From May 5th till June 27th, 1998, in the Space Artsenal, in Paris, we attended an exhibition on the contemporary sculptors of Zimbabwe (A).

1. The Castani Njanji ‘s Lovers. Two works had strongly concussed us : the sculpture »  Lovers »  of Castani Njanji, brother of Tamuka Njanji, their defender being Kennedy Musekiwa. The woman leans on the man. The head of the woman is put on the left shoulder of the man. Both hands of the woman clasp the man around the loins : the left hand crossing on the stomach and rubbing the navel, the right hand on the back of the man ; the body of the man is maybe tilted because of the mass of the woman.

What are the characteristics of this sculpture ? The woman seems to be careless ? Did she meet her prince charming ? Is it on the man that rests bases his hope ? On the other hand the palm of the right hand put on the right cheek evoke a worried man, wondering about a problem complicated with the existence : the love. Is this one at the origin of the world ? And what is the foundation of the love ? Is it about a question of money which returns the pensive man ? Did the sculptor maybe represent it a Cornelian subject shared between the feeling and the duty ?

2. The Nicholas Mukomberanwa’ s Philosopher. It seems to me that in the monument »  The Philosopher II» , the Zimbabwean artist Nicholas Mukomberanwa works on this terrible problem remained opened in mathematics since the 19eme century : The band of Möbius, geometrical figure bidimensionnel, inorientable : this band has neither inside nor outside. It is unilatère, that is, it has only a single side. To make it bilateral, it is necessary to cut it in three. It’s the same for the bottle of Klein. We can say that Mukomberanwa is an artist of the algebraic topology, mathematical hidden in its sculptures.

3. The philosophic schools of sculpture In Zimbabwe. The sculptors of Zimbabwe work on a stony manifold going of the serpentine (green, black, yellow lively) in the cobalt multicolored stone by way of the marble. The exploitation outdoors of these materials, extracted from various sites of quarries, had given birth to movements of thought of the contemporary sculpture in Zimbabwe : The school of Tengenenge (region of Guruve in 150 km in the North of Harare) where from went out Fanizani Akuda, Brighton Sango (1958-1995) and especially the self-taught Henry Munyaradzi (1931-1998) ; the group of Inyanga (mountainous region situated on the border of Mozambique, place of birth of the clan of Takawira (Bernard and Lazarus); the community of schismatic Vutuku of Inyanga ; The mission Cyrène near Bulawayo in Matabeleland ; The mission of Sérima where from stayed in the 1960s the Zimbabwean boss of the sculpture Nicolas Mukomberanwa; where the fly passed, the midge lives, tells the proverb; his son Anderson Mukomberanwa, in spite of the obtaining of the engineering degree, will choose sculptor’s profession.

4. The Princess Colleen Madamombe. A celebrated woman appear among these sculptors, Colleen Madamombe been born in 1964 in Harare. In these works in the round forms, Madamombe honours the beauty of the woman separated from the thinness of the European mannequinât. The first sculpture placed in the top of our text to the left represents a Dancer of Colleen Madamombe. The photo results from the www.fossati-sculptures.com site. The second sculpture from below to the right of Colleen Madamombe represents the Childbirth. The image was pulled by the www.africa-can.org site. To reach such a level of creativity, Colleen Madamombe built up to himself a conception of the world, the life where connections between the man and the woman are no more reports of dominion, but cooperation, each having acquired its economic and spiritual independence. In 1995, Colleen Madamombe declares : »  I don’t have to go to my husband and say »  please give me some money « . I do something for myself « . When the woman is economically dominated by her man, she cannot create. It is a truism. We shall add following the example of the slogan of May, 1968 on the walls of Sorbonne University (Paris) : »  We refuse one world where the guarantee not to starve is exchanged against the risk of dying of servitude « .

A- Catalogue “ Sculpteurs contemporains du Zimbabwe ” publié par la galerie Espace Artsenal, 105 rue Mademoiselle 75015 Paris.
M’Boka Kiese