Zimpapers Logo

Aimed at celebrating the pinnacles of art, the fourth edition of the Zimbabwe Pavilion at the Venice Biennale accorded an opportunity for Zimbabwean artist to celebrate creativity. Zimbabwe’s first participation was at the Venice Biennale was in 2011. It then went to show at 2013, 2015 and then 2017editions.

In the face of relentless globalization, physical boundaries are being blurred and challenged. The voices and perspectives of artists in this regard are thus important. Deconstructing Boundaries sought inspiration from the participating artists as they reflected on their own experiences and question the boundaries that currently exist in one form or the other. Curated by Raphael Chikukwa, the Zimbabwe Pavilion presented an exceptional moment in the National Gallery’s endeavor to promote Zimbabwean art and culture internationally.

Charles Bhebhe, Admire Kamudzengerere, Dana Whabira and Sylvester Mubayi’s works encouraged the Pavilion audience to reflect and discuss issues that shape power relations. The current global politics, economic and religious conflicts provided artists with ideas to sculpt, to draw, to paint and to reflect on.

First is Charles Bhebhe whose use of colour is vividly and mesmerizingly captivated by people. He enjoys telling stories of urban people with references to everyday people living on the edges of society. He uses expressive strokes on black canvases as a way to bring out those characters to light. His preferred medium is acrylics on canvases. He likes the instant effect and the layering process that gives depth in each piece without a need for drying time. His paintings tell a story at a given time, more like a moment in time which is mostly a reflection of the times we live in.

Departing slightly from Bhebhe’s frenetic use of colour is Admire Kamudzengerere who is known for his lively, raw and often dark allegorical depictions of life in Zimbabwe. Kamudzengerere was one of 15 successful artists selected from over 2000 applicants worldwide, and the second Zimbabwean artist ever, to be awarded a residency at Rijksakademie Amsterdam, in 2012 – 2014. His male portraits, intense but at the same time undefinable, speak not only to personal struggle, self-definition and father-son relationships but more broadly to the theme of contemporary masculinity.

Then there is Dana Whabira whose work is a snapshot of all media, including experimental assemblages, installation, spatial intervention, sculptural painting, and photography, which incorporate performance as process. Her work often takes a story or event as a point of departure, drawing on current affairs, literature, philosophy, and theatre for inspiration, and employs language as a metaphorical device. Her work goes beyond the philosophical and explores the physical and metaphoric manifestations of barriers and segregation, power and expression.

To juxtapose the work of these three is Sylvester Mubayi. He is an icon; one of the surviving first generation Zimbabwean stone sculptors and a recipient of the 1969 Oppenheimer Award for sculpture. Mubayi creates sculptures of great beauty, often with a traditional meaning that explore beliefs and dispositions as ontological phenomenon as well as human relationships and harmony between humans and the animal kingdom. His work is more nostalgic than that of the other three.

The National Gallery of Zimbabwe is renowned for presenting groundbreaking contemporary art exhibitions in and outside Zimbabwe. This is a position that has been affirmed by the institution having initiated and acted as the commissioning institution for the Zimbabwe Pavilion’s past three editions Seeing Ourselves in 2011, Dudziro in 2013 and Pixels of Ubuntu/Unhu in 2015. The Fourth Venice Biennale run under the theme Viva Art Viva entailing an expression of passion of art and for the state of artist.