WHY NOT BYLEX ? PUME

MAISON REVUE NOIRE exhibition :

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About PUME-BYLEX's ARTWORKS :

Globe percé (Pierced Globe)

Humanity has always been considered a fragile egg, with the man inside incapable of resolving everything. It is impossible for man to save life on Earth from suffering.
Nowadays, humanity is capital F fragile, resting upon the head of mouse-rodents! Meaning, even with the most refined of comforts, man is troubled by other problems that await him, especially by those three birthdays - the most feared - sickness, old age and death that spare neither rich nor poor.
Despite satellite-aided security, crime increases. Despite the use of computers in agriculture, famine increases. Despite laser surgery, death triumphs and makes man powerless. All his efforts are as if in a vacuum. Here, the best response is a vacuum, that of the divinity which can change things completely. In conclusion, the Earth can only be helped by the person that made it!
The “Globe Percé” (Pierced Globe):
The meaning of the representative elements:
The sword: the sword represents the Creator who comes to repair the damage to his beloved Earth.
The glass: transparency before one’s Creator. Man is transparent. He cannot hide.
The image of man: the moustaches represent the authority of man here on Earth.
The forehead bandage: headaches caused by excessive salutary reasoning.
The half-open mouth: hesitation in what one says, in one’s promises.
The oval shapes in the base: they represent the heads of mouse-rodents who come to dissipate man’s tranquillity.
i.e. whether rich or poor, we are constantly overburdened by worries that gnaw away at our hearts.

signed Pume-Bylex

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Les Souffleurs (Blowers)

Excessive aid.
The image in the middle reveals a person in distress asking for urgent help, and surreptitiously two volunteers are brought to help by a force as oppressive as it is brutal, using dragon strength with no heart for reluctance.
The two donors exteriorise all their will to help without holding back. Seeing the abundance of aid, the person in distress asks that the aid be stopped! And says: “You have helped me enough!”
The heart exits and goes up in smoke. If a world existed like that of “Les Souffleurs”, the world would be a paradise.

signed Pume-Bylex

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Crabe horloge (Crab Clock)

In the iris of the inventors, the clock reveals the different hours of searching.
Here, the crab represents technology, mechanisms. Its claws and legs represent the machine that transport industrial wood, lumber kept under the pressure of large, robotic machines. Through this giant crab we are reminded that artificial technology is simply a copy of natural technology.
Take for example planes and helicopters. They are just copies of birds, bees, dragonflies.

signed Pume-Bylex

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Baiser des cochons (Pig Kiss)

First of all: pigs, we class them as the stupidest of animals. “Pig” is a term used for insults. And yet, pigs are very affectionate.
In this work, “Baiser des cochons", the two pigs, male and female, come out of their pigsty to show the deepest affection for each other with a firm kiss, their eyes completely closed. This affection goes beyond what can be imagined, erasing all contempt, forgiving the other’s clumsiness, in order for them to come together as one being.
Question by the author Bylex:
And if pigs know how to forgive, how to be affectionate with each other, why is it that this planet has so many men and women creating problems and moral dilemmas for themselves? Why do they become embittered and forget the natural affection given to them by the Creator-God? This affection has great value compared to that of animals, limited by instinct.

signed Pume-Bylex


“It is not only the rich who find poverty distasteful. The poor hate poverty too."

(translation Jason Whittaker)

PUME
BIOGRAPHY

Born in 1968. Lives and works in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Born into a family of craftsmen - his father was a carpenter - he is admitted to high school and obtains a diploma in teaching. Pume, not very interested in educating children, decides to follow his destiny.

PUME says that his fascination for logic, science and the link between cause and effect comes from the observation of movie projectors that he watched endlessly in cinemas. “Those who invented these machines are neither Gods nor angels… so why not me?” He thus invents his own solar energy machine, sold at a trade fair. With the money earned, he buys a projector…

In 1988 a voice - the voice of Byl, “the man who does not waste time” - whispers to him that everything is possible, that he should remain calm, that he is on this Earth for a reason. “Had I been born into a rich family, I would never have felt the need to push my research so far. Nonetheless, we are not born into this world to embrace suffering.”

So, what was to come next? For four years he reflects on the “Byl Statue”, a symbolic representation of his move into the world of art. “Women have a hidden wealth,” he says. “They tenderly cherish their children for nine months. If one does not become an artist, one can never pay them back or thank them for bringing us into the world. I used to be a nothing. Now, I am a talking person.”

In 1995, Pume participates in a group exhibition at the French Cultural Centre in Kinshasa, devised and realised by the late-lamented Jean-Pierre Mbui, with “the” founding sculpture, “Byl Statue”, later called “maternity”, allowing the team from Revue Noire to encounter the artist. An article in the Revue and the cover of the “Kinshasa” edition showcases them both in 1996. All the codes used in the various works he creates - desks, chairs, styles of dress, “Baiser de cochons” (Pig kiss), “Cité touristique” (Tourist city) - are already defined and present. There are also the formal codes that he continuously develops, such as the dividing of elements into squares, and the chessboard of order and science, the glass that protects the precious prototype and its colour codes including the famous, cornerstone “coral-black” and “oyez-white”, the white that says “Oyez! Oyez!”

1997. First voyage to Europe, Paris, for Revue Noire’s group exhibition “Suites Africaines” at the Couvent des Cordeliers, in which he has his own space. A slew of prestigious group exhibitions follow, including “Partage d’exotismes” (A sharing of exoticisms) by Jean-Hubert Martin [Biennale de Lyon, 2000] and “Africa Remix” by Simon Njami, Commissioner General [Kunst Palast Museum in Düsseldorf, Centre Pompidou in Paris, Hayward Gallery in London, Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, Moderna Museet in Stockholm, 2004-2006].

In 2004, a one-month residence and exhibition at the Espace Croisé, a contemporary arts centre in Roubaix, where he creates two large-scale works, “La loi du plus fort” (The law of the jungle) and “Regards croisés” (Different perspectives).

In 2008, an important, an original personal exhibition “The World According to Bylex” takes place at the Royal Flemish Theatre [KVS] in Brussels. Filip de Boeck and Koen Van Synghel show not only his work “la Cité Touristique“, but also his world, via a film projected onto on a number of projector screens.

2012 will be the year of a two one-man exhibitions showing the diversity of his work, first at the Halle de la Gombe in Kinshasa’s Institut Français [curated by Françoise Gardies and Jean Loup Pivin, aided by Hanna El Fakir and Antoine Guide], then at the Maison Revue Noire in Paris.

In the 2000s, his marriage helps reconcile him with the idea of children, that he imagined would be disrespectful of his work: he now has three children, each with as much Pume as they have Bylex! This explains why his first daughter is called Lorbyl  [“Lord is Bylex“], his son Lasdie [“la science de Dieu - the science of God“] and his youngest daughter Lorème [“Lord remember me“].

Jean Loup Pivin & Pascal Martin Saint Leon (translation Jason Whittaker)



SOLO SHOWS

2012
„Pourquoi pas Bylex ? par Pume“
Maison Revue Noire, Paris,
et la Halle de la Gombe, Kinshasa, RDCongo
2008
„The World According to Bylex“, Bruxelles
2007
„God is no Bylex“, Cargo Media Store, Ostende
2006
„Pume Bylex“, CCF La Halle de la Gombe, Kinshasa


COLLECTIVE SHOWS

2011
„Pourquoi Pas Bylex ?“ Maison Revue Noire, Paris
et Halle de la Gombe, Institut français de Kinshasa
2010
„Afropolis“, Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum, Cologne
2006
„Africa Remix“, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japon
et Moderna Museet à Stockholm, Suède
2005
„Africa Remix“, Centre Pompidou, Paris
et Hayward Gallery, Londres
2004
„Africa Remix“, Museum Kunst Palast, Düsseldorf,
Espace Croisé, Centre d’art contemporain de Roubaix
2003
„L’Europe fantôme“, Espace Vertebra, Forest, Belgique
2000
“Partage d’exotismes”, 5ème Biennale de Lyon
1999
“Trésors d’Afrique”, MC2a, Bordeaux, France
1998
"Veilleurs du monde", Musée des Arts d'Afrique et d'Océanie, Paris
1997
“Suites africaines”, Revue Noire, Couvent des
Cordeliers, Paris
1995
Centre Culturel Français de Kinshasa, Zaïre

BIBLIOGRAPHY

„Pourquoi pas Bylex ? par Pume“ Revue Noire éditions, Paris 2012
„The World According To Bylex“ par Filip de Boeck & Koen Van Synghel, KVS-Africalia, Bruxelles 2008
„Anthology of African Art, The XX Century“
Revue Noire-DAP, Paris-New York 2001
„Anthologie de l’Art africain du XXe siècle“
Revue Noire éditions, Paris 2001
Revue Noire magazine RN 24,
dossier “Suites africaines“, décembre 1997
Revue Noire magazine RN 21 Kinshasa, mars 1996