adminHarare Bureau
After a well received debut run at the 54th Biennale, Zimbabwe returned for the 55th edition participating under the banner, Dudziro: Interrogating the Visions of Religious Beliefs. The exhibition is built from works by five stylistically different artists, all bearing a unique outlook on life and representing the common Zimbabwean experience in a diverse way. The group consists of two mature artists: Voti Thebe and Rashid Jogee, who are the veteran sage-like captors of the past.
While Thebe works with different types of media, “Divining Bones” is executed in wood and represents that aspect of indigenous Zimbabwean belief that seeks answers from the divine. This particular piece is hakata or ithambo bearing the malevolent factor, commonly referred to as chitokwadzima. In this light, Thebe is setting a question for contemporary ‘prophets’ through this age-old instrument bearing the folklore malefactor, the crocodile- can all prophecy be about success and fortune in a world which runs on the balance of light and darkness?
Jogee’s work is suggestive of light with hints of darkness. The common heritage of humanity is blood and as a prophet in his own right, he interrogates faith through his own dudziro by setting light in sections independent of each other. Patches of darkness run hazily within the composition, no man is an island but the light and dark in and around them separate them.
Virginia Chihota and Portia Zvavahera are the priestesses who present youth and potency, all the while questioning faith as it is in this day. Portia has visions. What goes on in her work is an involved process that surrounds us daily in Zimbabwean life. A largely syncretic population spends much of its devotion in a grey area between the cross and the grave, a good backdrop. Portia presents the ghoulish figures and the thin line between worshipping the light, and working for the darkness stirs something in the viewer. One ends up asking whether there is any boundary to the belief system. Virginia provokes the viewer with an exhilarating representation of the female story. Her forms speak of loss and isolation. There is tension between subject and viewer, somewhere thereabout, a sensitive atmosphere is drawn.
Michele Mathisons’ work is idiomatically agrarian — a source of living, equally as much a source of conflict in the Zimbabwean context! Mathison puts two schools of thought at loggerheads. Faith as in the hope an indigenous population places on ‘the harvest’, ie nature taking its course juxtaposed by the chaos of deforestation that goes against nature. He works up the idea that perhaps the question is does God really exist? Man seems to be the architect and devastator of his own environment, perhaps by choice but mostly by nature.
The exhibition uses the same space that the 2011 Zimbabwe Pavilion occupied, the Santa Maria della Pieta which back then showcased the work of four artists. The Pavilion was officially opened on 31 May by the Zimbabwean Ambassador to Italy, Her Excellency Mary Mubi who in her speech emphasized need for our visual arts to attain global heights. The opening of the pavilion drew a large number of people from across the world including a buzz of well-known curators and art professionals such as Julia Grosse, Micheli Robecchi (International Art Critic); Okwi Enwezor (Director — House of Art Munich); Simon Njami ( Art Critic and Curator); Kerryn Greenburg (Tate Modern); Elvira Dyangani (Tate Modern); Andrea Rose (The British Council); and Marie Claude Bead (Monaco Museum).
Representatives from the sponsors Goethe Institute of South Africa and Goethe-Zentrum of Zimbabwe also attended this momentous occasion. The German Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations was also present to display their recently launched online magazine, Contemporary And (C&). This was a perfect compliment for both the Zimbabwean contingent and C& as both parties bear a mission to project opinion from an African perspective.
Voti Thebe brought life to the event and performed some stirring songs accompanied by traditional rites, much to the excitement of all at the gathering. Two days after the opening, people once again gathered for the official launching of the Maldivian artist Thierry Geoffrey’s work “Mobile Emergency Room”. It will be showcased at the pavilion until 30 September.
The Zimbabwean Pavilion has been a hive of activity since it opened. The curator Raphael Chikukwa arrived early to oversee the installation of the show, so by the time the artists arrived their specifications had largely been realised. Chikukwa was excited by this year’s event as he stated how the African presence had only been down to Zimbabwe and South Africa at the last edition of the Venice Biennale. From 31 May until now, more than 8 000 people have viewed the space. The flow of viewers is moderately steady at the moment as the ‘traffic’ was initially on a rush. The outlook for the next six months is promising as people from all over the world will continuously flock in to see the work.
An appreciation for the pavilions’ presentation of paintings and video art makes it a favourite to the viewing public as compared to other pavilions. “Attendance at such a prestigious event speaks volumes about the ability of a country to pursue and excel in the arts and allows the image of its country to be greatly enhanced,” said the curator.
La Biennale di Venezia presents four other African countries this year. Angola took the Golden Lion prize for Best National Participation albeit to the dissatisfaction of German art publication “ART”-Das Kunstmagazin.
The magazine moots claims that the African country only took the prize because of perfidious “networking” by the curator Stefano Raboli Pansera, as in their article “Angola! Where is Angola?” Such a skeptical attitude suggests that even in culture, Africa is still viewed to heavily bank on patronage. This regardless of a high standard of art exhibited by the African participants.South Africa, Kenya and the Cote d’Ivoire round off the African participation at the event.
The ambience created by the African representation at the Biennale confirms the continents’ talent and strength in art.
Online Reporter