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Jan van Eden
"The naked truth"
14th October through
15th November 2014
Location
Galerie Walravens, Tiensestraat 94, Leuven (Belgium)
Andre
Walravens, Jan van Eden en , 12 oktober 2014
The naked truth, 2013,
Oil on cotton, 120x150x5 cm,
Reference: 132502
Posing
at the Chioggia, Nice, 2012,
Oil and acrylic on cotton, 120x150x5 cm, Reference 122504
Ana Karina watching "Le passion
de Jeanne D'Arc", 2011,
Oil on cotton, 150x120 cm, Reference 112502
De
kunstminnaar, 2010,
Oil and acrylic on cotton, 44x30x5 cm, Reference 103425
Lumumba, 2013,
Oil and acrylic on linen, 180x120x5 cm,
Reference 132201
Patrice Émery Lumumba (1925 - 1960) was the Prime
Minister of the independent Republic of the Congo from June to September 1960.
In 2002, Belgium formally apologized for its role in overseeing Lumumba's
assassination.
Patrice Émery Lumumba (1925 – 1960) was
a Congolese politician and independence leader who served as the first Prime
Minister of the independent Republic of the Congo from June until September
1960. He played a significant role in the transformation of the Congo from a
colony of Belgium into an independent republic. Ideologically an African
nationalist and Pan-Africanist, he led the Congolese
National Movement (MNC) party from 1958
until his assassination.
France's ambassador in Léopoldville maintained
a certain bemused distance when Belgian King Baudouin handed over power to
Lumumba at a solemn ceremony on 30 June 1960. The king lauded the "genius of
King Léopold II", whose rule of the colony had achieved international notoriety.
Lumumba, on the other hand, delivered a "violent diatribe against the regime of
exploiters, executioners and colonialists" and the "humiliating slavery that was
forced upon us", addressing the Congolese people and not the king, who, visibly
embarrassed, "talked to his neighbours".
While the French ambassador expressed his admiration for the 35-year-old former
leader of the independence struggle, whom he described as "skilful, agressive
and courageous", very different from the "bland politicians around him". Lumumba
personified the Congolese nation, he commented, unlike the "uncouth clan chiefs"
bogged down in their "self-interest and their traditional hatreds". But the
ambassador also warned that Lumumba could become "the strong man of Congo within
a few months", which he judged to be both good and bad news - on the one hand he
had the qualities of a statesman but on the other it was "worrying when one
thinks of his admiration for [Kwame] Nkrumah and [Gamal Abdel] Nasser".
In 2002,
Belgium formally apologised for its role overseeing the assassination of
Lumumba.
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