Les devises de l’époque coloniale et de l’époque d’indépendance
Clément-Marie Biazin (1924-1981), Yakoma painter
Central African Republic, Bangui. 1970s. Gouache on paper.
Gift from Geneviève Dournon, ethnomusicologist and retired curator of the Musée de l’homme in Paris, in 2018
MEG Inv. ETHAF 068203
“In the past the army was called the French army, today
it is called the national army of Central Africa”. This is how Biazin describes this work built on four symmetric planes, balanced between words and images, the colonial period and independence. He depicts the armed forces of the young autonomous Central African Republic, after sixty years of French military occupation, and inscribes the national motto proclaimed in 1958 by the father of the nation Barthélémy Boganda (1910-1959).
F. Morin/MEG