Cultural coup for the AVA

'PIXELS': Artist Chikonzero Chazunguza's everyday people.

'PIXELS': Artist Chikonzero Chazunguza's everyday people.

Published Jan 27, 2016

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Arts Writer

IN a major cultural coup, the Association for Visual Art (AVA) has negotiated to bring the highly-acclaimed exhibition in the Zimbabwean Pavilion from last year’s 56th Venice Biennale to Cape Town. Pixels of Ubuntu/Unhu – Exploring the Social and Cultural Identities of 21st Century will open at the AVA Gallery on the next First Thursday, February 4, and will be on view for a month.

It will be the first show of the work of the three artists, Chiconzero Chazunguza, Masimba Hwati and Gareth Nyandoro, after the prestigous event in Italy, and will coincide with the Cape Town Art Fair next month. In April it will be exhibited in Harare.

The project will also bring curator Raphael Chikukwa to the city. Presented under the auspices of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe, the AVA has clinched an exclusive cultural exchange deal.

Pixels of Ubuntu/Unhu was the centre of much praise during last year’s Venice Biennale, the third time that Zimbabwe’s pavilion stood out in the art maze of this big biannual international event. Various critics commented on the vibrancy of the installation by the artists.

Many commented that this show spoke simply, but vibrantly about art from Africa in the global contemporary context.

As the subtitle indicates, the artists interrogate identity and its place in the global sphere. The subject is ongoing Zimbabwean source of inspiration.

Pixels of Ubuntu/Unhu continues the discourse on the appreciation and practice of ubuntu/unhu. Zimbabwean elders say “umuntu ngumuntu ngaBantu/ munhu munhu navanhu”. This is a deep-seated Afro-centric assertion that “I am because we are”.

The artworks demonstrate the convergence of tradition and modernity through the eyes and perspectives of the three artists.

Chikonzero Chazunguza (born 1967) earned an MFA from the Institute of Pictorial Arts in Sofia, Bulgaria, where he spent seven years. He returned to Zimbabwe in search of uniting his European training with indigenous art.

His artist resource centre, Dzimbanhete Arts Interaction on the outskirts of Harare, is still thriving. Recipient of numerous awards, he has exhibited in Africa, Europe and North America.

His multi-disciplinary artworks raise questions about the post-colonial condition and about the unstable role and nature of art in that context. Among his most compelling works are those that reinstate for the viewer, a sense of ritual order and of life’s deeper mysteries, alongside proffering incisive, yet subtle social and political analysis.

Masimba Hwati (1982) studied visual arts at the Harare Polytechnic, majoring in ceramics and painting. He has collaborated with artists from outside Zimbabwe and his work is in several private collections.

His interest is the memory and energy of traditional objects, and the space they occupy in the urban world. His work explores the transformation and evolvement of indigenous knowledge systems. He teaches art at the Polytechnic.

Gareth Nyandoro (1982) trained at Masvingo Polytechnic, Harare Polytechnic and Chinhoyi University of Technology.

Street life and the human interaction that accompanies it are recurring themes in his work. He has exhibited in Zimbabwe, Africa and abroad, with various residencies and is currently on one at the Rijksakademie in the Netherlands.

Nyandoro combines images of vendors with found materials which he processes by employing idiosyncratic variations on traditional craft techniques – like weaving with paper.

His installations bring two and three dimensional components together through drawing, props, and objects.

These works reflect his research in relation to space, narrative, or storytelling, and materials as they are altered and transferred.

Raphael Chikukwa is chief curator at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe. He has been in charge of the two previous pavilions in Venice. The National Gallery’s director, Doreen Sibanda was the commissioner for Venice.

l On February 20 at 12pm there will be a Q&A session at the gallery with curator Chikukwa and visiting artists, 021 424 7436

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