Forthcoming
Congo (belge) - Carl De Keyzer
14 August through 3 October
On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Congolese independence, the Magnum-photographer Carl De Keyzer travelled through the former Belgian colony. He planned his trip on the basis of the Guide du voyageur au Congo, a travel guide from 1958, which surveyed the tourist attractions there. This was no simple task. Roads had disappeared, whole regions proved inaccessible, and the corruption and bureaucracy made his undertaking a contemporary journey into the unexpected.
The results sketch a probing picture of the legacy of a colonial system that wreaked havoc in a territory eighty times as large as Belgium itself. Architectural remains create a surreal perspective in which a charged history is coupled to the present conditions of chaos and decay.