Who Do Painters Paint For?

Zimbabwe Mon 08-10-2007

Who Do Painters Paint For?
From Zimbabwe

"If you can talk about it, why paint it?" Francis Bacon[i]

Is it possible to change anything through aesthetics? The surrealists, who painted on the eve of World War II, certainly believed that they could transform the world. As well as their work, they produced a number of manifestos and pamphlets describing in detail how their work would change things.

They called themselves "those who do not despair of the transformation of the world and who wish this transformation to be as radical as possible."

L Kambudzi They worked under the shadow of fascism, and their objective was to "present interior reality and exterior reality as two elements in process of unification."[ii] They considered that the situation at the time was one where interior reality and exterior reality were in contradiction, and in this contradiction they saw the very cause of man's unhappiness.

Andre Breton said: "I resist with all my strength temptations which, in painting and literature, might have the immediate tendency to withdraw thought from life as well as place life under the aegis of thought."

They aimed to face "the breath of the street."

Today's postmodern and apolitical world seems to be the age of sculpture, from the stone sculptors of Zimbabwe to the "radical" school including the young British sculptors who aim to shock, Tracy Emin's soiled bed linen and Damien Hirst's carcasses and anatomies. In South Africa Brett Murray has just unveiled his Africa sculpture in Cape Town. The piece consists of a three-metre high Ivoirian curio figure with Bart Simpson heads growing out of it. It is on display in a popular shopping mall. Whatever the public might make of such a "statement" about our continent, it is there to be seen and laughed at or discussed. But who sees painting? And what is the painters' aim?

Where are the screams in Zimbabwe's paintings?

In the suburban shopping centres of the "Low Density" areas you will find "tasteful" boutiques of furniture and crafts, which also display paintings. Nice paintings. Idyllic African bush landscapes, rocks, flowers, wild animals, and occasionally paintings by black painters of rural life. In Zimbabwe today in the countryside people are being burned and murdered, women and girls are being raped, abductions and intimidations abound. Should this not be reflected in the painting which is being made?

L Kambudzi Mozambican painting is full of torment and sorrow, round faces, mouths open, chained, weeping figures which express all that the people have suffered since the Portuguese first claimed them more than five hundred years ago. People go and view the paintings. Murals adorn walls, and Malangatana is known and loved by everybody.[iii]

Why does Zimbabwean artistic expression (with the exception of some sculptures) seem to reflect a lack of affect? It is all jolly, and it does not move or touch. Take the light-hearted - albeit with a message - feature films, Neria, Jit, Yellow Card. Are there no Ousmane Sembenes in Zimbabwe?

In terms of the painting, is this due to the relative sophistication of the Zimbabwean art world which, because of the success of the sculpture, moved straight into the world of the dealer. What has this done to art in general in Zimbabwe? The art world in Zimbabwe is a fragmented network of business concerns and interests that lacks any central artistic concerns and serves only to divert artists away from serious work and toward the pursuit of marketplace success. Year after year, Zimbabwean artists chase the market, creating art after a fashion and offering up not works of personal intention and insight, but escapist spectacles and anonymous analyses of cultural signs. Art critics offer no direction, not criticising but describing.

The painters of Zimbabwe must struggle to liberate themselves from the temptations of fame and financial triumph which have possibly stultified the sculptors. Painting is much more of a personal expression than sculpture; no painting can be set on a stand in the centre of a shopping mall. Painters must stop and think, strive for an inner-directed art created out of individual experience. As in the work of the surrealists, or Francis Bacon, authentic art should instil the viewer with a "heightened sensory cognition."[iv] It requires a coordination of emotion, intelligence and intuition.

The galleries have all left town

There remains the question of who sees the painting. Most galleries focus their attention on the sculpture (which sells), but all also show paintings. Most of the more prestigious galleries have either closed down or moved to the more inaccessible suburbs. The National Gallery soldiers on virtually alone, holding several big exhibitions every year, and giving space to young painters. Most people cannot afford to buy paintings for the home, and those who can want something anodyne to match the curtains. Other public spaces (banks, hotels, libraries) have failed to make use of the local artists and display prints on their walls. So who do painters paint for? Each other?

"Popular" art, as opposed to art which rested on the walls of churches and cathedrals was born in seventeenth century Holland. Whereas in other countries paintings were owned only by the rich and powerful, as they are in Zimbabwe, in Holland they were bought by the middle classes. The cheaper ones were sold at fairs, like any other merchandise. Japanese woodblocks were so common they were sometimes used as ballast in ships. Painters in Zimbabwe must educate their viewers - never in history has this been the State's responsibility. This can only be done by making painting as accessible and familiar as the Japanese woodblock, something the ordinary person rather than the foreign collector of the exotic, will feel comfortable with at home. Make the viewer comfortable with "art" and then disturb them.

Ultimately it is the artists themselves as self-reliant individuals who must ensure that their vision - if they have one - can be shared and enriches society.

Who do painters paint for? Part 2

I was moved, back in June, to make a picture entitled “Murambatsvina.” My shock and horror at this “operation” in Zimbabwe had to be expressed somehow. The painting is not very original – it features a man, a vendor perhaps, running away from a burning house, licked by flames, his hands clutched to his face. I can safely say that it is one of the worst, most wooden pictures I have ever made. But why?

Think of Russian realist art – the Peasant, the Worker, with their tools of trade, etched against the sky. The North Korean “heroes.” Weren’t they ghastly? Somehow, art that contrives to be “political” in the overt sense, fails. The surrealists were political, but their politics was about a way of seeing the world.

The surrealists, who painted on the eve of World War II, certainly believed that they could transform the world. As well as their work, they produced a number of manifestos and pamphlets describing in detail how their work would change things.

They called themselves "those who do not despair of the transformation of the world and who wish this transformation to be as radical as possible."

They worked under the shadow of fascism, and their objective was to "present interior reality and exterior reality as two elements in process of unification." They considered that the situation at the time was one where interior reality and exterior reality were in contradiction, and in this contradiction they saw the very cause of man's unhappiness. Andre Breton said: "I resist with all my strength temptations which, in painting and literature, might have the immediate tendency to withdraw thought from life as well as place life under the aegis of thought."

As Rainer Maria Rilke said: To regard art not as a piece plucked out of the world, but as the complete and utter transformation of the world into pure glory.

In other words, art does not serve the same function as a political poster. It is a way to transform the world, not to represent it. Or rather, it can represent if that’s what you want. A film-maker can produce a documentary on, say, the tobacco industry. He or she can make a “block-buster,” and become rich. A film maker can make a film which is a piece of true art. Thus, the painter.

One could say that political art is made with the head, but Art (with a capital A) is made with the spirit.

What do you think?

[i] Francis Bacon (1909-1992) was a Dublin-born artist who painted mostly portraits in a semi-realistic manner. Some of these depicted the scream, and were quite shocking to his contemporary audience. He depicted the complexity of human emotions.

[ii] Andre Breton. What is surrealism? 1934

[iii] Malangatana Ngwenya was born in 1936 and began painting in the early 1950s. His work reflected the misery and hardship associated with the sixteen year war between Frelimo and Renamo. Since 1994 his work has changed to reflect the current lighter and more optimistic period in Mozambique's history. His work has been exhibited worldwide.

[iv] Robert C Morgan. The End of the Art World. Series of manifestoes written in the 1990s.

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