room for humour

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For a long time, Africa was not to be found on the world map of art. Although the expressive African folk art is been admired and was source of inspiration for many art forms in Europe, it remained a chapter of history far off the Zeitgeist of art of the 20th century.

Bernd Klein-Gunk, collector of African contemporary art and owner of the gallery ZAK in Fürth, is now speaking of a renaissance of African art. Compared with the artistic upheaval of the 15th Century in Europe, in Africa also a quest for autonomous art out of the roots of cultic and religious practices will be recognisable. Individuals taking centre stage as motive for the artist.

First address

Kleine-Gunk’s gallery ZAK is a first class address for contemporary art from Africa in Germany. In collaboration with Art-Agency Hammond is here a broad spectrum of this art is offered to collectors and those interested. The at present third exhibition features seven painter from East Africa, all from the culture cauldron Nairobi. The represented artists, without exception all self-taught, which already have been through international exhibitions widely known beyond the borders of East Africa.

Partly a bit badly placed, require these numerous works of art, which are very different in their quality quietness before someone is able to plunge into that picture world. Also significantly penetrates traffic noise from the Königstraße. There are three artists whose pictures convince and are above average. These artists did manage to create content wise and artistically their own "microcosm" by the use of a diverse form language out of the tradition of a great culture, which is doomed.

Kivuthi Mbuno’s art works in coloured pencil have no titles.The expressive scenarios befor bright coloured monochrome backgrounds speak for themselves. The vocabulary of east African mythology has Mbuno appropriated, but he puts the search of an abstracted graphic form ever more in the centre of his pictures mediation. Apes and humans are on hunting and elephants are carrying the baskets for the people - everything in a space free of perspective.

Joel Oswaggo’s art works are also in coloured pencil on paper but they illustrate, describe and depict the life in and with his environment. The bleak and dark sides of "shanty town existence" are expressed in the picture "Sucking worms" but also the joys of community in "Putting on the paint". In the picture "moving out" clay pots are like hungry bellies, bloated and ill. Interesting is a softly painted background, which carries the screams of pain into the sky.

Staccato like

Zachariah Mbutha is bringing the human with their simple, great feelings in a loving and humorous manner onto the canvas. The thickly applied oil paint supports the plasticity of the image. Head, body and corn cobs are full of power, with staccato impelled at the canvas. Beautifully how the corn in "eating corn"almost crumbles off from the picture. The woman is dominant in Mbuthas pictures, but then again it is the rhino, which is strongly kissed.