Alexandre Kyungu Mwilambwe: Mlango (The Door)

Opening reception for the artist: Saturday 30 March, 3-5 pm

Alexandre Kyungu Mwilambwe lives and works in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo. He appropriates found objects — rubber tire inner tubes, doors, antiquated maps — and the vocabulary of traditional body modification (Nzoloko, or scarification, a pre-colonial tradition that continues in contemporary Congolese society) to explore identity, the legitimacy of political boundaries, and the possibility of mobility in a post-colonial world.

Combining Nzoloko marks with the language of cartography, Kyungu Mwilambwe’s practice ranges freely between painting, drawing, sculpture and installation. The found materials he works upon — old doors, used vehicle tires, or obsolete maps — serve as both physical and conceptual substructures for his artworks. The objects themselves are metaphors for the ability to pass from one place to another, to transport the self or belongings, and to find your place in the world. He incises, abrades, and gouges into these historical objects in what he refers to as "cartographic essays," that aim to represent a new, more open, global world order. 

Alexandre Kyungu Mwilambwe (b. 1993, Democratic Republic of the Congo) studied art at the Kinshasa Academy of Fine Arts. He is co-founder of the Vision Total group and recipient of international fellowships including the WIELS residency in Brussels, Belggium. His work has been presented at the Capesaro Museum in Venice in conjunction with biennale d'archictecture di Venezia, in Paris in collaboration with AKKA Project, and at the Dakar Biennale.  This is his first solo exhibition in the United States.