Visual art continues to grow

Stephen Garan’anga Visual Art
The 2015 Zimbabwean visual arts scene seem to have kicked off fairly well, with regards to the activities of individual artists, associations, centres, galleries and other art institutions, although the art business transactions still remain smothered in this arid economic climate that has plagued the country for about a decade and a half.

This air of nothingness seem to have stiffened the artists’ endurances, reluctantly permitting them to strenuously continue to create with whatever inadequate and cheapest materials around sourced from subsidies by their other business activities.

They too have forsaken the prejudice against ‘rubbish’ to sift through random, broken, discarded and displaced bits and pieces, combining them to make new and original work to release their bottled pressure of issues threatening their sanity and the hope that one day things will get better. Galleries too financially constricted have continued with their activities with the majority leaning heavily on grants and outside sponsorship.

Private homes especially in Harare also are contributing significantly to the number of the shows serving the country with the other bit coming from places of learning and two or three arts festivals.

National and international professional artists’ workshops seem to have withered completely and the other learning and open discussions remain much at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe, then a few here and there. Of significance where the Intellectual Property (IP) and Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) workshops for visual artists and craft entrepreneurs of April 2015 conducted by the African Colours Artist’ Association (AAA) at the three National Galleries in Harare, Bulawayo and Mutare respectively, after the AAA had authored an IP and IPRs document titled “The Essence of Intellectual Property in Visual Arts and Craft Marketing, which was sponsored by the Culture Fund of Zimbabwe Trust with its partnership with Sweden and the European Union.

There were also arts engagement discussions initiated by the Harare International Festival of the Arts and the National Gallery’s Harare Conversations at the National Gallery in Harare. Gallery Delta Foundation for Art and the Humanities has had its share of artists’ talks and Njelele Art Station had its own including one by Kombo Chapfika after his lengthy solo show themed “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again”.

They also hosted a couple of international art screenings. Dzimbanhete Arts Interactions (DAI) Trust have just had their discussion on the closing ceremony of their “Our Stories — Ex-Libris” miniature print show with guests of honour being artists Masimba Hwati, Gareth Nyandoro and Chikonzero Chazunguza who are Zimbabwe’s representatives on the current 56th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia 2015 in Italy.

Since this writer had a multi media solo exhibition at the summit of 2014 spilling into 2015 at the Mutare National Gallery, the institution has been holding mid-monthly sessions of Shaurai Poetry and Music by upcoming performing artists as an effective way to attract visitors to the gallery.

They also have had a debut solo art show by a young and upcoming female practitioner Kundai Mharadze themed “Broken” before celebrating the Culture Week with an exhibition by Manicaland schools. A video showing by Sandy Sutcliffe of British sculptor Andy Goldsworthy followed then the Gallery’s 16th anniversary celebrations with the monthly ‘Shaurai PMS’ Poetry and Music Sessions by upcoming performing artists.

Harare’s National Gallery has had couple of remarkable shows since the beginning of the year as well as crucial art fora, art auction, artist-in residence and the educating of the aspiring young and upcoming artists to highlight a few. They had wide consultations with an advisory committee of Reverend Paul Damasane, Professor Saki Mafundikwa, Dr Biggie Samwanda, Fabian Kangai, Nintsikelelo Mutiti, Dominic Benhura and Stephen Garan’anga for Zimbabwe’s Pavilion at this year’s 56th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia 2015 in Italy.

The remarkable work of the show by artists Chikonzero Chazunguza, Masimba Hwati and Gareth Nyandoro in Santa Maria della Pieta, continue to be well applauded by thousands of people from all walks of life who visit the Pavilion. The trio art and culture comrades had a crystal clear understanding of the theme “Exploring The Social and Cultural Identities of the 21st Century”, “Pixels of Ubuntu/Hunu” Zimbabwe’s version, stifling it to receive numerous articles of high recommendations on various media platforms from various parts of the world. Once again, the commissioner of the Pavilion was versatile Doreen Sibanda, the executive director of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe and was curated by the National Gallery’s chief curator Raphael Chikukwa and understudy curator and dynamic artist Tafadzwa Gwetai.

Before the May Venice Biennale the Gallery had shown “Green Shoots”, a show of their art school’s 2014 graduates, which revealed exceptional talent that needs to be nurtured to achieve greatness; “Born Free: A Whole New Mind” an exhibition which was put together in commemoration of the country’s 35th independence and also mindful of the youths’ perspectives born during this period as the custodians of the country’s future; “Design Zimbabwe: The Traditional Kitchen”, an exhibition with a difference that explored Zimbabwe’s long rich tradition of design; and “Prominent Personalities: Portraits of Zimbabweans”, a commissioned multi-media exhibition, which was put up as a new direction to promote professional portrait painting in Zimbabwe and celebrating major contributions made by individual Zimbabweans that helped the betterment of the country and also coinciding with the commemorations of the country’s hard won independence. Recently the National Gallery had an art auction at the Italian Ambassador’s residence under “Waste no Waste” theme.

Across town Gallery Delta Foundation for Art and the Humanities has maintained its consistency with monthly sponsored shows mostly with catalogues.

They kick-started their calendar year of exhibitions with their traditional annual “Artists in the Stream” the sixth edition. Formerly known as the “Annual Young Artists’ Exhibition” for decades, the show marks the beginning of many young artists’ professional careers as exhibiting visual artists, bolstering their confidence on embarking on a new life journey. They followed it up with “Belonging”, a solo exhibition by Gillian Rosselli, an educationist who has been a major artist in Zimbabwe equally comfortable in both two and three dimensional work for a very long time. The exhibition narrated the plight of our country’s children, widely the orphaned especially in various foster homes and rural areas. “Gallery Delta at 40” exhibition then followed celebrating their 40th anniversary in operation, showing a select of artists who have been with them through thick and thin before the current “Terra III” exhibition of landscape paintings depicting man’s appreciation of nature.

First Floor Gallery Harare of second Floor, 24 George Silundika Avenue in the city centre continues to expose the young Zimbabwean artistic talent beyond our borders as well as moulding a few upcoming artists at their Gallery. At home early in the year they hosted “Kuyaruka — Age of Accountability” which was well handled by the rightful young age which had just graduated barely three months from the National Gallery of Zimbabwe School of Visual art and Design in Harare. What was amazing about the three men and a lady show was that the work was as good as any and it installed confidence to the upcoming artists who had been involved in other young artists’ group shows at other galleries. Recently First Floor Gallery opened another milestone debut solo exhibition by art lady Mavis Tauzeni under the theme “Eve’s Diaries”. The show explores issues for women’s emancipation from some of our traditional past dictates that seemed to have undermined and relegated them to be like subjects of their male counterparts.

A bit further in the outskirts of Harare along the Harare/Bulawayo highway about the Snake World, “Dzimbanhete Arts Interactions” (DAI) Trust has been a vibrant cultural space to be with various activities on their menu. On the visual art front, they hosted ‘Redefining Space’, a solo three dimensional work show by Munyaradzi Mazarire after he had been an artist in residence for three months at the arts resource centre. The exhibition explored his fascination with esoteric space and perspective, presenting illusions and subliminal constructions which dissolve the limitation of actual space and order. The work expressed that how we conceive reality depends on what is offered by our natural environment as well as what artists prepare for our visual awareness. It offered an illusion space which fused two and three dimensional reality conquering his intention to create visual excitement through unique approaches to pictorial spaces to redefine how we see.

Dzimbanhete Arts Interactions then followed it up with their annual “Month of Print exhibition” under the theme “Our Stories – Ex-Libris”. The theme of the miniature print exhibition wanted to inspire artists to dig into our stories both popular and personal to come up with imagery that iconises stories and legends which carry the common narratives that the majority of the people could relate to.

Also in the outskirts of Harare on the northern side, the fourth edition of the Wild Geese Art Festival took centre stage and like its predecessors continued to expand. The single day open market platform for visual art attracted practitioners from various corners of Zimbabwe, filling up the space and making it creative to navigate.