in conversation with
In conversation with Christophe Evers
JOAQUIN PECCI in conversation with
David Henrion
JP : I understand your father was an art collector so, as a child, you were already ac-
quainted with African art … DH : Absolutely; my parents discovered African art when they went to Paris on their honeymoon in the sixties. My father, Joseph Henrion, a young painter, and my mother Françoise, also an artist, were very interested in African art. On that occasion they met the owner of “la Reine Margot”-one of the oldest antique galleries in Paris and already well established at the time- They sympathized and seeing that my parents were particularly interested in the subject he gave them the name, address and tel number of Willy Mestach. There was no gallery dealing in African art in Brussels at the time and very few people were really interested in the subject . Willy , an artist himself, was particularly impressed b y my father’s eager curiosity. That was the beginning of a long lasting friendship. My father then met Jef V who was then working for WM. Jef was a cabinet maker. His approach to raw materials and his perception and interest for this type of art , were somehow very similar to my father’s. Jef and Willy both possessed the two most important private collection of objects from the Congo at the time. My father’s regular visits to the homes of these two founding pillars became an absolute ritual. And, vice versa, Jef would very often pop up at five o’clock in the morning, back from London, to display his new acquisitions
JP: You soon became acquainted with other people closely connected with African art… DH:Very soon, yes, via my parents who were friends with many collectors and marchands,
I became acquainted with this group of people and regularly met etc (…) including Pierre Loos who , no doubt, is the one who most contributed to my joining this circle . I met most of them way back in I 1968 , a time when the scientific and art milieus somehow grew quite close . However, at that time those involved in or connected with African art were still very few. My father also travelled to Africa with Simon de Chastel several times. They went to Ghana and to Bourkina together. He was particularly interested I n copper smelting crafts made by the Akan tribes.
JP: Your father was essentially a sculptor, is that right? DH: Well, it’s precisely this discovery of African art that prompted him to eventually con-
ceive and produce “three dimensional” work and, in fact, after this, he gave up painting for good. It came about one day, when he was studying a beautiful object from Baskongo which barely measured ten centimeters .In a flash, it somehow dawned on him that his big paintings were no match for this tiny object which, amazingly, seemed to take up all space. In fact, how and why this tiny object was capable of producing such a full- filling effect and ‘ inhabiting’ space became for him a quest, a sort of soul-searching challenge which gave a new direction to his work .The fact that these were objects were full of spiritual meaning, that the wood had been touched and caressed time and time again, the tactile effect of the wood itself all contributed to this soul-searching challenge. Actually he envied the status of African artists within their tribes. In those days it was difficult to become an artist serving the community.
JP: Is your father a real art collector? DH: Yes, and, I should add, a highly committed one, since he exclusively collected Af-
rican art. But this, of course, merely obeyed to a vital need for inspiration. He somehow managed to regularly come by new supplies since he needed them for his work. Yet, he was, essentially, an artist, and did not wish to become an art dealer. Then he met EK, at an exhibition organized by WM. EK was an adventurer active in Mali and Nigeria . He was, at the time, one of the main suppliers of African objects. It was he who, on several occasions , presented my father with some first choice pieces and even prompted him to deal in some of them. Edouard was in contact with certain people from Ghana such as DG , one of the main purveyors of archeological objects. My father furnished his first pieces to B de G, a well-known amateur of African archaeological objects especially from Mali. Since my father was not really an art dealer, he enjoyed a special status , he became a kind of external consultant. B de G who was very interested in my father’s work, helped him a lot in return.
JP: One could say your father had a good eye for African art ‌. DH: Yes, he was well-known for that. His feeling for art was very strong and people came
to him for advice . It was a time when all this literature we have now was non-existent , there were very few reference works and you could only judge by instinct. Dealing in African art was certainly more exciting then than it is now; there was so much to learn and the commercial side of the trade was hardly taken into account.
JP: When exactly did you discover that you were interested in African art? DH: Actually, one could say everybody in the family was in African art. As a young boy I
regularly accompanied my father on his visits to W or E. My chance is that I met and made friends with some of these outstanding personalities when I was still very young . I remember Willy taking me to a restaurant once and there was a butler – I was only 8 yrs old and was really impressed. And J V used to come with these enormous boxes full of sweets and candy – what memories !.It all came about in the space of one generation and a half, thanks to a certain group of people who embarked in a sort of political and social adventure: to acknowledge the existence of a new source of creation, an intelligence which until then had been denied to the African people. For years, and until the second world war, people had always looked down on African art . It s a pleasure to realize that in less than fifty years these objects which were thought to be worthless are now considered to be some of the greatest works of mankind . Unfortunately, as we all know the financial stakes of these last decades have been the cause of a great change in the trade- it’s no longer the same approach we knew in the sixties, when it was solely the love of these objects which determined their prize. What originally triggered my interest were these encounters , my love of travel and of course the objects themselves which were obviously a source of revenue. In fact I started collecting my first pieces when I was only 14 or 15; I was not only fascinated by the objects but I had determined I could make a living on them.
JP: Do you still have any objects dating back to those days? DH: I probably still have two or three , yes. Things have obviously changed with time in
the sense that my subsequent travels in Africa have forcibly directed and influenced my later choice and taste for a certain type of object. It’s obvious that these first acquisitions were the first to be replaced.
JP: When was your first time in Africa? DH:I was 18 when I went to the Congo for the first time. My parents had a friend there, Ro-
land van Bogaerd, who was the Head of the Fine Arts Schools in Kinshasa . He welcomed me with open arms. He had been living there for years, when the Congo was still a Belgian colony and was now married to a Congolese. He had become a kind of dropout because he didn’t wish to be part of the post colonial system in place. But he was very familiar with the local administration. He knew the curators of the Kinshasa Museum , particularly Charlie Henau, who was one of his friends. It was the latter who had me visit the museum ,showed me the reserves and introduced me to certain people. I also met Christian van Lierde, who was “Directeur des Ecoles” which meant he was responsible for the local primary school system, and I set out with him on an expedition to the land of the Teke to buy some objects. We were gone for a month and a half..
JP: You felt you knew already how to make a good choice? DH: Actually there was some counterfieting at the time but to the extent that we find today.
And there was still a large amount of objects leaving the country.So, basically,I can say that my first visit to the Congo proved to be very positive.
JP: When you returned to Belgium, was your father happy with your finds? DH: Yes, my father was very satisfied and helped me to sell the objects; I sold some of
them to Georges Morand, some to Pierre Dartevelde, others to Marc Felix … this successful first experience was so encouraging I organized a second trip.
JP: How did you prepare this second trip? DH: Unfortunately, my father’s sudden death affected my plans . At this point point Marc
Felix decided to finance a real expedition out of Kinshasa, in the Chaba region, in the land of the Luba and the Songyes. That was in 1983.
JP: How did it go? DH: Not that well. I was barely twenty and hardly prepared for this sort of thing. I found
myself suddenly smack in the middle of this circle of Congolese antique dealers and all the tricks of the trade. I realized that there were a lot people involved in the process. I bought some good pieces and than also some that were less good. Back in Kinshasa I had my first bad experience with a chap from Mali who actually sold me a fake. I ‘d been conned and felt very disappoint ted. On my return I presented some of my pieces to Marc Felix but he wasn’t very enthused . Pierre Dartevelde, on the other hand, encouraged me to continue.
JP: Was this meeting with Pierre Dartevelde a sort of turning point for you? DH: It was. I not only managed to sell the remaining stock of objects but he also partly
financed my third expedition which was very successful. That trip was full of new experience. I am somehow less interested in what we call classical works, even if they are very beautiful sculptures. Personal experience has, in a way , molded my taste. Most of the stuff around me comes from the East African plains . The region close to the sources of the Nile the birthplace of those civilizations which are at the heart of our modern society. Ethnologists have always been particularly interested in this region but not by its objects.
JP: To what extent does African art influence your work as an artist? DH: There is a certain style, a different approach to the human being. It’s a world which
is close to the world of our childhood, a fantasy, there is a great liberty of style, one could say it is similar to the images of a cartoon. At the same time, this need to create , inspired by African art , has involved a certain commitment on my part since I was one of the first to be interested by this. I have never studied ethnology and I have no training in scientific work which means I have to explore with my own tools, thoseproper to design and drawing
JP: How do you think the market will develop? DH: Concerning top quality objects, the prospects seem to be quite good. As for those ob-
jects which are good but, shall we say, more modest, it will all depend on the personality, the knowledge of each individual , and on the way these objects are perceived in each case. All these aspects are mutually dependent ‌
JP: Are there any objects that you dream of at the moment? DH:I have the feeling I’ve seen so many objects with Pierre … all the different styles, all the
different regions… a Polynesian object perhaps? But I am not the nostalgic type. I have the feeling I ‘ve come to know these objects well, I feel quite privileged.
JP: What kind of advice would you give to young collectors? DH: To buy what they really like and to seek advice from people with whom they share
the same sensibility.
JP: Do you think one should buy from one art dealer only? DH: One should be open- minded yet at the same time it is important to be capable of
defining a certain subject, a region, a period of culture and to understand it. We all have our own approach to things but in order to understand and grasp the intrinsic meaning of an object you need time and humility. Nowadays the approach is perhaps too commercial. We consecrate less time to the objects themselves. On the other hand, concerning current market prices, I would say the positive side of things is that we are finally acknowledging an artistic talent which is unquestionable and part of the creative heritage of mankind.
JP: Last question: a fire breaks out, what object do save from the flames? BH:The Pére stool: it’s an object to which I am most sensitive , I love its symbols and what they stand for, it’s a deeply intelligent object and I find it fascinating.
JOAQUIN PECCI Tribal Art