Guy Tillim
Library, sports club, Kolwezi, DR Congo

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Artist Guy TillimSouth African, born 1962

CultureSouth African

Titles

Library, sports club, Kolwezi, DR Congo
from the series Avenue Patrice Lumumba

Date2007

MediumInkjet print

DimensionsAt opening: 17 × 25 11/16 in. (43.2 × 65.2 cm)
Frame: 25 5/8 × 34 5/8 × 1 3/4 in. (65.1 × 88 × 4.4 cm)

Credit LineGift of John A. MacMahon

Object number2018.455

Not on view

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Department

Photography

Object Type

PHOTOGRAPHS

Description“Patrice Lumumba’s dream, his nationalism, is discernable in these structures…as is the death of his dream,” wrote Guy Tillim. Lumumba became the Democratic Republic of Congo’s first freely elected prime minister in 1960, but less than one year later, he was deposed by army chief Mobutu Sese Seko and assassinated. For Tillim, Lumumba represents an idealistic nationalism that burned bright but was quickly extinguished. He notes, “In the fragility of this strange and beautiful hybrid landscape struggling to contain the calamities of the past 50 years, there is an indisputably African identity. This is my embrace of it.”
ProvenanceJohn A. MacMahon; given to MFAH, 2018.
Exhibition History"Through an African Lens: Sub-Saharan Photography from the Museum's Collection," Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, February 27–November 8, 2020.

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