Ora Ito and Rigobert Nimi

Ora Ito : I discovered it through Jean Pigozzi who has the largest collection of African contemporary art in the world. When I was chatting to Jean in his house in Antibes three or four years ago, we said that we’d do an exhibition together. I found Rigobert Nimi’s work interesting because he’s outside the whole art world whilst being inside it – he’s great friends with the artist Carsten Höller and many other artists admire his work. I didn’t want the MAMO to always be showing artists that everybody knows but something more innovative and avant-garde.

Rigobert Nimi : I met André Magnin for the first time in 1998. I’d heard about this white man who’d come to Kinshasa to acquire artworks. He came to my studio and purchased several small models of a Harley Davidson, a plane and other objects that I’d made. He came back a year later and I showed him the same kind of objects. But he said: “No, I’ve already got those. You need to make your own artworks with your own forms.” The first piece that I created was ‘Assembly Line’ (2002), which entered Jean Pigozzi’s collection. André Magnin pushed me to go even further with my next piece, ‘Venus’ (2001). My inspiration always comes from what I like seeing in space, the different planets, technology and space stations.

Rigobert Nimi : I started making my own toys at the age of eight with materials that I found in the streets of Kinshasa. Ever since childhood, I’ve been interested in robots, industry and technology. At the age of 16, I had my first exhibition at the Kinshasa Fair where I showed my models of cars, motorbikes and planes. Kinshasa has a market where people sell and salvage materials; it’s where I find damaged sheet metal, aluminium plates and bottle tops. In order to create my artworks, I only use five instruments. Several stages are involved, from cutting the sheet metal to assembling the diverse elements. My works aren’t predetermined, I just improvise.

Ora Ito : What I like is the vision of the city of the future which resonates with La Cité Radieuse designed by Le Corbusier as a vertical village. I always try to find a relationship between La Cité Radieuse and each artist that I present. We also needed an exhibition that fitted with the idea of celebrating the tenth anniversary of the MAMO. All the flashing lights integrated into the pieces lend a celebratory side to Nimi’s work. And bringing together all these historical pieces of exceptional quality makes the exhibition feel like a retrospective. The meticulousness of their execution is on the level of Swiss watchmaking, something very precise but handcrafted.

Ora Ito : I really like the piece installed outside. It’s particularly close to my heart because I’ve been directly involved in this project, from the choice of the artwork through to its production. It’s symbolically powerful. It’s like a spaceship that’s landed on La Cité Radieuse in order to put a spotlight on its planet and all its architectural elements.

Rigobert Nimi : I created it in situ but I conceived it in Kinshasa. I wanted to make an artwork in relation to the terrace and the colours like green, red and yellow of La Cité Radieuse’s windows.

Rigobert Nimi : Yes, ‘Station Vampire’, 2013, which took me seven months to make. It talks about the conquest of space and a spaceship inhabited by vampire robots. It’s based on my imagination. The idea of vampires was inspired by horror films and novels. It’s 100 percent made by hand. When I look at this work, I can’t help thinking that I’d really like to have it back.

Rigobert Nimi : Joyful! It’s my first solo show. But the majority of my works have never been seen by young people in my country. We don’t have cultural spaces in Kinshasa where my works can be exhibited. There aren’t any spaces where artists can express themselves apart from the French Institute. We don’t have any [contemporary art] museums. South Korea financed the building of a new museum [the National Museum of the Democratic Republic of Congo, inaugurated in 2019] but the artworks on view are to do with colonialism. But when children go to a museum, they can learn a lot of things and museums can influence children too. I also regret that there aren’t any big contemporary art collectors in DRC. It’s a battle that we’re leading today so that our leaders start becoming interested in our works.

Rigobert Nimi : As artists, we must continue to convey messages of development and encouragement through our artworks because this is what Africa needs to move forward. I’d like to nurture a creative spirit in my community by organising mobile exhibitions enabling models of my works to be shown in schools. My ambition is to expand the size of my studio and set up others related to techniques and practice. In my country, we don’t receive any support from cultural bodies. Cultural activities should be launched nationwide; every city should have a cultural policy.

Ora Ito : A lot of women artists have exhibited at the MAMO in group shows. But it’s true that there hasn’t been a solo show by a woman artist yet. The MAMO isn’t something that’s thought out in advance like the Louis Vuitton Foundation or the Pinault Collection where there’s a whole staff and everything’s programmed. It’s something that lives organically through me. Each time, it’s to do with an encounter, an opportunity or a personal obsession. With Jean Pigozzi, we nearly exhibited Esther Mahlangu this summer. I really wanted to do an exhibition with this South African artist. But it was complicated to implement and we didn’t have enough time. But I promise you that the next exhibition will be with a woman!