Troy Makaza
"This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased"(Matthew 3:17)
First Floor Gallery Harare
"This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased"(Matthew 3:17)
First Floor Gallery Harare
Troy Makaza’s solos have by now become well known as broad vistas of the artist spreading his wings in an expansive conversation with his country and culture. Some might perceive a conversation like that to be a form of parochialism. Never for Makaza. This conversation is a foundation for his self-knowledge and a prism through which the world becomes intelligible.
To my beloved son, with whom I am well please suggests a deceptively religious orientation. And while Christianity is the cultural default of Zimbabwe’s mainstream, that is merely icing on top of a layer for the lovers of context, subtext, metaphor, simile, symbolism, idiom, aphorism and allegory.
The exhibition is firmly anchored by Zimbabwean culture, past and present meshed with Makaza’s lived experience and richly articulate as such, however it would be an error to view it in parochial terms. If there is an overarching fil rouge is the urgent need for compassion and love to co-exist with a sober recognition of problems, in an age of polarization, radicalisation and a default of ‘if you are not 1000% with us you are against us’ narrative.
While the title of the exhibition, a quote from the New Testament, where according to apostle Matthew G-d arbitrarily announces that Jesus is his son and that G-d is pretty happy with him and that is that. Rather than an article of faith, Makaza sees the verse as a provocation and a catalyst for considering the nature of unearned privilege and unilateral exercise of absolute power.
The idea is not new in Makaza’s practice. Over the past couple of years, throwbacks to Livingstone “discovery” of Victoria Falls and the phrase ‘Not in 1000 years’ from Ian Smith, about the chances of indigenous Zimbabweans achieving franchise, have percolated to the surface alongside reflections to ancient history of the country. Seeing his country as a complex matrix incorporating the totality of its storytelling, is increasingly the task that Makaza is taking on himself. That complexity is an honest reflection on the fact that more than forty years on Zimbabwe is still reeling from the colonial history of artificial and arbitrary allocation of power, wealth, resources and privileges; that Zimbabweans live in a place with 5G wifi and rock drawings, that the children in this very very young country are already three generations removed from the liberation struggle and have never known another government.
And it is the children and their future and the mothers as the literal and allegorical foundation of the country and the land, who are the key to this body of work. Concern for children’s welfare and love and appreciation for their mothers is the emotional acme for these works. Casting doubt on the historical and religious choice of the son, Makaza speaks to a future where compassion is the basis of interaction, where all history is acknowledged and where honesty about the past and the present is like sunlight, the best antiseptic and that future is beautiful.
Valerie Kabov
Curator
©2024
To my beloved son, with whom I am well please suggests a deceptively religious orientation. And while Christianity is the cultural default of Zimbabwe’s mainstream, that is merely icing on top of a layer for the lovers of context, subtext, metaphor, simile, symbolism, idiom, aphorism and allegory.
The exhibition is firmly anchored by Zimbabwean culture, past and present meshed with Makaza’s lived experience and richly articulate as such, however it would be an error to view it in parochial terms. If there is an overarching fil rouge is the urgent need for compassion and love to co-exist with a sober recognition of problems, in an age of polarization, radicalisation and a default of ‘if you are not 1000% with us you are against us’ narrative.
While the title of the exhibition, a quote from the New Testament, where according to apostle Matthew G-d arbitrarily announces that Jesus is his son and that G-d is pretty happy with him and that is that. Rather than an article of faith, Makaza sees the verse as a provocation and a catalyst for considering the nature of unearned privilege and unilateral exercise of absolute power.
The idea is not new in Makaza’s practice. Over the past couple of years, throwbacks to Livingstone “discovery” of Victoria Falls and the phrase ‘Not in 1000 years’ from Ian Smith, about the chances of indigenous Zimbabweans achieving franchise, have percolated to the surface alongside reflections to ancient history of the country. Seeing his country as a complex matrix incorporating the totality of its storytelling, is increasingly the task that Makaza is taking on himself. That complexity is an honest reflection on the fact that more than forty years on Zimbabwe is still reeling from the colonial history of artificial and arbitrary allocation of power, wealth, resources and privileges; that Zimbabweans live in a place with 5G wifi and rock drawings, that the children in this very very young country are already three generations removed from the liberation struggle and have never known another government.
And it is the children and their future and the mothers as the literal and allegorical foundation of the country and the land, who are the key to this body of work. Concern for children’s welfare and love and appreciation for their mothers is the emotional acme for these works. Casting doubt on the historical and religious choice of the son, Makaza speaks to a future where compassion is the basis of interaction, where all history is acknowledged and where honesty about the past and the present is like sunlight, the best antiseptic and that future is beautiful.
Valerie Kabov
Curator
©2024
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