Sponsoring art for Zimbabwe Gallery Delta, the publisher and the editor gratefully acknowledge the following sponsors who have contributed to the production of this issue of Gallery magazine: ass Anglo American Corporation Services Limited TiNTO The Rio Tinto Foundation J^ APEX coapOBJiTiON or zhmbabwe limited Joerg Sorgenicht Friedbert Lutz /IRISTON Crystal Candy '/ Contents June 1996 2 At crossroads by Andrew Whaley 7 Empire's offspring 2 by Antiiony Chennells 1 1 Zambian graphics by Grazyna Zaucha 14 Richard Jack: looking beyond differences by Barbara Murray 1 7 Letter from London by Margaret Garlake 20 Reviews of recent work and forthcoming exhibitions and events Front cover: Keston Beaton, Giant Ant, 1996, 27 x 53 x 16cm, found objects. Photo credit: Alan Allen Cover (detail) and back cover: Hillary Kashiri, Gateway. 1996, 24 x 38cm, acrylic on paper. Photo credit: Hillary Kashiri Left: Albert Wachi, Body Music, 1995, approx Im tall, springstone and metals © Gallery Publications Publisher: Derek Huggins. Editor: Barbara Murray. Design & typesetting: Myrtle Mallis. Origination: HPP Studios. Printing: A.W. Bardwell & Co. Paper: Express from Graphtec Ltd. Contents are the copyright of Gallery Publications and may not be reproduced in any manner or form without permission. The views and opinions expressed in this magazine are those of the writers themselves and not necessarily those of Gallery Delta, the publisher or the editor riptions from Gallery Publications, c/o Gallery Delta, 1 10 Livingstone Avenue, RO. Box UA 373 Union Avenue, Harare. Tel: ( 14) 792135. Richard Witikani, Domestic Workers at Rest, 1996, George Churu, Nyau, 1996, 112 x 85cm, oil on canvas 110 X 80cm, mixed media Tackson Muverzwa, Prayer, 1996, 137 x 91cm, oil on canvas Shepherd Mahufe, Tired, 1995, 108 x 82cm, mixed media "... artists can be expected to change direction without warning, at great danger and in breach of the highway code." Andrew Whaley looks at the context of the developing identities of a group of Zimbabwe's young artists A^cro It is not possible, not yet, most likely not hegemony of stone sculpture. They have no guarantees that they could ever earn ever, to put a dozen artists in a box and survived. Zimbabwe Stone has become recognition or money. In this sense, they come up with a few handy epithets that ammunition in their slings. could not afford stridency and, perhaps, they explain them all. The artists whose work did not feel they had much to shout about. made up the recent Changing Directions But the questions that faced Derek Huggins The hand of patronage also restrained them exhibition at Gallery Delta are refusing to at Gallery Delta three years ago when he from the protruberant forms of fit. was trying to stoke up a reception for these indigenisation that characterises a vocal, young black artists out of local art school, indigenous business elite. "It aggravates me," says Hillary Kashiri, remain unanswered: Who are they? What do who, at six foot three at a loose stretch, they stand for? Are they good enough? There has been no direct attempt to would be difficult to squash into any kind of Responses then were not so much hostile or appropriate this new core of black painters box, literal or metaphorical. "I feel like even sceptical; it was simply a question of. onto political platforms. Perhaps this is still challenging that labelling." Viewer, Where do you put them? How can they be to come. Yet it is precisely the artists' sense beware. This artist at least has a 'Handle described? of difference in a largely white-owned and With Care' warning. white-supported painting world that has Not surprisingly, the artists themselves have spurred them on to new expressions — a Hillary Kashiri is more vociferous than his had to face these questions much more raging internal dynamic that is constantly art colleagues about being strapped down acutely. They are, in one sense, a core of redefining itself. In a -majority culture the by generalisations about where he comes new indigenous artists working without the painters still provide the strains of a from. In trade lingo, the description goes impermeable shield of a stone sculpture minority. The tendency has, therefore, been something like this: Here are young black movement. By the same token, they have towards individuality. With so little painters (yes, they are described as black) been able to avoid the overbearing consensus as to where these painters belong, and a few sculptors who have resisted the spirituality of stone sculpture — the 'mabwe the pressure for clarity, for the chance to be mainstream impulse to hack at serpentine, machismo' — that insists ad nauseam every seen and understood has prompted rapid, who went through the BAT art school, who sculptor is a prophet, every work a zig-zagging changes in direction and focus. emerged with a modicum of hope and who, revelation. These artists have had to explore by the virtue of their own bootlaces, thick realms of spirit, philosophy and self- In embryonic form, these artists embodied brushes and a despair with stone, have expression much more tentatively; building the New Directions at Gallery Delta. In a found they can make work that meets the a vocabulary into a language. And in their more mature version, they are Changing changing perceptions in the art place or own improvisations, the results have been Directions. But to grasp the meaning of the manifestly change perceptions through their faulty, clouded, gifted and epiphanal. These whole when individuals are changing art. Theirs was a direct challenge to the artists have had little hype to hang onto and direction at speed and without warning is lii<e analysing why the 'tshova' ahead of you We have carried it over into life." The indicated right and pulled over left. gallery workshop was a grounding. Being black and a painter is a common source. Art, like God and emergency taxis, moves in The extended family may be broad, mysterious ways. But if you're inside an ET problematic, even diffuse but it is also an and have watched the driver tlick down his umbrella. "There is no way that I could indicator to turn right and then he deliberately make myself an exception," he says. pulls left, you will know — from the inside — that the reason is mostly quite logical and The analogy with the old emergency taxi that someone has called from the boot to be (pirate, tshova. ET or whatever you call it) put down here. Which is what the driver may not be so entirely fanciful. These artists does. He obeys calls from within. He will are not only products of sanctions, war. not care that anyone behind him has just closed economy and structural adjustment, accelerated on the inside to within three feet they are also "children ofemerf^ency". as I of an oncoming calamity. The point being heard writer Chenjerai Hove once describe made here is that artists can be expected to the way our self-censoring minds battled change direction without warning, at great with three decades of Emergency Powers danger and in breach of the highway code. regulations, presidential edicts and This is their right to life, their liberty and their constitutional tinkerings. These artists only pursuit of happiness. essentially use water-based paints, poster paints. Oil is a real luxury. Some use PVA This brief digression which seemed which they buy in hardware stores. They completely off the point has really hit the use fat household paint brushes and have no nail on the head. If there is any common qualms about painting freely on bolts of link between the artists changing directions. brown cardboard rolled out of Hunyani It is not that they are black or received paper. Costs once determined this, but it has training under the National Gallery's BAT become a kind of style, a rebellion against a workshop (which is as evident as saying that so-called established order. Luis Meque, Me and My Land, 1996, ET drivers must get a licence at the VID); it 108 X 83cm, mixed media is that they have held on to the notion of art In a context where painters feel themselves as way of life, of desire, of work — made to be out of known history — or maybe in possible certainly by the emancipation of the business of reclaiming lost histories — which the BAT workshop in the 80s was a the repossession of voice and expression is a crucial detail. powerful stimulant, simply because self- discovery is so cogently allied to an entire Three years ago. form dominated content. society manifesting itself. The artists tended to paint life as set pieces, the equivalent of theatre viewed through the Their problem is not to seek one voice or proscenium arch. Survival in the market style but to find the discipline that will place has helped to change that. Ideas have contain many possibilities competing for loosened up. been honed. A growing expression. The artist may be torn between acceptance has brought daring, clarification the urge to jot down anything and everything and. most tellingly, a sharper articulation. and his caution at needing to find an This is a process in which a messy uprooting essence. This is a battle between expressive accompanies fresh insights. Tensions more urges and a desire for distillation. rapidly assert themselves even within the fires of a single work of art. Choices Hillary Kashiri ob.serves the tension acutely. multiply under pressure. Confronted by the Politely brushing off the hand of patronage, bewildering possibilities of themselves, the he realises the quandary of the artist who is artists have not shrugged responsibility; they himself the subject of conflicting attentions; have not run for safe cover.