The griot of Kinshasa: on his canvases, words and images together tell a troubled Africa that demands to be read, not only seen.
Chéri Samba (born David Samba wa Mbimba N'zinga Nuni Masi Ndo Mbasi, 1956, Kinto M'Vuila, Democratic Republic of the Congo) left his village at sixteen for Kinshasa, where he began as a sign painter on the Avenue Kasa-Vubu and as an illustrator of comic strips for the magazine Bilenge Info. In 1975 he opened his own studio, and from the fusion of those two trades, the immediacy of the billboard and the narrative of the comic strip, he forged the language that would make him the leading figure of the Congolese popular painting school alongside Moke, Chéri Chérin and Bodo: painting as chronicle, addressed to the people, in which the artist acts as the griot of his city.
Samba's work is distinguished by clear lines, bold colours and, above all, the integration of text: subtitles and speech bubbles, in French and Lingala, that guide, complicate and ironize the image, because a painting, in his conception, must be read as much as seen. His scenes of everyday life open onto local and international political, economic and cultural issues: environmental urgency ("Problème d'eau", 2004), global tragedy ("Après le 11 septembre", 2001), corruption ("Le Commun des politiciens", 2003), the ravages of AIDS, the rebalancing of the world ("Le Monde vomissant", "Le Monde avant les continents", 2011) and the recognition of African art by Western museums ("Hommage aux anciens créateurs", 1999; "Enfin!... Après tant d'années", 2002). Frequently appearing at the centre of his own paintings, Samba personifies a half-innocent, half-activist observer transmitting what he considers crucial signals: an art that aspires to universality while remaining profoundly rooted in Kinshasa, offering a unified and unmistakably modern depiction of a troubled Africa, where laughter is the first step of critical thought.
His international breakthrough came with "Magiciens de la Terre" at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (1989). Since then his work has featured in the defining exhibitions of contemporary African art: the solo "J'aime Chéri Samba" at the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain, Paris (2004), "Africa Remix" (2004-2007), "100% Africa" at the Guggenheim Bilbao (2006), the 52nd Venice Biennale, "Think with the Senses, Feel with the Mind", curated by Robert Storr (2007), "JapanCongo" at the Garage Center, Moscow (2011), "Beauté Congo - Congo Kitoko" at the Fondation Cartier (2015-2016) and "Congo Stars" at the Kunsthaus Graz and Kunsthalle Tübingen (2018-2019), culminating in the retrospective "Chéri Samba dans la collection Jean Pigozzi" at the Musée Maillol, Paris (2023-2024). In Italy his work has been presented by Antonella Pisilli in "Africam EXPLORO" (2023), the survey of the masters who made the history of contemporary African art, and in "New Vision from Old Master: African Neo-Mannerism" (Rome, 2025), where his dialogue with the Western canon anchored the exhibition's thesis. His works are held in the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Centre Pompidou, Paris, and the world's leading collections of contemporary African art. He lives and works in Kinshasa.