Visit to the painter and collector of primitive arts Guillaume Tel 4 f in the heart of Paris, around the statue of a Congolese pipe smoker by Grégoire Massengo, one of the fathers of modern Congolese sculpture.
How at the beginning of 2022, while doing research in France on Henriette Lorimier and the women painters of the early 19th century, in a cellar in Bagneux Jonathan Bougard came across a bust signed Muta Mayola, the most important Congolese sculptor of the twentieth century, of which we thought all the works had disappeared. At the same time as on a set of works by his students and nephews Grégoire Massengo, Benoit Konongo and Edouard Malonga. The fathers of modern Congolese sculpture, main representatives of the Muta Mayola school.
A precocious sculptor, famous at the age of 15, Joachim Badindamana was born in Congo Brazzaville in 1950. He began by working in wood in the style of Muta Mayola and very quickly won a first sculpture prize and then a scholarship. allowing him to study fine arts in Germany. He made his life between Berlin and Dusseldorf in the 1970s and then turned to creating monumental bronzes before returning to Congo at the invitation of President Sassou Ngesso in the early 1980s. Author of monumental bronze sculptures erected in the public squares of Brazzaville from the 1980s, his emblematic works of the Congolese capital disappeared during the events of 1997. The population recovered the bronze to make pots. For Gastineau Massamba, Les Demoiselles de Brazzaville is an important work for the history of contemporary Congolese sculpture.
Vincent Greby is a French artist who divides his life between Kathmandu and Seoul. While passing through his family home in Gournay, he received a visit from his friend Jonathan Bougard who was returning from Polynesia. They haven't been seen for twenty years. Vincent presents him with some Putali from the Jajarkot district, ex votos of primitive Himalayan art, as well as a large African mask signed Grégoire Massengo, and then some of the paintings which made him known in Asia.
Semetua was Sem Manutahi, master of ceremonies and central figure of the "Tipaerui Valley" association. His role in the association was to find legends, and to set up traditional activities or ceremonies, in the upper valley of Tipaerui in the heart of the island of Tahiti. "This valley has a soul, a spirit that we always respect when we come. He said. It is animated by the spirit of the Mamaia. These people that we rarely met, that we feared and respected also, in the days of royalty. Some say they were healers, others say they were seers." Speaker on several occasions for troops at Heiva i Tahiti, master of ceremonies for the Tipaeui Valley association, Semetua has made his voice resonate on numerous occasions, to tell stories, protect a valley or quite simply defend his convictions.
Jonathan Bougard is a French designer and documentary film director active in French Polynesia since 2005.
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