Stone sculpture and cultural reclamation
By Celia Winter-Irving –curator of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe
ZIMBABWE’S stone sculpture today is one of the world's most respected traditions of sculpture and also one of the most innovative and exciting developments in contemporary sculpture. It is a tradition of sculpture engaging feelings and emotions at a profound level and has an immediate relationship with the viewer of any culture or creed. It is perhaps for this reason that the sculpture has become the "representative" of Zimbabwe's culture and the firming of its identity in the world today.
The best stone sculptures are refreshed by the passing of time; they take on new meaning as they are subject to different cultural approaches and interpretations. Some sculpture, whether by older or younger sculptors, remains located in the cultural origins of the sculptor, but many sculptors today provide modern interpretations of African traditions in their work. The work of Issa Sims and Douglas Shawa of Nyao origin at Tengenenge is minimal, streamlined and elegant, glowing and burnished springstone conveys the shape of the masked dancers in the Nyago and Ben dances of their Yao traditions. Issa Sims comments: "I can be a Nyao, a traditional Nyao, in a modern world and the international world of art".
Conversely, other sculptors' work shows their growing exposure on their travels abroad to sculpture of other traditions and contemporary developments in stone sculpture at large. No longer does the academic "wrangle" of Shona sculpture vis-à-vis African sculpture vis-à-vis Zimbabwean stone sculpture position their work. What matters is simply that the sculpture subscribes largely to what is good sculpture - which requires the marriage of the creative imagination of the artist with the technical skills necessary to work the material to the advantage of the artists’ ideas, the material's intrinsic beauty and the power of its visual impact.
In the 80s and 90s, the National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe's Heritage exhibition gave voice to the distinction of work of individual sculptors in Awards which were a platform to international interest in the winners and their recognition outside Zimbabwe. Today, there is a resurgence of interest in the work of individual sculptors through a series of awards such as the National Arts Council Nama Awards. At Tengenenge, Victor Faya, winner of the National, Arts Council Nama Award (Visual Arts for Three Dimensional Work) 2004, has gained repute for his gritty earthy sculptures of Tonga families and his irradiating "chief" in a slab of Green springstone which won him the award.
Josia Manzi of Nyao origin, now 70 years old, is no longer consigned to a first generation of sculptors locked into their cultural past. Manzi was the winner of the National Arts Council Nama Award (Visual Arts) for Three Dimensional Work and the Service Award for Tengenenge by the Ambassador for the Korean Republic in Zimbabwe. Ambassador Kim, both in 2005; is now recognized for his very modern, smooth and silky renditions of the tangled nature of Yao folklore and its female and animal protagonist. Spiritual conditions in Zimbabwe today remain favorable for sculptors to express their religious feelings or faith in stone sculpture, and articulate the messages contained in past and present spiritual practices. 'Indeed, the stone sculpture offers spiritual refreshment and restitution to many who identify with its spiritual messages. The work, for example, of the late Nicholas Mukomberanwa speaks many times of the closeness of his worldly and spiritual elements. "Theme, death is the other side of life”, “My Spirit and I" and "Me and My Spirit" are such sculptures, which comment that man spiritual life should begin on earth and extend to the hereafter. The stone sculpture in its early days and to some degree now has represented the cultural heritage of the nation, its spiritual wealth with its rich association of traditional spiritual practices with orature, folklore, myth and legend its "company of hosts" of ancestral and other spirits, its magic/religious ceremonials brought to Zimbabwe from neighbouring countries during the sub regional migrations of the 50s and 60s.
Hence, the stone sculpture has always made claim to and reclaimed the cultural heritage of Zimbabwe and to a certain degree Sit’s near neighbouring countries. Today in Zimbabwe, the spiritual governance of chiefs and kings has succeeded to secular forms of governance which stand as much for social order and good as those previous methods spiritually ordained and sculptors have become preoccupied with social issues and problems which they reflect in their work. So, sculptors graphically represent "issues" in their work, Aids and otherwise related. The goals of informally educated sculptors working in stone in Zimbabwe are very different to those of formally educated sculptors in the west. Economic considerations are part of the motivation of most sculptors working in Zimbabwe, and have been since the beginning of the movement of stone sculpture. And there are other goals, the desire to be an artist, to recognize a creative impulse in a useful and interesting way, fame, travel, and a sense of social responsibility in terms of supporting family and other dependants through sculpting.
