President Bongo

Ernest Hemingway once wrote that true nobility is being superior to your former self. Tintin’s spirit of adventure became a source of inspiration to President Bongo when he suddenly saw the books in a new light one fateful evening in a small mountain cabin in Lón. Sure, they formed a coherent narrative world with certain key characters and basic themes, but otherwise they were as inventive as Hergé’s boundless imagination. The president decided to venture out on his own and release 24 albums over a period of ten years under the title of Les Aventures de President Bongo, bringing together a vast array of artists under his direction. But "albums” in the plural don’t really cover this project as a whole, which is closer to being a kind of Gesamtkunstwerk, an all-embracing body of work encompassing music, photography, design, writing and short films. Multiple elements thrive under its umbrella in different mediums – amputated nature, poetic light art, obsolete structures, deep sea techno, funeral jazz and buzzing electric flies, to name but a few. Just like Tintin, just like Hergé, Bongo is solely driven by an unquenchable thirst for adventure. The whole world is at stake and there is always room to do better.