Press Archive 1996

Workshop with the Tengenenge colony for stone sculpture, Quelle-Lagerhalle next to Hotel-Pyramide, Fürth, Bavaria, Africa festival, 21.09. – 11.10.1996

[Bernard Matemera (1946 – 2002)]

Fürther Nachrichten, 1996, BIRGIT JANTSCHKE

Facets of Africa

The hall next to the Pyramid is being used by four artists as an exhibition space



The barren warehouse next to the Hotel-Pyramide has probably never seen so much hustle and bustle as at the currant moment: Here George Lilanga from Tanzania shows with his action "Afri-Car" an art performance of a special kind. The man with the green cap wearing no shoes, just socks, crouches on a small wooden stool in front of a white Ford-Combi. With thin brush strokes he carefully paints in the outlines that he has sketched in pencil on the car’s surface earlier.

Anyone, who expected a loud and shrill performance with show effects, and they are not rare in this country, does not know Lilanga well. The skilled wood carver, who implemented the traditional intricate wood carving figures in his style of painting, probably will still take days until he has his artwork completed.

Spectators are welcomed

Those interested have the opportunity to see his work in progress. The four artists, who use the warehouse during the Africa-Weeks as a workshop and exhibition space, are also happy to have someone looking over their shoulder while they are working.

In one corner Musarara Alice crouches on the floor and sandpapers her nearly finished stone sculpture. In addition, the black artist with Rasta curls still has enough time to answer all the questions of curious visitors while laughing all over her face.

Beside her, her artist-colleague in his leopard-skin cap which is apparently a kind of trademark holds a rough block of stone between his legs. Bernard Matemera, one of the most famous sculptors of Zimbabwe, worked with his hammer and chisel and a stern look on his face.

Matemera and Musarara live in the artist colony Tengenenge which lies 150 kilometres north of Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital, near an abandoned quarry. Here the former tobacco farmer Tom Blomefield, the site owner, realised his long-cherished desire to focus fully together with colleagues on stone sculpture. The small round man, who looks with his beard like a life-size garden gnome, sits in the warehouse in Fürth behind a small table and talks encouragingly. The friendly invitation given to a spectator from Fürth to visit him in Tengenenge, comes from the heart.