The Sunday News
Tafadzwa Gwetai
Africa is a continent that has been exposed to all forms of encounter. Encounters with travellers, missionaries, technology, language, religion, colonialists, explorers and artists. Africa has been in a continuous journey of dynamic changes and evolution as far as back as trade existed.
Ornaments, artefacts and attitudes were traded and these influenced ways of life and aesthetics.
African cultures never existed in isolation. There was always movement, trade, and the exchange of ideas. African art is dynamic and has changed in form, function, and meaning over time. In the western art market and in academia, there exists the concept of “traditional” African art. Usually this refers to “indigenous art traditions that were viable and active prior to the colonisation of Africa by European powers in the late nineteenth century. The word ‘traditional’ is the assumption that the art which it describes is static and unchanging. This is in direct comparison with European art movements which were designed to out do each other and only challenge the pursuit of aesthetics and challenging art against itself. Many collectors and museum professionals place far greater value on African objects created prior to colonisation. For them, pre-colonial objects have an aura of an untainted, timeless past when artists only made artworks for their own communities unaffected by the outside world. This is an Africa that is far from our very own imagination. Our own history and memories as we know it can only be traced as far back as the colonial era and anything further is blurred as myth. Were it not for the arrival of the camera in Africa during that era our belief in Nehanda and Kaguvi would be regarded as Zimbabwean mythology and mere tales. Our encounter with technology preserved the history of Nehanda and many other legends from her period that were documented by explorers.
One way people made sense of these changes was through art and performance. Art plays a central role, particularly in oral societies, as a way to remember and heal. As African artists began catering to a new market of middle-class urban Africans and foreigners, new art-making practices developed. Self-taught and academically trained painters, for example, began depicting their experiences with colonialism and independence. As fine artists, their work is largely secular in content and meant to be displayed in galleries or modern homes.
Masimba Hwati is one such artist whose creations have always challenged and interrogated tradition and African beliefs. Masimba Hwati is one of our leading Zimbabwean artists in the field of found object mixed media sculpture. Hwati is a well rounded artist who also explores performance and sound. He is currently signed to SMAC gallery. Hwati’s unconventional three-dimensional sculptures engage the viewer to re-evaluate African symbols and with foreign symbols. He combines elements that normally would be regarded as distortions of tradition but his creations are a reflection of the dynamic way Africa has assimilated and absorbed many cultures in exchange for ‘theirs’. His sculptures such as ‘Trepidation’ 2014 reveals the intricate use of ‘Mbira’ keys to form the design of what appears to be the open wingspan of a bird in flight with a baboon skull as the head. ‘The ‘mbira’ is a sacred musical symbol in Zimbabwe and Hwati deconstructs it and redefines known symbols. These known symbols connect with his local audience as his creations tap into the authentic African ideals while addressing the now.
The ‘Urban Totems’ is a Print series by Hwati that speaks to the most immediate aspect of our contemporary existence. We exist in a digital era that is driven by a very aggressive marketing strategy. As a result of the desire to market a product or a service, company brands thrive through effective advertising or effective ‘manipulation’. We lose ourselves in the quest attain be the object.
Masimba Hwatis ‘Urban Totems’ series ( which showcased at the Venice Biennale 2015) has a strong urban reference and the manner in which the work appeals to the viewer is a direct reflection of mankind’s state of mind and state of addiction. The portraits have symbols such as Bart Simpson, Google, yahoo, Amstel, What App, Facebook and coca cola positioned on their eyes. This suggests an obsessed being that is controlled or focussed solely on these ‘urban totems’. Viewers are faced with the idea of branding and the impact of branding on our identity. Each brand he uses has layers of stories that relate to the viewer and their individual encounters and experiences with the same brands. His work also reveal the sad aspect of how we as Africans have and are slowly trading in our traditional ways of life and belief for a virtual online existence and surrender of our authentic self for materialistic agendas that divert our attention from ourselves and who we truly are. We come from Kings and Queens. Who have we become and who are we going to be.
Despite an increase in indigenous patronage, contemporary African art still depends largely on Euro-American markets that in turn exert considerable influence on its materials, techniques, form, and content. This influence extends to what is produced and where it is exhibited outside of Africa.
African artists, are transcending the boundaries of aesthetic discourse through the introduction of captivating work that captures a true and untainted contemporary African art narrative.
