28-11-2019 - Museum de Fundatie has acquired six works from the series Congo Tales by Pieter Henket (1979). Three were donated, three acquired thanks to BankGiro Lottery participants.
This is the complete series 'The Murder of the Elders' and The River from 'The Story of the Little Fish and the Crocodile'. With the earlier series The Faces from 2011, 16 portraits of models, the Fundatie now has an important ensemble from Henket's oeuvre in its collection.
The large-format photographs 'The Murder of the Elders' deal with the conflict between generations. In a power struggle between the up-and-coming youth and the old rulers in the village, sons murder their fathers. One son loves his father so much and hides him. Two months later, when a young woman sees her baby nearly killed by a strangling snake, the only remaining father saves the situation, making him the village chief and reconciling the generations and giving insight into each other's qualities. 'The Story of the Little Fish and the Crocodile' is about the laws of nature that everyone must obey. For no matter how friendly the crocodile treats the fish during a friendship dinner, in the night after, the crocodile eats all the fish's eggs.
The photos are part of the exhibition Congo Tales, on view until 5 January 2020 at Museum de Fundatie. Congo Tales tells stories and myths of inhabitants of the Congo Basin, the world's largest tropical rainforest after the Amazon. At this location in Africa, the organisation Tales of Us worked on the project for five years. At the invitation of initiators, producers Eva Vonk and Stefanie Plattner, Pieter Henket created the extensive photo series together with local people. In the cinematic and surreal portraits that Henket created, the magic and mysteries of the virtually unknown, but for the world so important area come to life. The Rijksmuseum also has six photographs from Congo Tales in its collection.