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Cheri SambaJe suis le meme mais je ne suis plus le meme, 20042004
2004
$41,420.12
£30,952.09
€35,000
CA$57,675.44
A$61,978.33
CHF 33,254.97
MX$730,066.86
NOK 418,144.38
SEK 381,972.19
DKK 266,807.69
About the Item
Chéri Samba - "Je suis le même mais je ne suis plus le même,
2004, Oil and glitter on canvas, 150x120 cm
In this work, Chéri Samba constructs an image that is at once portrait, manifesto, confession, and visual paradox. The first impression is that of a body-or rather, of two faces-unfolding, peeling open, wrapping around themselves like ribbons, like layers of identity. The spirals that unravel and recombine the physiognomy immediately evoke the impossible, mathematical language of M.C. Escher, where form is never fixed and perception becomes a labyrinth of shifting surfaces.
As in Escher, here too the figure is no longer a given, but a process-a continuous becoming, an identity that breaks apart and stitches itself back together in the very act of being seen. Samba uses this "banded" structure as a conceptual device: each layer is a version of himself, a moment from his biography, a thought that emerges and then slides elsewhere. His image does not simply represent: it reflects.
The inscription within the painting-"Je suis le même mais je ne suis plus le même"-is the key to the entire visual construction: "I am the same, yet I am no longer the same." It is a declaration of metamorphosis, but also a stance toward the art market, fame, and recognition. The words that Samba places directly onto the canvas become essential to the work: a confession, a diary, a protest, and at the same time an act of self-affirmation.
In the text, Samba speaks about the way his artistic value is perceived: how, in order to be acknowledged at the same level as the great Western masters, he must "multiply his work," "produce more," "prove more." It is a lucid and bitter reflection on the position of the African artist in the global system:
always observed, often celebrated, yet never regarded as truly equal.
The money painted at the lower edge of the composition is not decoration; it is commentary, a narrative agent. The identity spiral descends until it touches the stack of banknotes, as if to say that symbolic value and economic value in the art world are intertwined-just like the spirals that bind the two faces together: impossible to separate without dismantling the entire figure.
And yet the work is not cynical; it is clear-eyed. With his customary irony, Samba openly declares what many keep silent: that the artist does not live in an ivory tower, that the market matters, that recognition is never neutral. But above all, that identity is not a fixed block: it is a journey, a continual drawing-near to oneself. The spirals shaping the faces therefore become one of the most coherent gestures of African Neo-Mannerism: they do not claim purity, they do not demand separation, they do not defend a monolithic tradition. Instead, they recount complexity, layering, dialogue-at times harmonious, at times conflictual-between who we have been and who we are becoming.
In this work, Samba not only looks toward the old masters; he surpasses them through a conceptual movement that is thoroughly contemporary: the figure is no longer statue, no longer portrait.
It is a visible thought, winding and unwinding like a truth that can no longer portrait.
It is a visible thought, winding and unwinding like a truth that can no longer be contained.
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Materials
Oil and glitter on canvas
- Creator:Cheri Samba (1956, Congolese)
- Creation Year:2004
- Dimensions:Height: 120 in (304.8 cm)Width: 150 in (381 cm)Depth: 3 in (7.62 cm)
- More Editions Sizes:unicaPrice: $41,420
- Medium:
- Movement Style:
- Period:
- Condition:Chéri Samba - "Je suis le même mais je ne suis plus le même, 2004, Oil and glitter on canvas, 150x120 cm In this work, Chéri Samba constructs an image that is at once portrait, manifesto, confession, and visual paradox.
- Gallery Location:Roma, IT
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU2924217395292
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