Elisabeth Bakambamba Tambwe
born in 1971 in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo; lives in Vienna, Austria
THE DAY I KILLED ELVIS (Wallpaper), 2020
wallpaper, recurring pattern, digitally edited from an edited photography as source
Commission evn collection 2020
First shown at Wallpaper #4, 2020 in Maria Enzersdorf, Austria
Inv. No. WP_19
In The Day I Killed Elvis, Elisabeth Bakambamba Tambwe presents hundreds of miniature self‑portraits. Adopting the stance of a cowboy and referencing Andy Warhol’s Double Elvis, she points a revolver directly at the viewer. Through the circular multiplication of the figure in an irregular sequence, the image evokes associations with kaleidoscopes, bobbin lace, rotating cogwheels, or Gothic architectural elements. In its configuration as a wallpaper, the motif relinquishes heroic singularity and instead acquires a rhythmic, almost ornamental quality. The iconic cowboy—an emblem of Western masculinity, violence, and myth—is displaced through Tambwe’s act of self‑appropriation and critically reframed from a feminist perspective. Repetition and seriality function not merely as decorative devices but as central mechanisms of meaning production. The wallpaper becomes a pictorial surface that mediates between individual identity and collective visual memory, while simultaneously structuring the surrounding space. The logic of repetition follows a fractal structure: the image multiplies and occupies the visual space, while the repeated body remains present and disrupts the perception of the decorative surface. The seemingly floral structure this way becomes an expression for a critical interrogation of representation, visibility, and power. The fractal functions herein less as a formal principle than as a strategic tool. Born in Kinshasa, Tambwe studied fine art and sculpture in Lille and now lives and works in Vienna. Her choreographic works and performances engage the body as a site of visibility, attribution, and cultural coding. Across media, her practice is characterized by a confident engagement with quotations drawn from art history, popular culture, and political iconography. By intertwining autobiographical perspectives with global image economies, she interrogates dominant narratives of identity and representation. Within this context, the wallpaper does not function as a passive background but as a narrative field. The transformation of Elvis Presley into a self‑portrait of the artist operates as a gesture that is at once humorous and disarming. Presley, long celebrated as the first megastar of a musical genre rooted in African American culture, becomes a vehicle for addressing appropriation and authorship. Through serial repetition, Tambwe generates a field of tension—between woman and man, individual and mass, empowerment and media‑driven multiplication—inviting viewers to reconsider familiar modes of seeing and to confront the power structures embedded in images.continue reading
Text: Heike Maier-Rieper, 2026
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)