The Sunday News
Tafadzwa Gwetai
Artists and their work have been described as both being “contemporary” in nature and in style.
We have heard this phrase being used to describe a diversity of art fields and even in the medical and scientific field as well. In the art context, contemporary work has been seen in theatre, spoken word, written word, sculpture and painting.
The subtle movement has gradually taken root and is now a profound phenomena in the arts scene. There are artists who create work based on rules that their field dictates and then there are those that step away from that which is the norm and express with district unique experimental methods.
These are the break away group that have been identified as being “the contemporary”. “To be contemporary or not to be,” that is the question that artists face.
The contemporary can be loosely described as those who express in the “now”, are about the “now” and are alive in the “now” that they refer to. They are seen as those with fresh, hip, imaginative ways of expressing their ideas.
When many people think of art, they might think of the great masterpieces made in years long gone by.
However, the world of art is still thriving and always adapting to reflect the changing world. The art of recent years and the present day is referred to as “Contemporary”. What really is Contemporary Art?
A reference to Contemporary Art meaning “the art of today,” more broadly includes artwork produced during the late 20th and early 21st centuries. It generally defines art produced after the Modern Art movement to the present day. However, modern artwork is not just art produced during a specific time-frame. This genre of art does have its own approach or style that distinguishes it from others.
When one reflects on the African context where our art has not been influenced by cyclic movements that attempt to out do each other. Art in Europe was characterised by “movements” where art had a purpose and agenda like a “political party”. Movements such as the Renaissance, Fauvism, Cubism, modernism and Surrealism all had a form of manifesto they followed so that their creations would be clearly categorised according to their purpose and style.
An example would be the Renaissance period where both art (painting and sculpture) and music was of a classic heavenly nature which aimed at illuminating the “Christian” faith. These were mostly commissioned works by the aristocrats of the time and thus the artist could only express through their technical skill and not their individual feelings.
Cubism was a movement that was reacting against “art” and how classic art was not representing the actual state of affairs of the world which was at the time seen as being fractured and broken (world war 2 was in effect) and the world was perceived by the artists of the time as being “cubist”.
Africa has only recently entered the art world on the official platforms of global art discourse and one can argue that work from Africa has always been free of labels and movements. Africa has always created work that has been contemporary to their contexts and these can be seen through ancient sculptural, and painting forms where elements of other cultures or trinkets were incorporated into their creations.
As a result of encounter with the West and the East, artists from Africa at the time expressed their contemporary existence through fusing their culture with that of their visitors through their creations.
These were the contemporaries of their time. Zimbabwe has given birth to many artists who are currently trending at home, throughout Africa and Internationally. We have seen Zimbabwean artists successfully break away from the mould and take their genre of art to a higher level of expression.
Yet this style of art is difficult to define because it includes such variety. Some argue that the basic approach and goal of modern art is to challenge the nature of artwork itself. It can also make the viewer question what it is that defines art.
Therefore, this style of art is not particularly uniform, and it may be more challenging to precisely describe than any other genre of art.
Unlike other schools of art, this school of art has no single point of view of objective. Instead, it is multi-faceted. The pieces are often reflective of the artist and so reflect a great diversity of perspectives.
This makes Contemporary Art a complex examination of present-day life.
Common themes that might be examined include, identity, the body, technology, globalisation, migration, society, culture, memory, the passage of time, and artistic critique of sociopolitical institutions. While artists of the past were often influenced by religion, mythology, and the demands of their paying patrons, today’s artists can be inspired by much more and the work often grows out of their own interests or expressions of self.
