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Cheik Ledy (1962-1998)
1962 (Kinto-MVuila, Bas-Zaire) - 1998 (Kinshasa, Zaire) N'AYONS PAS PEUR QUANT A L'ACHAT DE CONDOM (LET'S NOT BE AFRAID TO BUY CONDOMS) signed, titled and dated Zaire Dec. 92 acrylic on canvas 92 by 140.8cm. 36D by 55Gin. Provenance Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner Literature Andre Magnin & Jacques Soulillou, Eds., Contemporary Art of Africa, New York 1996, p. 122, illustrated in colour Jacques Soulillou notes that ''For almost thirty years now, primarily in Zaire, a whole new culture has developed, taking off from the notion of 'modernity'. One of its most striking manifestations is a kind of 'popular' painting... that finds its sources in advertising signs... Cheik Ledy [has] contributed importantly to staking out [his] individual style within this tendency, and in his own way,... has managed to divert it from its initial commercial function, raising it to the level of an original artistic practice. From the very beginning, the principal sources of its content have been religion, political life, and the life of urban society. The paintings were to be exhibited at every street corner to provoke or entertain passers by.'' (Jacques Soulillou in Andre Magnin & Jacques Soulillou, Eds., Contemporary Art of Africa, New York 1996, p. 121).
