charles sekano
By
margaretta wa gacheru (posted june 17, 2018)
With Circle
Art Gallery’s mounting of its ‘Vanguard I’ exhibition, Danda Jaroljmek has
assembled a wide range of wonderful Kenyan artists who were active ‘in the
1980s and 1990s’. And by so doing she has formally debunked the false notion
that Kenyan contemporary art only kicked off the other day or only in the 21st
century as some recent observers to the Kenyan scene speculate.
What’s also
true is that quite a number of the 26 exhibiting artists at Circle were active,
not just in the 80s, when the late Ruth Schaffner arrived in Nairobi from Los
Angeles and bought Gallery Watatu from Yony Waite (whose art is part of ‘Vanguard
1’ along with that of another Watatu cofounder, the late Robin Anderson) in
1985.
Many in the
Circle show were busy working artists much earlier than the 80s. Indeed, Yony
and Robin with David Hart established Watatu in 1969 and were busy throughout
the 70s. Elimo Njau together with friends like Pheroze Nowrojee, Terry Hirst,
and others started Paa ya Paa in 1965. And that is where the great Kenyan sculptor,
the late Samwel Wanjau got to work sculpting the awesome Mau Mau Freedom
Fighter (which was downed recently by dark unnamable forces and is now in need
of urgent repair).
Wanjau
worked at PYP in the 1960s.
In fact, one of the most stunning (and precious) works
in the entire Vanguard show is Samwel Wanjau’s seven foot tall wooden ‘Mwoboko’
sculpture, mwoboko being the name of the Kikuyu dance this finely-carved couple
are poised to begin.
Ancent Soi,
Jak Katarikawe and even Theresa Musoke (all in Vanguard 1) were also exhibiting
at Watatu in the 70s. And Yony Waite was already good friends with Sane Wadu
during those ‘early’ days.
Ancent Soi
(yes, father of Michael) was already hosting his own solo ‘exhibitions’ inside
the Nairobi City Market where his stall was originally booked to sell fruits
and vegetables but it became a popular showcase for his art. It was from there
that the elder Soi got wind of the Olympic ’72 poster art competition, which he
won and which earned him a trip to Munich to pick his Olympic prize.
Theresa
Musoke, the one award-winning Ugandan artist in ‘Vanguard 1’ was also
exhibiting at Watatu in the 70s. She’d studied overseas but couldn’t return to
her homeland as it was still being marauded by barbarians like Idi Amin and
Milton Obote.
Even the one
South African artist in Vanguard 1, Charles Sekano, was exhibiting his original
wax crayon drawings in the 1970s when it was Goethe Institute that gave him his
first solo show. He was a refugee from the Apartheid regime at the time and claimed
he’d taught himself to be an artist by sitting in local libraries for hours, studying
books on fine art.
In short,
one wonders why Circle didn’t stretch the description of the period being
revisited as that of the 70s as well as 80s and 90s. It’s true that the majority
of the 26 derive from the 80s, including Annabel Wanjiku, Meek Gichugu, Kivutha
Mbuno and Zachariah Mbuno (father of artists Kamicha and Njuguna) as well as
Shine and Rahab Tani and a whole slew of Ngecha artists like King Dodge
Kingoroti, Wanyu Brush, Sane and Eunice Wadu (all of whom are currently on
display at Nairobi National Museum as members of Ngecha Art Centre). But as
laudable as Vanguard 1 is, it might inadvertently mislead the public into
believing Kenyan contemporary art only took off in the 80s, which is clearly
debatable.
Even Wanyu
Brush got serious about painting in the late Sixties when he joined YMCA’s
Craft Training Centre. Francis Kahuri also kicked off his art career in the ‘70s
after studying at the little-known Kenya Art Society. And of course, our ‘cucu’
of contemporary Kenyan art, Rosemary Karuga, the first Kenyan woman to get a
degree from Makerere University in fine art, was painting from the Fifties.
The point is
the Kenyan art scene was well on its way some decades before the 1980s.
Nonetheless, a brilliant art marketer like Ruth Schaffner made it her commercial
ambition to make Kenyan artists renowned not just in Kenya but in places like
Frankfurt and LA. She did a pretty good job of it.
But I’d say
Circle Art is doing even better by bringing together so-called ‘second
generation’ artists like Sane, Meek and Annabel with authentic pioneers like
Ancent Soi, Samwel Wanjau, Rosemary Karuga and even Yony Waite; then placing them
all in the ‘vanguard’.
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