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‘Mona Lisa’ could be set to make rare tour of France

The "Mona Lisa", Da Vinci's masterpiece which has spent nearly all of the past 500 years in Paris, could soon be smiling at audiences across France as part of a rare tour, the country's culture minister said Thursday.

Published: 1 March 2018 15:01 CET

'Mona Lisa' could be set to make rare tour of France

Photo: Wikicommons

Francoise Nyssen told Europe 1 radio she was “seriously considering” the move as part of travelling exhibition of the country's most prestigious artworks.

“I am meeting with the president of the Louvre this morning and I'm going to discuss the matter again,” Nyssen said, adding that she didn't see why such works should be kept in the one place.

“My priority is to work against cultural segregation, and a large-scale plan for moving them around is a main way of doing that.”

The painting, whose mysterious smile has long captivated artists and admirers, draws millions of people to the Louvre each year.

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But it has rarely ventured outside the museum's walls, with officials citing concerns for the fragility and security of the painting, which was stolen from the Louvre in 1911, resurfacing only two years later in Florence.

Nyssen dismissed worries about preserving the painting, citing President Emmanuel Macron's offer to loan Britain the delicate near-1,000-year-old Bayeux Tapestry in 2022 while the museum housing the embroidery is renovated.

The mayor of the northern French city of Lens, home of an extension of the Louvre since 2012, has already declared his interest in housing the painting, which last left the Louvre for shows in Tokyo and Moscow in 1974.

Before that, it spent a few months in Washington and New York in 1963, and was extracted for safekeeping during World Wars I and II.

In 2013, the museum refused a request from the city of Florence, where Da Vinci is believed to have started the work, to lend it for an exhibit.

The request may have stirred up bad memories among French officials, given that it was stolen by an Italian.

African-born director's new vision for Berlin cultural magnet

The “Haus der Kulturen der Welt” (House of World Cultures), or HKW, was built by the Americans in 1956 during the Cold War for propaganda purposes, at a time when Germany was still divided.

New director Ndikung said it had been located “strategically” so that people on the other side of the Berlin Wall, in the then-communist East, could see it.

This was “representing freedom” but “from the Western perspective”, the 46-year-old told AFP.

Now Ndikung, born in Cameroon before coming to study in Germany 26 years ago, wants to transform it into a place filled with “different cultures of the world”.

The centre, by the river Spree, is known locally as the “pregnant oyster” due to its sweeping, curved roof. It does not have its own collections but is home to exhibition rooms and a 1,000-seat auditorium.

It reopened in June after renovations, and Ndikung’s first project “Quilombismo” fits in with his aims of expanding the centre’s offerings.

The exhibition takes its name from the Brazilian term “Quilombo”, referring to the communities formed in the 17th century by African slaves, who fled to remote parts of the South American country.

Throughout the summer, there will also be performances, concerts, films, discussions and an exhibition of contemporary art from post-colonial societies across Africa, the Americas, Asia and Oceania.

‘Rethink the space’

“We have been trying to… rethink the space. We invited artists to paint walls… even the floor,” Ndikung said.

And part of the “Quilombismo” exhibition can be found glued to the floor -African braids laced together, a symbol of liberation for black people, which was created by Zimbabwean artist Nontsikelelo Mutiti.

According to Ndikung, African slaves on plantations sometimes plaited their hair in certain ways as a kind of coded message to those seeking to escape, showing them which direction to head.

READ ALSO: Germany hands back looted artefacts to Nigeria

His quest for aestheticism is reflected in his appearance: with a colourful suit and headgear, as well as huge rings on his fingers, he rarely goes unnoticed.

During his interview with AFP, Ndikung was wearing a green scarf and cap, a blue-ish jacket and big, sky-blue shoes.

With a doctorate in medical biology, he used to work as an engineer before devoting himself to art.

In 2010, he founded the Savvy Gallery in Berlin, bringing together art from the West and elsewhere, and in 2017 was one of the curators of Documenta, a prestigious contemporary art event in the German city of Kassel.

Convinced of the belief that history “has been written by a particular type of people, mostly white and men,” Ndikung has had all the rooms in the HKW renamed after women.

These are figures who have “done something important in the advancement of the world” but were “erased” from history, he added. Among them is Frenchwoman Paulette Nardal, born in Martinique in 1896.

She helped inspire the creation of the “negritude” movement, which aimed to develop black literary consciousness, and was the first black woman to study at the Sorbonne in Paris.

Reassessing history

Ndikung’s appointment at the HKW comes as awareness grows in Germany about its colonial past, which has long been overshadowed by the atrocities committed during the era of Adolf Hitler’s Nazis.

Berlin has in recent years started returning looted objects to African countries which it occupied in the early 20th century — Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Namibia and Cameroon.

“It’s long overdue,” said Ndikung.

He was born in Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, into an anglophone family.

The country is majority francophone but also home to an anglophone minority and has faced deadly unrest in English-speaking areas, where armed insurgents are fighting to establish an independent homeland.

One of his dreams is to open a museum in Cameroon “bringing together historical and contemporary objects” from different countries, he said.

He would love to locate it in Bamenda, the capital of Cameroon’s restive Northwest region.

“But there is a war in Bamenda, so I can’t,” he says.

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