adminprofessional advisors in this field. Most of our local interior designers and architects do not know the local visual arts, nor is there a comprehensive directory of art, artists’ art studios and designers at hand.
Another dilemma is that art consultations’ services do not exist in this country.
It is a crying shame then, that local affordable and original artworks are purchased, exported and displayed in overseas homes as far as Alaska, China, Japan, the United States West Coast and lately, Russia. Note the distances, whilst in local homes and offices it is a rare feat to come across an original Zimbabwean art work on display.
Unfortunately, these days in Harare, one is most likely to come across gaudy, mass-produced Chinese art, artifices and trinkets which have flooded the market lately.
They are readily available, ridiculously overpriced from anything between US$6 and US$6 000, when they, in fact, have no aesthetic, cultural or financial value.
Without stirring or inciting “Sino-phobia”, one cannot but notice that we have already deliberately allowed ourselves to be culturally re-colonised by another foreign entity at the expense of our own cultural growth and empowerment.
These are the issues that Elvas Mari of our National Arts Council and Farai Mufunya of Culture Fund should be addressing.
Instead of dreaming and scheming of ways to siphon and tax the already exploited, rejected and down-trodden Zimbabwean visual artist with their recently dreamt up board of “TRACE”.
They should be thinking instead of ways to educate, nurture and protect the artist, and the art, and encourage Government, corporate and individual patronage of the arts.
The best contemporary Zimbabwean visual art embodies all that is mystical, spiritual, emotive, social, cultural and psychologically arresting about indigenous post-colonial Africa today. Twentieth century
Spanish artist and legend Pablo Picasso’s (1881-1973) words resonate for me when he stated:
“I have felt my strangest and deepest artistic emotions stirred when suddenly confronted with the sublime beauty of sculpture executed by anonymous artists of Africa.”
It stands to reason then, that we must feel obliged to collect, invest and own that which brings glory in being a culturally empowered indigenous Zimbabwean nation. We stand to lose our identity and tangible heritage if we allow our art to be plundered, looted and become extinct once again.
- Dr Tony Monda holds a PhD in Art History and Psychology and a DBA (Doctorate in Business Administration) in Post-Colonial Heritage Studies, and honorary member of the World Federation of Artists and Critics. He is a practising artist and critic.
Online Reporter