WINDHOEK- Ivondivoimi-Imindimiivo, means “they are you-you are them” and this is the title of renown painter, Chikonzero Chazunguz, aka Chiko, currently running at the National Art Gallery of Namibia.
The exhibition whose theme as per Professor Andre du Pisani who opened it, comes from “an African philosophical and ethical cannon” with the artist emphasising an ethics anthology to accord it primacy along with that accorded other ethical traditions whether Islamic, Western or Oriental. “To be an African artist, or for that matter, an artist, does not mean that one’s work has no wider reference and that it is incapable of addressing universal themes. Quite the contrary, there can be no global ethic until people other than African, start taking the rich and immensely long-standing ethical tradition of Africa and its visual archive seriously. Not only is this an obvious requirement for geographical completeness, it is even more essential for ethical depth. The converse also holds, Africans should take seriously the ethical traditions from beyond the continent, and this, should form the basis for a truly global dialogue,” says du Pisani.
And this is what exactly Chiko is doing with the Ivondivoimi-Imindimiivo, means “they are you-you are them” exhibition whose subtheme is the universality of the human person and how humans, even in their gravest moments of inhumanity, transcend time and space. Because the idea for this exhibition as well as its raw material derives from genocide in Namibia, especially the period between 1905and 1907. These are the photographs from the Namibian archives showing Namibians hanging from make-shift gallows. Chiko then reworked these imageries and human persons dressed in modern clothes, a symbolic of the presence of the past even if the past was profoundly ugly and dark.
“The exhibition makes a further important point, and it is this: ordinary persons carry heroism within them. The category of ‘hero’ is not the preserve of the iconic few. Resistance was made possible and sustained, in this case against overwhelming odds, by ordinary people, not by an exceptional individual. This statement and the theme that the exhibition explores, makes it unavoidably political, and it also makes it unavoidably human and universal,” says du Pisani.
He points out the factors making the contemporary African art market dynamic, one being the growing international interest in African art with many western institutions that has been building collections of such African arts. Hence the awareness of artist like Chiko and others about this trend with their work reflecting grappling with issues such as the use of capital and labout, and the need for reconciliation in the aftermath of conflict and war. “It is also about the relationship between spaces characterised by these elements. The materials and spaces he chose are layered with narratives and histories, both real and fictive,” du Pisani observes about Chiko’s exhibition. “At one level, the exhibition traces the years of personal growth and reflection to do what the artist is currently doing, and, secondly, the artist reads the present via the prism of the past- the presence of the past,” summarises du Pisani.
Chiko, an artist in residence at the John Muafangejo Arts Centre (JMAC), is a Zimbabwean citizen, currently residing in Canada. His art education was international- Zimbabwe and Bulgaria- and he brings two decades of experience as a studio artist specialising in painting, printmaking, installation art and mixed media. He has exhibited widely with 24 selected group exhibitions in countries as diverse as Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, South Africa, France, Namibia and Zimbabwe. His curriculum vitae shows evidence of ten solo exhibitions, again in more than one country, 14 interantional/national art projects and to date, Chiko has been the recipient of 15 awards for his creative work, also from more than one country/institution.