ECLECTIC COLLECTION AT RED HILL

Hellmuth Rossler-Musch has an eye for excellence. It’s a point made most clearly in his current exhibition at Red Hill Gallery, entitled ‘An Eclectic Selection – East African Contemporary (1980-2020)’. “I prefer calling the show a selection rather than a collection since the latter is usually associated with collecting art as an investment” Hellmuth tells BD Life, underscoring the point that he doesn’t value art in monetary terms. He doesn’t see art in terms of its resale value. “I collect art in terms of what appeals to me and to Erica [his wife],” he adds. His perspective largely explains why none of the art on display at Red Hill is for sale. Someone should come to see the current exhibition to appreciate the beauty of the showcase as well as the diversity of taste and times. For each artwork reflects a specific timeframe, a veritable snapshot of that moment in real time when conditions were ripe for that type of artistry. That is to say the artistic energies in the contemporary Kenyan art scene are moving so fast that individual as well as collective styles are changing like tides coming in from the deep. New ‘emerging’ artists are coming forth incessantly, so it isn’t always easy to sift the wheat from the chaff. But in Hellmuth’s case, he has made clear distinctions in his show. Having only begun collecting art in 1993 during the days when Ruth Schaffner, a fellow German, was alive and eager to consult with this newcomer to the Kenyan art scene, Hellmuth began on a journey over the next 30 years. It’s impressive even when it is limited only by the space available at his gallery, a place he designed and constructed himself. Structuring his showcase into three parts, he has the ‘early’ period, meaning early for his own understanding and collecting. In that group, he displays works by artists he calls pioneers. Of these, he includes Wanyu Brush, Morris Foit, Zacharia Mbutha, Annabelle Wanjiku, Joel Oswaggo, Kivuthi Mbuno, and Charles Sekano who sadly he couldn’t find space for in his assembly. Whichever side of the gallery you enter through, this earlier body of artwork is on the right. There you will see one of the finest Wanyu Brush paintings that I have ever seen. The same is true for Mbutha whose work I’ve always appreciated, but the two paintings of his on display are refined, upbeat, and expressive of an artist with a happy heart. The same could be said of the artworks by Annabelle and Oswaggo, works that seem expressive of the artist’s prime time of creative expression. If the ‘pioneers’ as Hellmuth defined them are from the 1980s, then he charts the 1990s as a time when young highly trained Sudanese artists arrived in Nairobi in flight from war in their homeland. The first Sudanese artist in this collection is one who is a decade older than the ‘invaders’ from the 90s, namely El Tayeb Dawalbeit, Abushariaa Ahmed, and Salah El Mur. Rashid Diab essentially prepared the way for the rest to follow; however, once he graduated from the acclaimed Khartoum University’s Fine Art School, he moved straight to Spain where he spent 20 years studying for a doctorate in fine art and teaching at Madrid University. He moved back to Khartoum where he’s been teaching and creating art. Most recently, he has been making prints which Hellmuth includes in the show. El Mur is also a favorite of Hellmuth’s as is Abushariaa and El Tayeb. All of these painters reflect in varying degrees the Khartoum School Art Movement which is characterized by the concern for synthesizing a style of art that blends the Arabic, African, and European. Finally, the only artists that Hellmuth identifies as contemporary Kenyan artists are Peterson Kamwathi, Beatrice Wanjiku, Shabu Lawrence) Mwangi, Justus Kyalo and Dennis Muraguri. All of them have broken out of the literal figurative or purely abstract art. Each of them digs deeply into what is now described as conceptual art. It’s ideas and emotions conveyed in visual metaphors, semi-abstract terms that may be interpreted in many different ways, depending on how deeply the viewer can get to intuiting the artist’s thoughts and feelings. It's not always easy to understand contemporary art and it’s helpful when the artist is close at hand, willing and capable of explaining something about their art. The five might not be at the gallery when you arrive, but Hellmuth is happy to share insights into all his art with anyone visiting the gallery.