Skip to main content

Post Office, Likasi, DR Congo, 2007

Guy Tillim: Avenue Patrice Lumumba

January 24, 2013 - March 15, 2013
Rubin Gallery

Avenue Patrice Lumumba was organized by Karen Irvine, the Curator and Associate Director of the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago. It presents a series of photographs by Guy Tillim (b.1962, Johannesburg; resides Cape Town) featuring abandoned or decrepit buildings in Angola, Benin, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ghana, Madagascar, and Mozambique. What links them together is their location: all were taken on streets named after the Congolese independence leader Patrice Lumumba (1925-1961), who served briefly as the first elected Prime Minister of the DRC before being killed by rebels in collusion with the Belgian government. After his assassination, Lumumba came to symbolize an idealist vision for postcolonial rule. Using Lumumba’s story as his point of departure, Tillim explores the legacy of colonialism in Africa and the ways in which its unfulfilled promise of modernity manifests itself in civic architecture.

Clockwise:
Lubumbashi City Hall, DR Congo, 2007
Apartment Building, Beira, Mozambique, 2007
City Hall, Lubumbashi, DR Congo, 2007
Park in the center of town, Gabela, Angola, 2008