Moridja Kitenge Banza: Mille et une facons d'en parler / A Thousand Ways to Talk About It

(Hardback, French and English)

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A bilingual chronicle of a sweeping artistic practice that relates history, memory and identity to the lived diasporic experience.

Presented in French and English, this is the first monograph dedicated to Moridja Kitenge Banza (b. 1980), a Canadian visual artist of Congolese origin.

Known for dynamic works shaped by the places where he has lived and worked, KitengeBanza's art is a subversive blend of reality and fiction that questions and challenges discourses of power while opening new spaces for marginalized histories.

Chronicling a multidisciplinary practice that includes painting, photography, video, drawing, andinstallation, this volume presents a comprehensive outline of Kitenge Banza's artistic practice. Texts by curators, historians, and theorists focus on the geopolitics, culture, religion, and iconography of the artist's lived context, accompanied by more than 100 artworks.

Whether confronting the impacts of resource extraction in his native Democratic Republic of Congo or in his adopted home of Quebec, or recasting histories shaped by religion, violence, and colonialism, Kitenge Banza's work explores how his personal narrative is intertwined with the past. His reappropriation of the codes, customs, and conventions associated with religious,cultural, political, social, and economic systems serve to underscore the contradictions that construct his identities.

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La chronique bilingue d'une vaste pratique artistique qui relie histoire, memoire et identite une experience diasporique vecue.

Presentee en francais et en anglais, cette monographie est la premiere etre consacree Moridja Kitenge Banza (ne en 1980), un artiste visuel canadien d'origine congolaise.

Connu pour ses uvres dynamiques faconnees par les lieux o il a vecu et travaille, l'art de Kitenge Banza est un alliage subversif de realite et de fiction qui met en cause et au defi les discours du pouvoir tout en ouvrant de nouveaux espaces pour les recits marginalises.

Documentant une pratique multidisciplinaire qui inclut la peinture, la photographie, la video, le dessin et l'installation, le present ouvrage propose un portrait d'ensemble de la pratique artistique de Kitenge Banza. Il reunit des textes de commissaires, d'historiennes et de specialistes portant sur la geopolitique, la culture, la religion et l'iconographie issues du cadre de vie de l'artiste, et illustres par plus de 100 uvres.

Confrontant les impacts de l'extraction de ressources, que ce soit dans la Republique democratique du Congo o il est ne ou au Quebec, sa terre d'adoption, ou reconfigurant des recits faconnes par la religion, la violence et le colonialisme, Kitenge Banza explore dans son travail la maniere dont son recit personnel est lie son passe. Sa reappropriation des codes, des coutumes et des conventions associes des systemes religieux, culturels, politiques, sociaux et economiques sert mettre en lumiere les contradictions qui construisent ses identites.

Author Bio

Moridja Kitenge Banza is a Canadian artist of Congolese origin, born in Kinshasa in 1980 in the Democratic Republic of Congo. He is a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts of Kinshasa, the cole suprieure des beaux-arts de Nantes Mtropole, and the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of La Rochelle. In 2010, he received first prize at the DAK'ART Biennale of Contemporary African Art for his video Hymn to Us and his installation From 1848 to the Present Day. He received a Sobey Award in 2020. The Art Gallery of Ontario and the PHI Foundation have presented solo exhibitions of the artist. His work has been presented in Canada at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, the Muse d'art de Joliette, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Projet Casa, the Muse d'art contemporain de Montral and the National Gallery of Canada. Internationally, his work has shown at the Muse Dauphinois (France), the Museum of Contemporary Art (Denmark), the Arndt Gallery and the Ngbk (Germany), the Biennale Internationale de Casablanca (Morocco), the Fondation Attijariwafa bank (Morocco) and the Fondation Blachre (France), Projet Casa. The artist's works are included in the collections of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Muse d'art contemporain de Montral, the Muse national des beaux-arts du Qubec, the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the City of Laval Collection, as well as in numerous corporate collections such as BMO, the Caisse de dpt et de placement du Qubec, Canadian Shield Capital, Hydro-Qubec, the Mouvement Desjardins, RBC, and the TD Bank Corporate Art Collection.