Urban cultures: primary source handout

The cinema in urban Africa:

Cheri Samba

Internationally, Cheri Samba is one of Africa's best-known artists. Although entirely self-taught, he has become famous worldwide for his paintings which frequently provide a vivid political and social commentary on life in his native Congo as well as abroad. His career stretches back 30 years, and in 2007 he had a prestigious retrospective at the Tate Modern, London. In keeping with local practice, many of his paintings incorporate text (in both French and Lingala), which acts as a further level of comment and/or critique on the topics explored in his paintings. The use of potent symbols, such as the mermaid-spirit Mami Wata, can also be seen in Samba's work, and these convey additional meanings. A strong sense of the absurd and the ironic pervades much of his output.

J'aime la couleur, 2003

Le Secret d'un petit poisson devenu grand, 2002

Little Kadogo, 2004

There is a lot of information online about Samba, but good starting points are this interview, and a short biography with a wide selection of his work which can be found here.