SCULPTURE: Knowing the Value of Granite

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Tatjana Tubic

HARARE, Oct 20 1998 (IPS) - Leading Zimbabwean sculptor, Joram Mariga, learned a valuable lesson on a recent trip to Japan; Japanese sculptors are producing magnicient pieces by using Zimbabwean granite, which is virtually ignored by artists here.

“I felt deeply ashamed,” said Mariga on his return. “Almost all Japanese sculptors work in black granite from Zimbabwe and we have never dared to tackle it. I never knew how to work with it and didn’t have any idea about the right techniques – or about the right tools.”

Mariga, who started sculpturing in 1958, is regarded today as the father of Zimbabwean stone sculpture. His frustration, with granite, however, has been a persistent feature among other Zimbabwean sculptors.

“We always have wanted to make huge sculptures in granite – that is around 20 metres wide 15 metres high. But all along we have been scared to work with such very, very hard stone,” admitted Nicholas Mukomberanwa, regarded as one of the most gifted and successful Zimbabwean sculptors.

His works stand in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of Mankind in London and the Volkerkunde Museum in Frankfurt, Germany.

Shona sculpture (or Zimbabwe stone sculpture) has come a long way in the past 40 years and now critics deem it something of a contemporary art phenomenon. Zimbabwe, and before it colonial Rhodesia, had none of the great artistic traditions of West African countries. Nevertheless, it has become the most respected contemporary synonym of sculpture in Africa.

The Pure African concept – the enlarged head, seat of the spirit, a frontal static pose, a visage staring into eternity with formally posed arms and clenched fists – was first brought to the world attention through Mariga’s work. And this month, a Japanese artist finally brought Zimbabwean sculptors closer to overcoming their “granite-frustration”.

Masaji Asaga, world renowned Japanese sculptor, who was Mariga’s host in the Japanese town of Lwase, conducted a two-week “International Granite Sculpture Workshop and Symposium” organised by the Chapungu Sculpture Park, a prestigious art ‘kraal’ on the outskirts of Harare, and The Japan Foundation.

Local sculptors termed the event “historic.”

“What we have now learned from the Japanese is technique. It is historic moment for Zimbabwean stone sculpture,” Mukomberanwa declared.

Asaga, reknown for his outdoor works in granite, has establised “The Iwase Rock Museum”, the most famous granite producing area in Japan, to promote broader interest in “the Cultural Stone”.

“It was in many ways privilege to work alongside Zimbabwean sculptors. Above all, I liked their way of working solely with their hands. Worldwide, artists so often use machines as their tools and I saw here, a unique unspoiltness in working with stone,” Asaga said. “Physical distance, economic divisions between so called First World, Third World do not count in the world of art. This encounter is just the beginning…”

For two weeks he worked among Zimbabwe’s best sculptors. “We are very grateful to him (Asaga),” said Roy Guthrie, director of Chapungu Sculpture Park.

“He can hardly speak English, but through Asaga’s activities and his enthusiasm everybody in the Workshop understood him. He picks up his tools and says ‘oh, no, not like that!’ and shows them immediately…and they understand. He convinced Zimbabwean sculptors that they can also compose huge sculptures, taught them how to make their own chisels out of rejected materials … although we still have a long way to go.”

Guthrie believes that Asaga left Zimbabwean sculptors “with a foundation”, a starting point from whereupon granite sculpture will become a major factor in Zimbabwean art.

“Working with granite could open up a whole new vista for Zimbabwean sculptors. It allows them to look beyond whwere they have been looking until now; they have a path to new areas where they can now interest architects, builders – people who are doing huge projects where large sculptures can be made and can be permanent.”

Some artists see work in granite as a possible way of protecting the image of Zimbabwen art.

“Zimbabwean stone sculpture is now very popular to the outside world. But we may come at a time when outside world will accuse art of Zimbabwe as being commercial, and Zimbabwean sculptors as playing around with soft stuff – like ‘soapstone’ which can scratch or even break,” Mariga said. . So, we are far from wasting our time, trying to learn how to work with granite. If we can start to tackle hard stone like black granite, if we can produce at least a number of granite sculptures, then we will protect the image of art of Zimbabwe.”

Others like Mukomberanwa insists that working in granite will finally draw precise distinction between tourist-appealing curio- carvers and “the real artists”.

“One of the things that I like…that, since there are so many artists here, so many carvers, the real artists are going to be proven by their ability to work with granile. This is not the kind of stone that you can play with; it takes much longer to create a piece of art. Granite’s resistance makes you appreciate the big fight in front of you; you have to respect the stone, ” he said.

“So, I feel that born artists, those serious men who cannot live without working in stone, will continue with granite: this is where we are going to find out who are the real artists.”