excellent study material. In the back are another 60 figures (drawings and b/w pictures) with the figures that left the museum or were destroyed during the world wars. The book also features four informative articles: an introduction to minkisi in Englisch by Wyatt MacGaffey and three articles in German about Robert Visser, the Loango empire and the Loango-expedition.

 

UPDATE 2: a video tour is available on Youtube.

About the author

Bruno Claessens

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