Was Duchamp a coward?

Jessica Rankin: Mind & Language | Art21

My Friend Stary

My friend Stary is going to be famous. All you have to do is look at his work and the question becomes, 'Why have I never heard of this artist before?' Stary Mwaba: remember the name, you will not forget his work.

His paintings, within the cultural context of Zambia, his home, take great risks in their concepts and themes and yet his technique is so accessible, in other words he challenges the viewer without alienating them.

One of my favourites is entitled 'I am not Your Stereotype' (above). At first glance it may seem like a beautifully executed picture of a girl sitting, half-lounging (a common stance for Stary's subjects) surrounded by abstract, almost human forms. But let's look a little closer. First of all, see her hair, slightly golden brown in colour – unteased and natural. Then, let's look at the thigh and the back that are exposed, with the light glinting off them, wrapped casually in a chitenge – a Zambian cloth that women wear traditionally for modesty or to protect their clothes from dirt. In Zambian culture it is taboo for a woman to reveal these areas of her body, and yet here they are on display. Move now to the face and note the look of lazy defiance. She is beautiful, she is African and she is not afraid.
Stary's painting 'Baby' (below) was not well received in South Africa. The depiction of a black girl holding a white doll was seen as inappropriate, as if the addition of a white doll was an oversight, a mistake. That girl holding a doll, has a great deal of power in my opinion. The doll has no clothes apart from socks, whereas the girl is fully clothed. This touch subverts the nature of the poor African girl running around in rags – it is the white doll that is naked.

His marriage of technical skill, abstract exploration and genuine affection for his subjects in his paintings make your mouth water. If it is possible to be gently controversial, Stary Mwaba has achieved it.

I believe this is just the beginning for Stary, his work is becoming more experimental as he grows as an artist. In September, not only will he exhibit in Lusaka, but also fly to New York to take part in a residency at the Watermill, Brooklyn. For more on his work you can visit his website: http://starymwaba.webs.com/ or contact me directly.

The Reeperbahn

I am a Tom waits fanatic and his music inspired me to start a comic based on one of his songs 'The Reeperbahn' from his 2005 album 'Alice'. More to come.

Adventures in Zineland

I finally finished my first ventures into zineland. One is the first part of a long story I have written, the other is a kind of picture and story combined as a poster. Despite all the frustrations of Lusaka, one thing I am able to do is get copying done fairly cheaply – who knew?

So I now have blog where people can buy the zines, here it is with more descriptions of the zines themselves.

http://joyoftextzines.blogspot.com

Birth of a Zine

Funny how ideas come about. I have become pretty obsessed with the idea of self-publishing and zines for a while now and consequently mulling over what my first venture will be. I came up with making a fold-out poster zine, that would be an easy and compact intro for me.

I had been doing a lot of thinking and jotting ideas down, but didn't make a venture into the process itself until recently. It just goes to show that sometimes you have to get your hands dirty to find your way. That's how I came up with 'The Breathing Porch.' During my trip to Asheville NC, I learned that the old houses were often used by patients with respiratory illnesses because of the clean mountain air. They would sit on the porch and hence, they were named breathing porches. I loved the name instantly and put it in the back of my brain as a possible title for something.
Then with some sketching I did my idea came together. The picture I ended up with became the shape for the story and thus the first issue of The Breathing Porch was born! I now have a series planned following the rules devised from the first issue.

1. The artwork determines the direction of the story
   


2. The artwork must be black and white only
   


3. The story must fit onto one side of the poster along with the artwork
   


4. The story thereafter written is the one and only draft, though erasures are permitted
   

Each poster is A3 sized and folded twice into a booklet. They are limited editions.

First issue will be out very soon!

Scrapbook Excerpts

The Art Pages – An Update

Work is going well, we already have two articles currently being edited as well as photos. So far contributors have been respectful of deadlines and been attending our meetings.

The key work right now is to look for funding for subsequent issues of the paper. We have managed to scrape together enough to publish our first issue but after that we need another source of funding. We are looking into some grants from embassies that have a keen interest in supporting the arts, but these grants can take some months to be approved. So we are have to be creative. We have a possible idea for raising some money but this idea is still in its early stages, stay tuned for more!
Despite these financial issues we are so heartened by the amount of support we are receiving from artists who feel this kind of newspaper is long overdue. For them and many others, we will continue the work.
We are also working on a website that will help promote The Art Pages, this is still very much under construction and we have to make allowances for our temperamental internet, but it is definitely getting there.

Scrapbook Excerpts

Scrapbook Excerpts

From the River Arts District

The River Arts District - My New Favourite Place

So many cities have gentrified their arts districts for the benefit of tourists, which ironically makes them too expensive for artists to stay in and often removing the soul of the place. So it is really refreshing to find the the River Arts of District of Asheville is still a genuine work area for artists. It's a place of great integrity, where buildings from past industry have been repurposed with impressive respect.

During my exploration of the area I got talking to a ceramic artist in one studio, Greg Vineyard. His work is full of compelling rustic grace and you can find more of it here. He told me that a large number of the buildings in the district are owned by artists who rent sections out to other artists hence the rent is kept affordable. Where Greg rents space was an oil distribution building and the owner Constance Williams, herself a prolific and innovative artist, has been keen to keep the building well preserved. (More of her work here) No new nails are allowed in the walls, white temporary walls have been added for people to hang their work but are attached through already existing holes. We talked at length about art and influences, a rare treat.

Outside the sun lit the river bringing light and shadow to the buildings that still remain unused, but may one day live again through a new industry that has made the River Arts District of Asheville my New Favourite Place.

North Carolinian Sojourn

Every gust og wind is memory of another more familiar coast, but with dunes that carry a smell of dill and asparagus and warm, kind sand - this will do fine.

There was never so much air and sky.

Seai has that ability to make you feel tired, content, as if you've take part in good exertion even if you did nothing.

It's what we need after the landlock.

Whe we were there the sun stripped the land to a keen neon and the water broke into white horses chasing the shoreline until only sparkling foam. And my sunglasses turned everything sepia. The coast has no age, it is full of time and journey.

Chaminuka Lodge – An Art Hideaway

Finally got to Chaminuka. Chaminuka is a lodge outside of Lusaka with game, two elephants, a couple of lions and hyenas. It has amazing views of a lake and is designed in a 1970s modernist style, I won't say retro because I get the feeling it has been like this for some time.

We went to simply get out of Lusaka but also because Chaminuka has a large collection of art. And it does indeed. One of Zambia's most significant artists is the late Henry Tayali; his work is abstract meets expressionism often depicting groups, crowds of figures or landscapes that are also somehow crammed with uniformity – colourful, textured.

The lodge is pretty much crammed with art, everywhere you turn there is a stark white marble sculpture reminiscent of Moore or Epworth, there are large tribal masks staring down at you starkly so you feel transported to a dark corner of the British Museum. Truly it is a formidable collection that is democratic and diverse, but the sheer number pieces means that canvasses are on ever available wall space and the overall effect is overwhelming and a little tatty. More importantly there are no notes to tell you of the artist or the title of the piece or even where it is from and this is a grave shame. Perhaps it is time for Chaminuka to consider a space dedicated to this impressive collection and do it full justice.

A Short Story

This is what it said, 'One hundred feared dead off Coast of Yemen.' Amongst the traffic of the news, the bottleneck of headlines. News is news and it's not your life. Anyway it's Yemen.

Today you woke up and wanted to sob, you don't know why, there was no reason, not a one. Nevertheless, the sob was ready to come out, to break forth, a child ready to be born. The cosmic energy of the world would surely change if we all sobbed with sorrow and/or consternation, in realisation that books have lied and we are all so dull. A tuning folk struck through time and routine. We-are-dumb-as-dirt in the key of C.

They were from Somalia, Somalians. What do you know? Somalia, 'Black Hawk Down', faceless masses of shining brown 'Orc like' (Guardian review), ripping apart soldiers like a huge virus. Crawlng over helicopters and tanks – a bacteria attacking the good old boys who were just trying to help. They don't look like you, these people from Somalia, they look nothing like anyone you know. Except that one time when you asked that boy, young man really, where he was from and he said in a small voice Dharfur. And despite the fame and infamy, all you could think was how small his voice was when he said it. All you could think was nothing, but instinctively, instinctually respect was required, you knew that. A sitting back and a considered nod of the head 'Ah yes, Dharfur.' But he didn't really look like a Somalian, not really. So this is what happened; they were on a ship.

You have never told anyone this, but you are afraid of your own happiness. They were on a ship and they threw them, the pirates, the crew, threw them overboard.

Mornings are worst for no reason, the tiredness just doesn't shift. When you get on the bus and see the middle-aged man take the baby that once clung to him to school. The baby girl he once knew sits in a separate seat and he reads the newspaper in a beige raincoat. And you think there are not enough people like him in the world. He must be a good person. You woke up and it was as if you'd been thinking while you were asleep and you woke up thinking, never missing a beat and interrupted yourself. You checked the clock 5am not 4 – that's OK. If you don't wake up at 4 then you're not crazy or depressed. This is what happened, one hundred Somalians, on a ship, leaving, in the middle of the sea, a far away ocean.

Would that the iron in the blood were steel so the rust in you could not be felt. You hear the displeasure, the rattle of everyday.

Thrown overboard, making the deal void. It says what happened – the waters were shark infested. Well what do you expect? A country with no law.

You expose yourself to horror, you disgust yourself with everyday atrocities. It does not tell us men, women, children. It reassures us of the lawlessness of the waters. There is nothing about the prayers, the temperature of the water, the sound of someone fighting an animal, in water, to live. The darkness, the relentless night. The clarity of a fact is all and not everything. One darkness for another. How many are fighting for the lives right now. And why aren't you? Why aren't you?

Where Sculpture Comes to Die

I had heard from some of my friends at the gallery about Rockston and finally made my way there on Monday. It's tucked away in the Woodlands area of Lusaka, a pleasant are near Chilenje where there quite a few artists living and some history. This was the area that the British colonists lived in and Chilenje is where Kenneth Kaunda lived, according to my sources, those fighting for independence used to sneek over from Chilenje to Woodlands at night to harass the Brits. Things are much quieter nowadays.

When arriving I was first struck with the beauty of the place. Woodlands itself lives up to its name, trees are abundant. Rockston has a large garden and as I pulled up to the gate I could already see through a gap sculptures dotting the grass. Unfortunately some of the pieces had seen better days, nevertheless everywhere I looked there was some example of art. Rockston claims to be a studio and gallery but at the moment nothing much is happening. There is certainly no gallery and the studios are lovely but badly in need of refurbishment. It is more the potential of the place that got me excited rather than where it is now. I hope that soon the managers will become more active.

From the Road

The Art Academy