The Double Club

For Carsten Höller, art can never get too close to life. After putting slides in Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern in 2006, Höller has returned to London with The Double Club: a bar, restaurant and dance floor where the Congo meets the west. The club – conceived by Höller and financed in part by Fondazione Prada – is located in an old warehouse in a dark alley behind Angel tube station. Far from a Congo-western fusion, the club has a split personality: visible, audible and even edible.

The menu offers partridge or fumbwa (yam leaves cooked in peanut sauce). Art works by Andy Warhol and Chéri Samba adorn the restaurant walls. One half of the bar is a polished copper pub called ‘The Two Horses Riders Club’; the other half a make-shift shack surrounded by plastic tables and chairs. One wall flashes a painted advertisement for Primus Bière; another one wall is made of those blue Portuguese azuejos tiles, depicting Russian architect Georgi Krutikov’s Flying City (1928). The dance floor is a silvery circular disk, which can rotate to the tunes of Papa Wemba or M.I.A.

Congo meeting the west is not an unproblematic encounter, whether one considers the brutal history of colonization under Belgian rule or the recent failure of a 17,000-strong UN peacekeeping force – the UN’s largest – to prevent the rebel General Laurent Nkunda from unleashing a humanitarian crisis at Goma. Höller’s project was first dubbed ‘Prada Congo Club’ and then quickly renamed ‘The Double Club’ as the crisis intensified. War is clearly bad for the brand. The opening last week coincided with a UN announcement that 3,000 more troops would be sent to DR Congo. As a gesture of solidarity – or justification – The Double Club profits will be donated to the UNICEF charity City of Joy which assists rape victims.

‘I don’t like to make objects,’ says Höller, who prefers art works as experiences. The Stockholm-based artist has been travelling to Kinshasa for years, most recently to work on a film about the pivotal role of music in the capital. The late dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, who seized power in 1965, was fond of saying, ‘Happy are those who sing and dance.’ In 1997, he was ousted by Laurent Kabila, who changed the country’s name from Zaire to the Democratic Republic of Congo (his son Joseph Kabila now rules). Höller initially used film footage of Kinshasa concerts to make projections. Taking on the role of impresario, the artist invited two world-class stars to play in Stockholm: Werrason at Färgfabriken in 2004 and Koffi Olomide at Berns in 2005.

The Double Club is a more ambitious project – not without conflicts. The Congolese war is being fought right in London, albeit with other weapons. For live music, Höller had hoped to invite top Kinshasa bands, but his plans were thwarted by the Combattants de Londres. This group – said to be 4,000 strong in London and spreading to Paris and Brussels – prevents Congolese musicians from playing in Europe because they are viewed as supporting Joseph Kabila. After his father was assassinated in 2001, Kabila Jr. took over and was elected in 2006 in the country’s first ballot since the 1960s. ‘The regime is corrupt,’ says Alidor Mutoba, president of the Combattants. ‘The musicians supported Joseph Kabila, and the government used them.’ The Combattants believe that Rwandan president Paul Kagame is backing both President Kabila and the rebel General Nkunda to destablize the country. The alleged goal is to exploit the mineral-rich Kivu region, which holds more than half of the world’s supply of coltan, a mineral used for mobile-phone circuit boards.

But just how do politicians use musicians? Bob White, a professor of anthropology at the Université de Montréal, speaks of ‘commercialized praise singing’. It goes by the name of libanga in Lingala, one of the country’s five languages. In English, we would say ‘dedications’, but libanga comes closer to advertising. Impoverished by pirates, the musicians live from fans who pay money to have their names sung out by the bands. The price depends on the artist and the format; for Koffi Olomide, the price ranges from 300 USD during a live performance to 3,000 USD on a recording. Under Mobutu, musicians were expected to praise the dictator’s programme of animation politique – or face consequences, like losing travel visas. They resisted by turning animation into ambiance – a complex word that White defines as ‘the buzz of a happening’. ‘It’s not like Brian Eno ambient music,’ explains White. ‘But the excited mood of a good show.’

SAPE – Société des ambianceurs et personnes élégantes (Society of buzz-makers and elegant people) – is another resistant offshoot that began in the 1980s between the foreign capitals Paris and Brazzaville through Nyarkos and Papa Wemba. Instead of donning the traditional Congolese garb dictated by Mobutu, the musicians started wearing Western designer clothes (and showed off the labels by wearing clothes inside-out). The musicians have become incredibly powerful in swaying public taste and public opinon – more so than politicians. Kabila Sr. called for patriotic songs: from a group album to praise the new currency franc congolais in 1998 to the hit To ko wa pona ekolo (We die for our country) by NC Zola and Souzy Kosseye. By contrast, Kabila Jr. ordered through government cultural officials what many consider propanda to win the 2006 election. It’s rumored that the most popular musicians were each paid 15,000 USD per song.

For the Combattants, the musicians should offer financial and moral support to the Congolese people. ‘The people are not happy,’ says Combattant Mutoba, echoing Mobutu’s slogan. ‘They don’t want to sing and to dance.’ The group claims to have been behind the cancellation of Koffi Olomide’s concert at London’s Coronet club in May 2007 and even Papa Wemba’s no-show for Nelson Mandela’s 90th birthday celebration in Hyde Park last summer. Last week, Werrason filmed a plea to perform at The Double Club. ‘He cannot come here,’ says Mutoba. In addition to intimidating musicians, the group is alleged to have been associated with an arson attack on the DR Congo’s embassy in May 2007 in London and assaults on Congolese officials visiting the city. Faced with such resistance, Höller decided to invite Congolese musicians already living in London.

It’s 8 pm at The Double Club. There’s no sign of the Combattants, who have given the club their silent blessing – for now. Africa Jambo – the first live London-based Congolese act – is taking requests for libanga. ‘Tonight, we play quiet,’ says singer Eugeune Makuta, noting that the band has been reduced from 15 members to a mere four. Singer and percussionist Aimé Bongongo – a proud Sapeur – is wearing a reminder of the on-going war and its victims: a sweatshirt bearing a peace sign made up of embroided outlines of human skulls. Will there be a dance tempo tonight? ‘It depends on the ambiance…’

By 11 pm, the place is packed. Höller’s goal becomes clear: separate the cultures; fuse the people. Guests ignore the aesthetic segregation throughout the club. Sapeurs in the latest look – beige furry suits – lounge at the Western copper bar. A Prada set is sitting in the Congo section on the plastic lawn chairs near the open BBQ. Even for cosmopolitan London, the crowd is mixed. The musician Bryan Ferry and the designer Peter Saville rub shoulders with the Popol Mukelenge, the host of the popular Congolese television culture show Bercy – Boulevard des Stars.

Given the fashion-conscious Sapeurs, one wonders why it took Prada so long to connect with them. Mukelenge calls them ‘fashion victims’. Yet some suspect that Prada may be trying to improve its status among the musicians, who favour the competition (the top designers are, in order of preference, Roberto Cavalli, Versace, Yoji Yamamoto, Jitrois, Comme des Garçons, Dolce & Gabbana). ‘Papa Wemba has never talked about Prada,’ notes Mukelenge, adding that the world star has already modeled for the Japanese designers Masatomo and Kassamoto. Muiccia Prada may be in for a disappointment.

For Mukelenge, The Double Club holds other disappointments. He would like to see more Congolese in the decision-making process. Jan Kennedy, who was behind Damien Hirst’s Pharmacy restaurant, is the club director. Clemens Weisshaar and Reed Kram created the western designs while Höller managed the Congolese sections. Even the chef preparing fumbwa is not Congolese; it’s Mourad Mazouz of Momo and Sketch fame. ‘Our culture is being honored here,’ says Mukelenge. ‘We have failed in politics and in war, but not in culture. We would like to participate because we don’t want to fail in culture here.’ Is The Double Club yet another example of Western colonialization and imperialism? ‘No, but there must be a collaboration.’

Could The Double Club overcome its managerial segregation and become a site for a true encounter between Congo and the west? Or even talks between musicians and Combattants? There’s not much time to find out. In six months, the entire project will be dismantled and shipped off to Fondazione Prada in Milan. The foundation’s new building, which is being designed by Rem Koolhaas, will open in 2013 near the Piazzale Lodi in the former bottling factory of the Società Distillerie Italiano. Perhaps there’s still a chance for The Double Club to get even closer to reality: to turn the dreams of a broken country into a dialogue of hope.The Double Club

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