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During the past few months this writer observed, discussed and interviewed iconic Zimbabwean international artist Tapfuma Gutsa on his work submitted for the 54th Venice Biennale: 11 Bienale di Venezia — Liv to be held this summer.
In Tapfuma Gutsa’s hands, the process of making art becomes ritualistic. Like an alchemist he transforms natural raw materials into a language of archetypal symbols that originate in his own Zimbabwean cultural domain and yet have resonance in pan-African and occidental cultures: a kind of visual esperanza.
By juxtaposing African non-Western cultural products and occidental artifice he unites the languages of form, context and sculpture along the axis of the Shaman as a universal healer and visionary a uniting force.
He collates seemingly disconnected elements from different African periods and cultures and conjoins them to become a simultaneous vision within his artwork. As such, he reconstructs an immediate present context from memory and time.
In other words, his work is a cauldron of time, geography, space and culture that ignites a universal connection between objects and memory through bi-associative imaging. Taking into consideration his “Tarred and Feathered Effigy” (2011), one sees an effigy laden with hundreds of years of human anguish, the brutality of slavery and the colonial disempowerment of African people. Like Pablo Picasso’s “Guernica” (1937), Gutsa’s “Tarred and Feathered Effigy” is an effective instrument in proactively averting future human cruelties regardless of race whether it is about Ground Zero, Auschwitz or Rwanda.
The slave trade or African colonisation
The sculpture says it all. This contemporary harrowing image will certainly stir many sentiments at the world’s art showcase. His work becomes a visual bridge between ideas in time, culture and consciousness, thus re-inventing his own visual contemporaneity.
This work of art opens doors to intriguing lines of inquiry given that the arts have done little to expose the West’s socio-political intolerance of Africans and other marginalised peoples. In his work “Water Deity” (2011), the artist harks back to the memory of the “Njuzu” (water spirit). Water nymphs are personifications of the creative and fostering activities of nature and man and are often identified with the life-giving outflow of springs, rivers, pools and sacred water caves world over.
These aquamarine manifestations have provided inspiration for imagery the world over. For instance, in Italy there is the Fountain of the Naiads, Piazza della Republica in Rome, and the world renowned La Fontana di Trevi, which are both, public monuments and fountains depicting water spirits.
Similarly, the Nile is said to have Nilos, Scotland has Loch Ness, the Celts have Laha, the Norwegians have Selma in Lake Storsjon, and Kraken in the sea. Zimbabwe and Zambezia have Nyami-Nyami.
Here Gutsa depicts a hypnotic feminine ophidian water deity fabricated from traditional Tonga basket weave on Hessian.
The oneiric swirling image of the Njuzu is accentuated by the fluttering Hessian material creating an implied movement and paranormal presence in a way that solid objects cannot achieve. The work also raises the question about the universal relevance, symbolism and similarities of water deities of antiquity in today’s world?
His “Africa 2010 Soccer World Cup” installation is a witty take on notions of power, manipulations and injustice. In this work he constructs a gold and black football field with uneven sized goal posts on opposite sides, with football boots placed in strategic positions accompanied by a compelling audio/video graph of children playing street soccer to the blare of the vuvuzela horns and the children’s innocent cheer.
This work imparts a strong moral message of hope and vigilance in the face of adversary. He has embraced digitalisation and video art in a riveting contribution of sight, synchronous sound and emotion. As such his art is contemporary, not just in time, but with time.
In his works Gutsa creates powerful emotive symbolism, which explores the innate power of natural objects, forms textures and colour, whilst detonating grenades of cultural discourse of the re-evolution of identity, geography and cultural symbols in the context of time.
His is always an enquiry into the notion of how society sees itself through the medium of his art. He recognises the independent life of images from past and present, not only of visual art but of human ideas and experiences that strike resonant cords within our minds and spirits.
To echo the words of a Welsh cultural theoretician, Raymond Williams.
“An artist who reflects on his experience and development becomes deeply aware to which these factors of formation and alignment in his own history have been decisive to a sense of what he is and that he is then free to explore and create.”
This aptly describes Gutsa’s creative aptitude. In a visual “mind-blast” he brings the museum of his mind to the eyes of the world in poignant and definitive works of art. We can only wish him well as he represents Zimbabwe on the world art stage — “11 Bienale di Venezia — Liv”, the 54th Venice Biennale. His ground-breaking work will no doubt challenge entrenched aesthetic material entities, but in relations between society, people and the components of the environment.
Buon viaggio e buona fortuna al Bianale di Venezia!
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