Press Archive 1998

"Medicine in Contemporary African Art", Gallery ZAK, Fürth, Bavaria, 13.02. – 13.05.1998

[John Kilaka]    [George Lilanga (1934 - 2005)]    [Peter Martin (1959 – 2005)]    [Joel Oswaggo]

[Chéri Samba]    [Zephania Tshuma (1932 – 2000)]

Fürther Nachrichten, 1998, REGINA URBAN

Where doctors advertise with shock images 

The exhibition "Medicine in Contemporary African Art" at the gallery ZAK - Artists using motives from physician signs

Disease and medicine are areas of life that are usually taking place in Western culture behind closed doors. Taboo subjects were put into the realm of the Private and declared to be the matter of expert knowledge. In African countries, such taboos apply far less. As the life also the suffering is far more appearing in public. And so is the struggle against death. Awareness campaigns on AIDS or pregnancy preventions are performed often outdoors.

For African artists, whose works preferably representing their home country's everyday life, illness and healing art is also included in the spectrum of the scenes. That the issue here is not only very open and directly addressed, but also with a lot of irony and humour, showcases now an exhibition at the gallery ZAK (Königstraße 132) under the title "Medicine in Contemporary African Art" with works by eight artists from different countries of the black continent.

The difference between the Western discretion and African naturalness most sharply document the cheeky funny pictures by the Benin based sign painter Diané. The doctor for movement therapy, the dentist or the haemorrhoids specialist advertises here drastically-descriptive for their healing art.

Where many people are illiterate, such advertising is a common way to draw attention to medical services. Diané caricatured his protagonists, however, by illustrating them as craftsmen armed with pliers and ridiculed them with irreverent comments. Beside the point is a wooden sign that satirises racist Nazi practices against blacks. But ultimately, you can probably also look at racism as a disease.

The most realistic painted pictures are by Peter Martin, which show scenes in local doctor's surgeries. People are in barren, tiled rooms, on the operation tables or in the vaccination campaign at the village square. Martin shows the makeshift conditions in which medicine is taking place in African countries and faces with big eyes reflect a touching helplessness. The strong colour contrast between bright white and bold colours gives these pictures a considerable aesthetic appeal.

A colourful chaos

With Chéri Samba and George Lilanga two of the most renowned African artists are represented, recently both had already solo exhibitions in the ZAK Gallery. Lilanga shows Hospital scenes as colourful chaos in which his typical comic-like figures with elongated limbs, raging confused like doctors and patients. Chéri Samba's image of an emaciated AIDS patient on his deathbed, sorrowing that his wife could take possession of his property after his death, is an expression of sorrow, suffering and loneliness as well as heartless selfishness.

A witty and colourful comic strip by contrast is John Kilaka's animal picture story that tells of animals with dental pain waiting anxiously for their treatment. Just like the people. This is an affectionate parody that identifies Kilaka as excellent painter and subtle humorist.