The first year of the 1990s heralded a brave new world for South Africa, and brought the 30 year period described to a conclusion and to a new and exciting artistic vision. For my part, three decades of being involved in black art was a privilege.
It enriched my life, not only through the many revelations of creative art and craft but also through contact with the creators. They are people who have mostly lacked material things in life, but despite deprivation are warm, wise, humorous - and taxing at times.
Thirty years is a long time. It has been difficult trying to cover the unfolding talents of African artists and crafts people, as experienced by the African Art Centre. I have also struggled to come to a neat conclusion about contemporary art in KwaZulu-Natal. However, I believe that in his opening speech at Tito Zungu's 1982 exhibition, Professor Pancho Cueddes neatly summed up what African art is all about when he said:
"There are two kinds of art, the cooked and the raw, the pastiche and the original. The cooked kind is made through forced feeding at the art schools, it rifles the baggage that others have already carried, it hides its head in the sands of technique...Raw art is the art of the authentic artists who have a compulsive need to communicate their vision."
Among artists who I would include with Zungu in this description are wood carvers Mziwakhe Mbatha and Henry Mshololo, painters Derrick Nxumalo and Trevor Makhoba - both of whom represented South Africa on the 1993 Venice Biennial - and bead-cloth sculptors Sizakele Mchunu and Kulumelaphi Hlambisa. Although they have varying abilities in the use of their media they are, as Gueddes said, 'authentic artists who have a compulsive need to communicate their own vision'.
Having said this, I feel the need to acknowledge again the value of the training that art students had at Rorke's Drift. The work of artists such as Azaria Mbatha, Dan Rakgoathe, John Muafangejo, Vuminkosi Zulu and others has been crucial to the development of art and craft in the province. Added to them are the weavers, potters and fabric printers who have contributed so much to contemporary art.
However, they too did not start their journey with very much of the baggage Gueddes refers to.
The more recent admission of black students to university and technikon art schools is welcome and necessary, and is bound to impact profoundly on the evolvement of African art in KwaZulu-Natal. No doubt, some of the young artists going through formal training will be outstanding. It is likely they will also be very different.
Much of the artistic expression we have seen has been of a narrative nature, depicting the life and times of people in rural areas. Perhaps it is the juxtaposition of rural and urban life - with artists among those moving back and forth between country and city - which has lent freshness and originality to the art and craft we have seen.
Good examples are Mbatha's remarkable carving and assembling of jet aeroplanes, which combine country style with modern technology, Bheki Myeni's use of traditional burnt wood decoration to interpret his observations of nature, Zulu's linocuts documenting events such as taxi wars in Stanger and a train accident, and Zungu's dramatic African style drawings of city buildings and planes.
Since 1990 momentous, miraculous and often tense changes have taken place in South Africa. Artists, like others, do not escape the anxieties and influences of change. But art should evolve naturally and quickly in our more free and less oppressed new society.
It would be presumptuous of me to foretell the future direction art in South Africa might take. However, based on 30 years of experience with African art, I am certain that the creativity of black artists will continue to develop. There is enormous artistic.talent and potential still to come.
Importantly, government and private funding of the arts is increasing. The African Art Centre pioneered support for black artists in the 1960s, and continues to play this important role. I feel sure that the Bartel Arts Trust, established in 1995, will help fill the gap in training, support and facilities for black artists needed to unlock the extraordinary talents of artists in KwaZulu-Natal.
