Strauss & co - 16 February 2019, Cape Town

62 45 Chéri Cherin DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO 1955– Spectacle Africain signed, dated 2008 and inscribed with the title acrylic on canvas laid down on board 128 by 160 cm R40 000 – 60 000 PROVENANCE Stephan Welz & Co, Cape Town, 19 February 2013, lot 594. EXHIBITED Influx Contemporary, Lisbon, QUI FAIT QUOI, 18 April to 6 June 2009. ITEM NOTES Chéri Cherin (born Joseph Kinkinda) began his formal training as a painter in 1977 when he enrolled at the Académie des Beaux-Arts in his hometown of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Studying under the Austrian ceram- icist Peter Weihs, Cherin started his career by painting posters in the residential quarter of Ndjili where his studio is still located today. Originally executing scenes from everyday life on the walls of bars, boutiques and barber shops, Cherin’s work quickly moved to incorporate more serious topics of social and political commentary. In Spectacle Africain, the artist presents an allegorical view of Africa as a football match, whose managers on the sidelines are depicted as infamous historical dictators who anxiously watch the spectacle unfold. Cherin’s work is currently featured on the retrospective exhibition Congo Stars at the Kunsthaus Graz, in Austria, which spans from the 1960s to the present and features works by over 70 Congolese artists.