Opening on 18 January from 4pm in the presence of Mega Mingiedi
From January 18 to March 8, 2025, MAGNIN-A presents a new exhibition featuring three artists conquering urban space : Rodrigo Armando Mabunda, Houston Maludi and Mega Mingiedi. Entitled Lignes, the exhibition invites us to explore individual and collective journeys through complex forms and narratives, at the frenetic pace of these ever-changing African cities.
Changing language to change the way we see. Through their unique practices, these three artists offer an aesthetic universe that sets the foundations for a new urban vocabulary. From Mozambique, Rodrigo Armando Mabunda uses ballpoint pen to map chaotic narratives, saturated with vibrant, hypnotizing bodies. Kinshasa-born Houston Maludi uses continuous line, a remarkable technique that transforms his compositions into a playground, where the two-color process demands our attention more than ever, and focuses it on detail. As for Mega Mingiedi, also from Kinshasa, he retains the tremendous energy of a constructor, mixing ballpoint pen and collage, between city and shantytown, but above all, between microcosm and macrocosm, where the elements added together shape a curious face.
Far from a purely formal approach, the works of the three artists are part of profound considerations about the spaces they inhabit and the systems that govern them. From Houston Maludi's ode to African youth, to Rodrigo Armando Mabunda's haunting dance, people and things form an almost musical journey where the energy of the place can be felt. For Mega Mingiedi, the city is a narrative. At the frontier of utopian hope and dystopian threat, he is enthusiastic about urban vitality, but he also points out social, spiritual and economic problems, and denounces the abuses of a government that practices corruption, imprisonment and censorship. The city is a space of social control, but through art, it becomes a poetic place. To the question that hangs over his drawing, “Can art change the world?” the three artists seem to answer with a big yes - yes, provided they magically experience the space.
It's difficult not to read between the lines of Henri Lefebvre's theory of the Situationists: psycho-geography, or the spiritual art of changing the city. Between Mega Mingiedi, in favor of a “radical geography”, where he would be “like a poet who takes up his pen to write”; Rodrigo Armando Mabunda, comparing himself to “a street dreamer, who wanders to tell stories”; Houston Maludi, whose sinuous line tears us away from the grid of our avenues; there is a white space, a void. It's about making possible so many spirits, wanderings and resistances. In short, Lignes is an invitation to drift through these fragmented, poetic geographies, where each of us can trace our own path far beyond plans and lines.
