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Bambaataa by artist Gabriel Lester is a large black metal monolithic sculpture containing three cube forms of light grey gauze metal in which the forms are placed in such a way that you associate them with the eyes and mouth of a face. Because of the abstract representation of that face, the thought soon turns to a mask.

The title of the sculpture refers to Africa Bambaata, a pioneer in Electro music and Hip-hop, who took his name from the feature film Zulu (with Michael Caine), in which Zulu warriors resist the British army. Masks were used by the Zulu warriors in tribal festivities, such as the worship of ancestors and the dead, and were not intended to disguise anything, but rather to represent something. They were often used during ceremonies in combination with dance, singing and gestures.

Lester, who was educated at Hogeschool Sint-Lukas in Brussels (now LUCA School of Arts) and the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten (Amsterdam) and lives and works in Amsterdam, is a lover of rap, hip-hop and spoken word and produced rap music himself in the eighties of the twentieth century. He was founder of the groups Definitely Def and Utile Connection and gave freestyle spoken word performances with jazz and hip hop musicians in the nineties.

With Bambaataa he has now in fact paid homage to one of his heroes, the mask referring via the musician to the use of facial covering by the Zulu warriors.

The eyes and mouth of the sculpture allow sunlight to pass through, creating holographic projections of geometric shapes. Because of the incidence of light, which is different at every moment of the day, the projections sometimes change shape. The sculpture is set up in such a way that when the sun goes down, it lights up the sculpture like a kind of spotlight.

You could say that this literally puts Bambaataa in the spotlight.

Text: Lennard Dost