Garan’anga’s exhibit shows a respect for ‘World Art’ which has stood the Test of Time

Zimbabwe Thu 09-12-2010

Garan’anga’s exhibit shows a respect for ‘World Art’ which has stood the Test of Time
By Jeffrey Jacks

When I first read a bold headlined article that read "Artist extracts natural beauty from scrap yard" published in the Herald (Zimbabwe's main daily newspaper) of the 25th of October 2010 about an artist's sculptures swaying with the faintest of contact, turning a gallery into a dance floor, I assumed it was the writer's words of choice, a mere exaggeration to assert mileage and attract attention for the artist.

My Home II by Stephen Garan'anga

My Home II by Stephen Garan’anga

When I attended the unusual official opening of the multi media solo exhibition entitled 'Maonero Angu', I was stunned, and I kicked myself severally for having made the incorrect assumption. The metal pieces can swing even with the slightest stir of air around them. As you pass by or make gestures as you gaze, they even imitate you. Truly there is some robotic element which might be programmed to move, talk and speak – Stephen Garan'anga, the inventor of artificial intelligence.

Garan’anga’s welded metal sculptures, paintings, graphics and mixed media carefully brought together in exhibition at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe in Harare express the wide berth of his knowledge of respected traditions of what is known today as ‘world art’. World art comes with traditions transcendent of national or cultural boundaries and origins. Much ‘world art’ today is specifically made for Biennales and Art Fairs, the artists’ mindful of the curators fads and fancies which are largely short lived.

But this is not the case with Stephen Garan’anga whose work rubs off from what he has gained from workshops, contact with other artists and his perceptions. His is not the kind of sculpture or painting you will meet up with in Venice, Dakar and Sao Paolo. Rather it shows a respect for ‘world art’ which has stood the test of time, rather than art which is assembled in a tent in Venice and dissembled, never to be seen again.

Strings of trouble by Stephen Garan’anga

Stephen’s welded metal sculptures stem from a respected tradition of modern sculpture, some well known exponents being Sir Anthony Caro, Phillip King (products of St Martin’s School of Art under the direction of Frank Martin), Richard Serra and Mark di Suvero (USA) and Clement Meadmore (Australia USA).

We know the character of these sculptors work, the rangy athleticism of Caor’s Hopscotch and Prairie, painted metal sculptures so light they barely touch the ground, the eroticism of Phillip King’s seductively pink ‘Rosebud’, the constructions of Mark di Suvero, like giant assemblages of Leggo, the towering lowering dark metal sculptures of Richard Serra which threaten our space and intrude our comfort zones. Somehow we place Stephen Garan’anga among these sculptors.

Today welded metal sculpture is a mainstay of sculpture, formally and conceptually removed from the fads and fashions of sculpture, gutter headlines today forgotten tomorrow, as disposable as a paper cup or a ball point pen.

Stephen's metal sculptures are far removed from the hasty assemblages of birds and animals, and the welding together of grim images of approaching death which are seen in Zimbabwe today. His sculptures stem more from his idea of new ways of seeing and respecting metal, and his notion of the retention of the character and identity of the original found object. What is admirable about his sculpture is how it displays the natural beauty of what is found in the scrap yard, parts of wrecked cars, old sawn off pipes and chains, the jaws of front end loaders, part of car doors with glorious examples of ‘found colour’.

Arising by Stephen Garan'anga

Arising by Stephen Garan’anga

Stephen Garan’anga’s sculptures are complex compositions of found objects which are neither cleaned up or painted, largely making up a figurative sculpture. We are compelled to look at these objects in a new way, part of a pipe as a female toros, a nail as an eye gorged out from the socket. Yet the original appearance of the object remains, and we are fascinated by the material reality of the sculpture.

Some of the sculptures are constructed from carefully chosen found objects, creating the balance, the equipoise of Caro’s table sculptures. Other sculptures are made of gloriously indiscriminate found objects and we are amazed to see how they formally come together in sculpture.

In all the sculptures rust comes into a colour of its own, and in one sculpture there is something like a car door which works as an abstract painting, blues shot with yellows, brown dribbling into greens, colours floating into and absorbing each other,. Seeing these sculptures in a small garden, we long to see them in a gallery where the lighting will bring out sudden steaks of silver

upon the rust, the colours of the car door. And we see the way the discarded object comes to life again, gains a new presence when represented in art. We see these sculptures in exhibition and we look again at the industrial landscape and its wasteland the scrap yard and we wonder at the beauty of what we see.

Tete Tambudzai by Stephen Garan’anga

"Tete Tambudzai" or aunt Tambudzai, (tambudzai a native Zimbabwean Zezuru language word meaning being tormented) is a fashion model by profession standing elegantly three meters in height seemingly single legged but not according to the creator. Her arms point to the heavens swung to the left sandwiching a beautiful French hat that lies covering the forehead of the head tilting away from the vertical axis facing downwards. Down the stream lined body a Chinese medium sleeved top connects its spring waist line to protruding hips secured by a rim of an abnormal load truck wheel that saw off quintillions of revolutions during its tenure on endless roads, compressing down heavily a spring thigh from a shock absorber of yet another auto mobile.

Enormous weight of an eight meter long industrial chain exquisitely drips down loosely right around the rim completing the elegant design of a Zimbabwean animal hide mini-skirt over a load burdened solid round bar that connects from the flexible thigh to the English shoe or shoes rather.

My Mother by Stephen Garan'anga

My Mother by Stephen Garan’anga

The artist never forgives his delicate use of line even though challenged by all the imposing mass. The welded piece of all-round discarded vehicle parts narrates an unjust story of African fashion models perpetrating various awkward acts contrary to their African ways of life, striving to imitate their Western counterparts hoping to achieve the international model status.

The paintings are gestural and textural –they may derive loosely from the abstract expressionism of the yester year. In the paintings there are massive build ups of texture, colour overlaid on colour. The paintings depict both the African past and the past as embodied in ancient cities. Half way between the paintings and the sculptures are two collages, blank boards on which are affixed bones, beads, toothbrushes and tubes of tooth paste. It is a matter of ‘change and decay now, all around I see’. In two hundred years people will dig up our lives and what will they find? These things and more. It is death which brings about history. It is the ageing process as much as man’s destruction which destroys a civilisation.

In one painting outlines of girders and cranes create the contours of an urban landscape, perhaps that of Harare. Below little creatures like ants hurry along roadways. In the far corner of the painting is a pole and dagga house,with a thatched roof. A wavy red line joins the girders and the cranes to the house. This line represents the distance between the origins and present day life of the painter. In some paintings we see into windows and look at tables and chairs and the soft lights of the way people live. In others we look out of windows and see the distance and space which is the Zimbabwean landcape.

Muteuro by Spephen Garan'anga

Muteuro by Spephen Garan’anga

In one painting a feast of rose red spreads across the canvas and the middle texture builds up to create the square outline of a window within this red rock face. Where are we and when? In a Meditteranean country centuries ago? In Aden? In Petra? At the bottom of this painting is a line of blue dissolving into purple – the wine dark sea of Ancient Greece? In another painting colours hurl down a frayed canvas like an erupting volcano.

These paintings have nothing to do with what is going on in painting in Zimbabwe today. They have a wide frame of reference, some appropriate local content but there the local association stops. We see the distance between where he comes from and where he is today in the painting with the pole and dagga house and the girders. But where he is today is also the art world with no boundaries, borders, but simply directions, movements, fashions which stems from literary or philosophical traditions and have no concern for culture, country or place.

Stephen Garan'anga's various printing techniques connect well with other various art-forms he uses to express himself. His unlimited ability to use line is as evident as light of day especially in his dry-point prints. Sometimes you are immensely absorbed into the mastery techniques and be oblivious to the subject matter.

Posted By: Hirum Ndungu

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Your Comments

Zenzele Chulu: Great works from a great friend I like Tete Tembudzai its got the power.

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