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Lot Essay
Sammy Baloji uses photography to explore histories and present day realities. He achieves this by creating photomontages featuring archival images superimposed over the top of his own contemporary photographs. With the historical images, Baloji collaborates with anthropologist and Lunda expert, Filip De Boeck, who provides detailed research as well as access to his extensive archival resources.
Baloji was born and raised in Lubumbashi in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a focal point for the mining industry. His work examines the country’s turbulent colonial history and the ways in which it has continued and permeated into the postcolonial era, where Chinese and Western companies continue to extract minerals at a ferocious rate while Lubumbashi continues to decline economically. The layering and juxtaposition of images serve to highlight these tensions and demonstrate present-day struggles as a corollary of the exploitation inflicted on the local population during the colonial period. In this way the work alludes to both Western Imperialism of the past and the ongoing effects of predatory global capitalism.
Made a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in 2016, Baloji has received numerous prestigious awards. He won the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Award in 2014, partnering with Olafur Eliasson. He was Prix Pictet finalist in 2009, recipient of the Prince Claus award in 2008 and won two separate awards at Bamako Encounters, the Biennale of African Photography in Bamako, Mali, 2007. He recently exhibited at Salzburg’s Stadtgalerie Museumspavillon in 2019 as well as Documenta 14, 2017. Since 2019, Baloji has been conducting his PhD research in art at the St Lucas School of Arts, Antwerp. His work is held in major collections worldwide, including the Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis; the Virginia Museum of Fine Art, Richmond; the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Washington, D.C.; the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; and the Musée du quai Branly, Paris.
Baloji was born and raised in Lubumbashi in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a focal point for the mining industry. His work examines the country’s turbulent colonial history and the ways in which it has continued and permeated into the postcolonial era, where Chinese and Western companies continue to extract minerals at a ferocious rate while Lubumbashi continues to decline economically. The layering and juxtaposition of images serve to highlight these tensions and demonstrate present-day struggles as a corollary of the exploitation inflicted on the local population during the colonial period. In this way the work alludes to both Western Imperialism of the past and the ongoing effects of predatory global capitalism.
Made a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in 2016, Baloji has received numerous prestigious awards. He won the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Award in 2014, partnering with Olafur Eliasson. He was Prix Pictet finalist in 2009, recipient of the Prince Claus award in 2008 and won two separate awards at Bamako Encounters, the Biennale of African Photography in Bamako, Mali, 2007. He recently exhibited at Salzburg’s Stadtgalerie Museumspavillon in 2019 as well as Documenta 14, 2017. Since 2019, Baloji has been conducting his PhD research in art at the St Lucas School of Arts, Antwerp. His work is held in major collections worldwide, including the Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis; the Virginia Museum of Fine Art, Richmond; the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Washington, D.C.; the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; and the Musée du quai Branly, Paris.