Patterns for (Re)Cognition - Beau Livre

This publication documents the three editions of Patterns for (Re)cognition, an exhibition comprising various duos conceived by Vincent Meessen. It also offers new perspectives on the reception of this package that was intended to cast a contemporary eye on the abstract works that the Congolese artist, Tshela Tendu - better known until now by the name of Djilatendo - painted in the period between 1929 and 1932.
This exhibition brings together for the first time almost all of Tshela Tendu's geometric abstractions, most of which are completely unknown to the public. Their presentation is discussed in a series of dialogues that Vincent Meessen conducts with the artist Toma Muteba Luntumbue, the publisher Guy Jungblut, the curator Elena Filipovic, the ethno-historian Jan Vansina, and the art historian Yasmine Van Pee.
Through this polemic approach to abstraction, which is perceived, beyond its formal aspects, as both an epistemic issue and a power matrix, Vincent Meessen is once again making a precise and informed "para-curatorial" gesture that casts light on a blind spot in colonial modernity. He also further investigates the boundaries of his practice and the terms of intelligibility in his collaborative work.