![Sample our Social Sciences journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/110822/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Social-Sciences.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
In 1968, Equatorial Guinea’s emergence as an independent nation signaled a pivotal chapter in Spain’s national identity, deeply grounded on an imperial narrative. Around this juncture, Leandro Mbomio was etching his mark on Spain's cultural milieu as a sculptor. His success and persona reflected the image, voice, and thought the Francoist state sought in its former African subjects. Amid Spain’s stringent media censorship, the official narrative that emerges from Mbomio’s career is captivating. He was celebrated as “the black Picasso” and deemed emblematic of Black culture in Spain. This paper seeks to answer the following questions: How did the portrayal and reception of Mbomio reflect Spain’s shifting views on Equatorial Guinea, “Black Africa”, and the broader understanding of “Blackness” at the time?
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 This paper is part of the R+D+i Project “Africans and North Africans in the Iberian Peninsula (1850-1975). A history on the margins of Spain and Portugal” (AFROIBERIA) (PID2019-108397GB-I00/AEI/ 10.13039/501100011033), financed by MCIN/ AEI/10.13039/501100011033/ and “FEDER A way to make Europe”. I am forever thankful to the P.I., Yolanda Aixelà-Cabré, for inviting me to this research project and her infinite patience and generosity. She made this research possible by sharing her contacts, giving me methodological advice, insightful comments, and amazing homemade Catalan meals.
2 To this end, art, and ethnographic collections in cultural institutions, such as museums, served as pedagogical tools to justify the Spanish civilizing mission to the Spanish people by highlighting the primitive character of the colonized peoples of Africa. Establishing the Centro de Estudios Africanos (CEA) in Madrid (1946) epitomized this aim. As Luis Pérez-Armiño underscores, this center was tasked with “justifying the colonizing action of Spain in Africa” (Pérez-Armiño Citation2019).
3 This study was approved by the Iowa State University Institutional Review Board project ID 19-246 on 28 June 2019. All participants provided written or audio-recorded informed consent before enrolment in the study. The interviews were conducted between 2020 and 2022. Due to covid restrictions, many of the interviews were conducted on the phone; some interviews were in-person in Madrid and Barcelona.
4 Leandro Mbomio won a first-place award in painting in an “Expo-contest” in 1958 in the city of Bata (Kukkanda Citation2021). Mbomio’s paintings of that era are sometimes visible online: https://www.todocoleccion.net/arte-pintura-oleo/leandro-mbomio-nsue-guinea-1938-2012-escena-africa-1950s-personas-selva~x344345238.
5 Extremely few individuals were brought from Fernando Poo to Spain to pursue an education with this practice materialized and documented until the 1920s and 30s. In this issue, Arbaiza (Citation2023) documents some of the first cases of Black African students that were brought to Spain in the mid-19th century. Arbaiza suggests that these individuals were educated to become agents of cultural assimilation; Mbomio’s scholarship falls within the spirit of that colonial practice.
6 Translations of all sources originally in Spanish and French were conducted by the author of this article.
7 An example is the miniature reproductions of some of Mbomio’s most celebrated sculptures that can be found in Unesco's Announcement of the laureates of the UNESCO-Equatorial Guinea International Prize for Research in the Life Sciences. (2022). https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/announcement-laureates-unesco-equatorial-guinea-international-prize-research-life-sciences gifted to the awardees of Obiang’s UNESCO prize and a considerable sum of money. (UNESCO).
8 “Black Africa, incapable, for the time being, of competing advantageously with the countries of more solidly structured cultural spheres, is in danger of perishing or abandoning its own soul” [“El África Negra, incapaz, de momento, de competir ventajosamente con los países de ámbitos culturales más sólidamente estructurados, se halla en peligro de perecer o de abandonar su propia alma”] (Areán Citation1975, 46–47).
9 The examination of Mbomio’s career in Spain also encompassed Mbomio’s representation in print media, including La Vanguardia and El País. Additionally, Dolores Soriano, a retired ethnologist who work at at the Museo Etnológico de Barcelona (today’s Museo Etnológico y de Culturas del Mundo) provided important context for the strategies behind artifact collections in Spanish colonial territories, a source of knowledge for Mbomio during his time in the city.
10 In building this approach, I thought of race as a performance-based category. Notions such as “Cloning” (2006) and “Relational Racisms” coined by David T. Goldberg, constituted important tools to appreciate how racial arrangements transform the way individuals perceive and exist in the world across different locations and epochs (Goldberg Citation2006, 334).
11 On the institutionalization of Materia Reservada, Emilio Cassinello, head of the Sub-Saharan Africa division in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs between 1973 and 1977, explained the regime’s mentality: “[…] decisions were taken like this. It was in the heart of the system. Drastic action, out, nobody talks about Guinea, we do not want to have any more problems with Macías” (Mahiques Citation2013, 33).
12 For an analysis of the tensions between Spain and the United Nations during the decolonization of Equatorial Guinea (1959–1968), see Campos Citation2003.
13 Franco governed through audiences held at El Pardo palace. Mbomio is noted as “Don Leandro Mbomio, pintor de la Guinea Española” in the list of the daily audience’s report in the Falange newspaper Baleares: Año XXVI Número 7443–1964 July.
14 The “Prensas del movimiento”, referred to the Spanish controlled media under Franco.
15 It may have been that in 1975 Arean had seen Mbomio as a herald for Christian-African religion, but when Mbomio, as Minister of Culture in Equatorial Guinea, attempted to institute an African-centric religion, the idea went awry due to Papal intervention (Liniger-Goumaz Citation2000, 256–257).