RATIO

Artists

Jean Katambayi Mukendi

Press release

RATIO is the first solo exhibition of Congolese artist Jean Katambayi Mukendi (b. 1974, DRC) in Germany. Constructed from locally sourced recycled materials, Katambayi’s sculptures engage with contemporary technological developments, ranging from the field of agriculture to military and robotics. His composite structures merge and transform machine functions, imaginatively exploring their ecological potential through recycling and repurposing. The artist’s drawings extend these inquiries, offering observations and speculative reflections on human experience in relation to ecology, economy, and language, among others.

The works featured in the show were created by Katambayi on site during a six–week residency at KW in fall 2025, using materials gathered from various locations in Berlin, such as KW’s storage and several of the city’s recycling yards. Spanning newly produced drawings and large-scale sculptures, RATIO addresses global structural inequities in resource extraction and power distribution, questioning the dualities that shape our world, between the natural and the artificial, growth and destruction.

Jean Katambayi Mukendi (b. 1974, DRC) is a Lubumbashi-based artist working across sculpture, painting, and drawing. Recent solo exhibitions include Micki Meng Gallery, Paris (2024); Ramiken Gallery, New York (2023); Waldburger Wouters, Brussels (2022); Kunsthalle Kohta, Helsinki (2022); and SALTS, Basel (2022). His work was included in the Congolese pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2024 and in the Manifesta 15 Barcelona Metropolitana (2024), and has been featured in group exhibitions such as To Leave a Space in Which the Din of War Might Die Down, NS-Dokumentationszentrum, Munich; The Geopolitics of Infrastructure. Contemporary Perspectives, M HKA – Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp; and The Gatherers, MoMA PS1, New York (all 2025); and Energies, Swiss Institute, New York (2024). Katambayi is a member of Picha, an artist-run association, which organizes the Lubumbashi Biennial.

The exhibition is co–produced by KW Institute for Contemporary Art and M HKA – Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp, Belgium, where it will be presented for its second iteration in summer 2026. It is accompanied by Circuits, Katambayi’s first monographic publication co–edited by Leuven University Press, KW and M HKA.

Curators: Emma Enderby & Linda Franken