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.
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.
