Magazines - Tribal Art Autumn 2011

Julien Volper, curator of ethnography at the Musée royal de l’Afrique centrale, Tervuren.

<Introduction
In 1897, at the Brussels-Tervuren exhibition, “civilized” people discovered the extraordinary statuary produced by the “primitives” inhabiting what was then the Congo Free State, the exclusive property of King Leopold II that was to become the Belgian Congo in 1908. Politely installed in long glass display cases, and with aprons concealing their genitalia in conformity with what the times required, two wooden giants described as “Wangata sarcophagi” were presented to the public.
Nearly a century later, in 1995, one of the two sculptures was shown again in the Musée Royal d’Afrique Centrale’s (MRAC) best-known exhibition, Trésors Cachés (Hidden Treasures). This piece, which had survived the years better than mortal flesh, was admired by the descendants of those who saw it decently clothed in 1897. In 2011, the giant was again separated from its habitual partner in the museum’s storage (the latter was too damaged to appeal to a twenty-first century audience) and left for Bordeaux, France, to be included in the Arts d’Afrique: Voir l’Invisible exhibition.
The scene having thus been set, we will now examine the history and function of this imposing coffin in greater detail.