{"id":1175,"date":"2026-10-14T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regartmag.com\/?p=1175"},"modified":"2026-10-30T00:42:07","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T23:42:07","slug":"benjamin-mbenga-le-visage-comme-bibliotheque","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regartmag.com\/en\/benjamin-mbenga-le-visage-comme-bibliotheque\/","title":{"rendered":"Benjamin Mbenga, the face as a library"},"content":{"rendered":"

Il y a, dans les portraits de Benjamin Mbenga, une gravit\u00e9 qui d\u00e9passe la ressemblance. Les rides, les regards, la lumi\u00e8re sur la peau sont rendus avec une pr\u00e9cision r\u00e9aliste\u00a0; mais l\u2019enjeu est ailleurs. Mbenga traite le visage comme une infrastructure historique, un lieu o\u00f9 se d\u00e9pose la m\u00e9moire d\u2019une civilisation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Painting to archive<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Mbenga \u00e9rige la peinture en dispositif d\u2019archivage. Chaque toile fonctionne comme un document, une page d\u2019un registre plus vaste. Le titre de l\u2019une de ses s\u00e9ries le dit sans d\u00e9tour : \u00ab Anc\u00eatres Biblioth\u00e8que \u00bb. Le visage des a\u00een\u00e9s y devient un fonds que l\u2019on consulte pour savoir d\u2019o\u00f9 l\u2019on vient.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

The face operates like a historical infrastructure.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Mandombe et lukasa : la m\u00e9moire comme g\u00e9om\u00e9trie<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Sa pratique int\u00e8gre deux syst\u00e8mes de signes n\u00e9s en Afrique centrale, l\u2019\u00e9criture mandombe et la g\u00e9om\u00e9trie de m\u00e9moire du lukasa. En les faisant dialoguer avec un r\u00e9alisme exigeant, Mbenga croise la repr\u00e9sentation et la s\u00e9miotique patrimoniale. La toile devient un lieu de n\u00e9gociation entre souverainet\u00e9 pass\u00e9e et urgence contemporaine. Pour aller plus loin\u00a0: \u201cMandombe, lukasa: memory in signs\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Early recognition<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Selected in 2022 among the DRC\u2019s 100 Young Hopefuls, Benjamin Mbenga won the Lokumu Visual Arts Prize in Kinshasa in 2024. Two milestones that confirm the attention paid to a body of work in which virtuosity is never an end in itself, but a way of holding together the present and what it owes to the past.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Winner of the Lokumu Visual Arts Prize in 2024, the Congolese painter approaches the portrait as the map of a living memory. In his work, every face is an archive.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1143,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-figure"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regartmag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regartmag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regartmag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regartmag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regartmag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1175"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/regartmag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1175\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1260,"href":"https:\/\/regartmag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1175\/revisions\/1260"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regartmag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regartmag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regartmag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regartmag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}