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AS the 55th Venice Biennale draws to a close it would be of the greatest importance to look at the event in retrospect and critically evaluate what the event does for the contemporary art in Zimbabwe, with consideration to the national agenda to indigenise and create employment.
The event, which winds up its six-month run on November 24, widely referred to as La Biennale de Venezia: “The Artistic Olympics” as it draws many of the world’s nations, art lovers, art scholars and artists together.
Zimbabwe’s artistic conscience is exposed to a greater audience in this light as issues such as fertility and the female experience and questions of faith were addressed in the artworks of Virginia Chihota and Portia Zvavahera, both working with narratives that were from the Zimbabwean experience.
“Dudziro: Interrogating The Visions of Religious Beliefs” was officially opened on May 31 at the Santa Maria della Pieta, the chapel that houses the Zimbabwean Pavilion with the event being graced by artists, critics and members of the diplomatic corps. The location of the Zimbabwe Pavilion has a very absorbing history as it used to be an orphanage where the Baroque composer Antonio Vivaldi made most of his music with an orchestra composed of foundling girls who occupied the boarding house.
The musical theme was carried on by the regional director of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe in Bulawayo and contributing artist at the Pavilion, Vhoti Thebe. Like Vivaldi, Thebe believes in the tradition of mentorship and sees it to be a must for artistic training. His work reflects this as it is bears traditional elements such as hakata which works with religious visions in their divine nature.
“Expressive paintings make statements which benefit the artist creatively. Painting as a tradition is something that is inherited by the viewer of the work,” said Thebe.
Rashid Jogee’s “Dudziro series” depicts visions that are executed in his Action Painting. “The process of painting is a highly spiritual one for me,” Jogee goes on. “I pour my soul out into my work, it is therapeutic.”
Jogee was born in Bulawayo and educated at the Mzilikazi Art and Craft Centre. Prior to the Venice Biennale, he had not painted for about five years.
The Venice Biennale became a point for Jogee to re-engage with the art appreciating public.
“Mistakes in the Right Lines” by Virginia Chihota was an absorbing series of work with her interpretation of a woman’s experience centering on ritualistic practices. She uses the fertility doll as a visual constant in her work with links the series. Throughout the Biennale Chihota’s work has received critical acclaim and shortlisted her for numerous prizes away from Venice.
Growing from strength to strength, Chihota’s work won the Prix Canson. “This award is the perfect illustration of an age-old link between Canson® and artists, and of our commitment to defending the place of art in society, investing heavily by their sides to provide support and visibility,” said Stéphane Hamelin, chairman of the Fonds Canson.
Virginia’s work will be featured in the upcoming Deutsche Bank exhibition opening on the 27th. This exhibition will be curated by Victoria Nothorn, a curator who met Virginia on a visit to Zimbabwe a few years ago.
Aside from that, work from the Zimbabwe Pavilion has been housed by major international galleries, museums and corporations. Michele Mathison exhibited the work Ikhuba, Chibage and Landscape. His work is laboriously crafted and makes use of space around it efficiently.
His work is now housed in the Zeint Collection in Cape Town. Portia Zvavahera is a recent recipient of the R100 000 Tollman Award which is lauded to an artist of acclaim. She showed at the Johannesburg Art Fair and now her work is housed in the Cape Town-based New Church Gallery.
The National Gallery of Zimbabwe will work on continuing the exposition of Zimbabwean artists abroad and wish to amalgamate this ever increasing visibility and presence on the global art scene. It would be ignorant to be excluded at any forum such as the Venice Biennale, Frieze Art Fair and the Johannesburg Art Fair, where for the first time Empire Gallery featured and flew the Zimbabwean flag.
“As the National Gallery of Zimbabwe we are doing our part as are other institutions on the Zimbabwean art scene. It is imperative that a Zimbabwean voice be present at global art functions as this serves to portray the nation through its artistic conscience and the Venice Biennale has become a positive point of interface for artists and the nation as a whole,” said Raphael Chikukwa, the curator of the Zimbabwe Pavilion.
“The increase of visitors to the Zimbabwe Pavilion is testament to the fact that Zimbabwe is gaining momentum as a producer of reputable art and artists with the traffic ascending by a count of twenty thousand viewers.”
At the 2011 Edition of the Venice Biennale, the Zimbabwe Pavilion received slightly over 40 000 visitors, this year up to 60 000 people went through the Pavilion, mostly providing positive review of the work. All this would not have been possible without our valued sponsors and partners, among them the European Union, the Culture Fund of Zimbabwe Trust, the Swiss Embassy and Goethe Institut Harare. The National Gallery of Zimbabwe would like to extend its gratitude to the Government of Zimbabwe and applaud their ceaseless efforts towards the realisation of our participation at the Biennale. In this regard, we hope this partnership between Government and the art sector. In that vein, all focus falls on the next event in 2015.
“Dudziro: Interrogating The Visions of Religious Beliefs” at the Zimbabwe Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale runs at the Santa Maria Della Pieta in Venice until November 24, 2013 and is curated by Chikukwa.
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