Tengenenge. (film/video).

TENGENENGE Produced by Carola and Torben Rasmussen

Mango Productions, Aabenraa, Denmark, 1998. Color video, 24 min. $25.

This is the first video on Zimbabwean stone sculpture to focus exclusively on the multiethnic community of sculptors at Tengenenge village in northeastern Zimbabwe, about 150 kilometers north of Harare. Carola and Torben Rasmussen, with financial support from the Danish Development Agency (DANIDA), present an excellent if brief introduction to the history of this fascinating "art colony." Those interested in contemporary African art will find this production particularly revealing in the way it alerts them to the significant yet underrecognized place Tengenenge holds in the history of what is generically known as Shona sculpture.

In much of the literature on contemporary African art, Zimbabwean stone sculpture has been described as a uniquely Shona tradition. This view was largely established in African Arts in its earliest issues through the influential articles on the subject by Frank McEwen, the first director of the Rhodes National Gallery (now the National Gallery of Zimbabwe); by Claire Polakoff's laudatory review of the exhibition at the Musee Rodin in 1969-70; and by John Povey's supportive commentaries in his "First Word" essays, wherein he often compared Shona sculpture to Inuit sculpture. In many of these contexts the diversity of the artists' religious, ethnic, educational, and professional backgrounds, as well as their commercial motives, was dramatically downplayed and homogenized, and the assumed mythical content of the works emphasized. Tengenenge serves as a counterhistory to the inventive and reductive framing of Shona sculpture as a modern "tribal" art revival.

From both an anthropological and art historical perspective, perhaps the two most important features of this video are, first, the way it brings the Cewa Nyau masquerades into dynamic though necessarily tentative relation with the stone sculpture; and, second, the examples it provides of works from the 1960s which show little-known iconographic and stylistic treatments--works of stark originality which stand out in dramatic contrast to the largely predictable modernist-looking examples with which many readers of African Arts will be familiar. Such materials point to all manner of diversities in the larger tradition: to little-explored relations between stone sculpture and various local and translocal traditions, to the problem of overdetermining symbolic meanings in the artists' works, and to the inevitably contentious debate over aesthetic integrity and repetition in Zimbabwean stone sculpture.

Perhaps of more interest to art historians than anthropologists is the critical issue of "quality" and the art/craft or high-art/souvenir boundary. As always it will be sure to raise spirited debate about how to separate the "good" from the "bad," or as Frank McEwen, John Povey, and the British art critic Michael Shepherd have put it, how those with "impeccable taste" can distinguish the "art" from the "rubbish" and rescue the larger tradition from the dreaded specter of "airport art" (a term invented by McEwen alongside the very term Shona sculpture) and "fake" Shona sculpture. Tengenenge forthrightly brings some of the more problematic and controversial aspects of the history of Zimbabwean stone sculpture into the larger world of African art history. Moreover, it effectively allows some of the artists and major actors, including Tom Blomefield, the founder of Tengenenge, as well as dealers and tourists, to speak for themselves about the abovementioned issues. (1)

The video brings into the public sphere personal memories of the animosity between Frank McEwen and Tom Blomefield. The struggles within such art worlds are rarely alluded to in scholarly contexts. Opening this Pandora's box, Tengenenge manages nevertheless to bring honor to both these key figures in the history of Zimbabwean stone sculpture, conveying vital information about the conflict while keeping it within the bounds of civility. This productive and respectful tension engages the viewer and highlights issues of European involvement in the genesis of such schools of African art. In this regard, the connection between Tengenenge and McEwen through Joram Mariga (the "Father of Shona sculpture") via his nephew Crispen Chakanyoka is a delight to witness. Such scenes in which artists recount their early interactions with Blomefield are a testament to a remarkable chapter in the history of race relations in Zimbabwe.

Tengenenge succeeds in highlighting the importance of Tom Blomefield as a kind of patron saint for the Tengenenge artists--though the larger significance of Blomefield and his community to the history of Zimbabwean stone sculpture is not as directly addressed and developed as it might have been. In addition to showing artists giving homage to Blomefield as "father, uncle, and mother," the video effectively conveys the context in which art is produced and encountered there. The excellent interwoven footage of the environment and local musical, ritual, and performance arts, of artists at home and at work, and of the range of sculpture on display conveys the visual and emotional experience which makes Tengenenge unique. The beauty of the Zimbabwean landscape--so far from the sterility of the usual gallery settings for these sculptures--leaves the viewer slightly stunned.

Some of the works have a strange and forceful presence in that landscape. For example, few visitors remain unmoved by the sight of moonlight upon Bernard Matemera's sensual bulging forms, by the myriad sculptures arranged in a dense higgledy-piggledy fashion amid the mopani trees, or by the Nyau dancers emerging from the surrounding bush and the scattered fields of sculpture. The video also shows how the unsold (but not necessarily aesthetically weaker) works gradually lose their polished shine and fade gray into the setting, developing an aura associated with time and ruin. Fallen to the ground or left standing as lonely sentinels, these sculptures transform into tomorrow's archaeological relics. These are the aspects of the Tengenenge experience which render it magical, to use that adjective if only for effect. They each add multiple levels of sensory intensity in the cultural and geographic contextualization of the sculpture and will leave viewers with the feeling of having been there. By skillfully interweaving footage of displayed works, Nyau dances, and Shona artists playing mbira music, the video communicates a convincing aura of authenticity--regardless of how critical one may be about the constructivist notion of the term and the mystificatory relationships necessary in framing and staging African arts to generate the requisite fetishized value.

Tengenenge's strongest feature is the honesty with which it faces the controversial issue of the quality of the work made at the site. This point of contention is by no means limited to that community, but it is particularly extreme because of the large number of people who work there. Another important issue, that of form and meaning, is addressed in a remarkably candid and well-balanced way, by filming artists who take different positions. Are the sculptures as saturated with cultural meanings as they are usually presumed to be in the Western market? We learn that there may be no specific meaning to be had except for that which the viewer, dealer, or art writer brings to the forms, either through the force of the stimulated imagination combined with preexisting notions of Africa or--more often than not--whatever can be constructed to provide the "authenticity" that helps sell such work.

This issue of form and content is strikingly illustrated by two competing accounts, the first by Bakari Manzi, a cosmopolitan by nature, of Malawian Yao and Zambian Cewa descent, and the second by the more traditionalist Simon Kavanze, of Angolan descent. Bakari Manzi, ever the charmer in his red BMW, argues that the influence of Western culture is pervasive in Africa. He maintains that if you search for some specifiable African meaning in the sculptures at Tengenenge, you will find there is no meaning at all, or that last night's American sitcom was the source of inspiration--a dilemma not a few visiting anthropology students and art historians have discovered to their initial dismay. Nevertheless, other sculptors expressively convey cultural beliefs through their works. In this video it is Simon Kavanze who is the most eloquent and convincing spokesman for the traditionalist position. True to his genealogy connecting him to earlier Angolan sculptors, his works shown in Tengenenge make him in my opinion the most strikingly creative and formally powerful sculptor in Zimbabwe today.

Tengenenge documents cases, mostly historical (i.e., dating back to the late 1960s), which demonstrate just how original and surely carved the "non-Shona" carvings can be. Perhaps it is the influence of the surreal, ribald, and even bizarre folklore of the Cewa Nyau cults and the artists' familiarity with carving masks and engaging expressive plastic arts in initiation ceremonies that enhances their narrative dimension and their bold execution. As we see in this video, these artists often carve effortlessly through the stone, unrestricted by its original shape, which for other sculptors usually predetermines an earthbound frontality of form. Their sense of freedom from the soul-in-stone approach, sometimes referred to as Platonic and intrinsically Shona, has been particularly evident in their use of other highly unusual techniques such as etching highly stylized zoomorphic and biomorphic images in relief and even carving upright stelae with narrative scenes.

It is precisely these differences and the energy derived from cultural diversity that set the most interesting Tengenenge sculptors so far apart from the mainstream. Nevertheless, even the narrator as advocate admits how consumer demand can flatten creativity. As he notes that "the customer is always king," the camera pans across a range of particularly formulaic and souvenir-like carvings of snakes, fish, and tortoises--works which would have Frank McEwen rolling furiously in his grave. Speaking of aesthetic integrity and originality, I must make special mention of the murals and painted wooden sculptures by the long-underrecognized artist Barankenya Goshta. These have always stood out to me as some of the most original and whimsical work to be found at Tengenenge.

On the issue of aesthetic judgment and the art versus "crap" problem (as it is acerbically put there), the informants, dealers, buyers, and Blomefield himself are at pains to note that although there is a great range of "quality" at hand, this range does not limit the importance and value of the best work to be had. For example, the Dutch dealer Ben Jousten explains how Tengenenge allows him to provide affordable art to an interested European audience, and other visitors argue that the best works from Zimbabwe are as good as anything made by contemporary American sculptors. In this regard the video strikes an effective pose in claiming on the one hand that quality has been understood to have been a critically problematic issue, and on the other that everyone will find something that pleases them--and at their price.

Tengenenge's particular strength is that it does not avoid the messy problems of aesthetics, meaning, authenticity, and history, but deals with them with a disarming charm and conviction as they are differently seen by various participants. For these reasons, as well as for its information on context, ethnic diversity, and history, this video will be an excellent supplement for teaching about the larger history of Shona sculpture. As such it makes an important contribution to the relatively limited material available on contemporary Zimbabwean stone sculpture. (2)

(1.) For specific analysis of these issues, see Zilberg 1985, 1994, 1995, 1996. For illustrations of works from Tengenenge, see Guthrie 1993.

(2.) For the most current overview of Zimbabwean stone sculpture and the standard bibliographic references on the subject, see Kasfir 1999:68-77. For a less recent but still current critical scholarly overview, see jegede 1990. For the most detailed critical accounts of the ethnographic framing of the Shona sculpture phenomenon as a "tribal" art revival, see Cousins 1991, Pearce 1993, Roberts et al. 1982, Zilberg 1994.

Cousins, Jane. 1991. "The Making of Zimbabwean Stone Sculpture," Third Text 1, 3:31-42.

Dewey, William. 1993 "Declarations of Status and Conduits to the Spirits: A Case Study of Shona Headrests," in Sleeping Beauties: The Jerome L. Joss Collection of African Headrests at UCLA, by William Dewey. Los Angeles: UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History.

Guthrie, Roy. 1988. Prominent Sculptors of Zimbabwe: Nicholas Mukomberanwa. Msasa: The Gallery Shona Sculpture.

Guthrie, Roy. 1993. The Forgotten Masters of Tengenenge -- Makina Kameya, Wazi Maikolo, Luigi Purumero and Simon Machile. Exhibition catalogue. Harare: Chapungu Sculpture Park.

jegede, dele. 1990. "African Art Today: A Historical Overview," in Contemporary African Art: Changing Traditions, ed. Grace Stanislaus. New York: The Studio Museum in Harlem.

Kasfir, Sidney. 1999. "Frank McEwen and Zimbabwean Stone Sculpture," in Contemporary African Art by Sidney Kasfir. London: Thames & Hudson.

Pearce, Pat. 1993. "The Myth of Shona Sculpture," Zambezia 20, 2:85-107.

Plangger, Albert. 1974. Serima: Towards an African Expression of Christian Belief. Gwelo: Mambo Press.

Roberts, R., G. Wylie, and A.C. Hodza. 1980. "Contrasting Views of Shona Sculpture," Zambezia 10, 1:49-52.

Zilberg, Jonathan. 1985. "Zimbabwean Stone Sculpture and Nyau Masquerades." Collected Papers of the 31st Annual African Studies Association, Chicago, Oct. 28-31.

Zilberg, Jonathan. 1993. "Shona Sculpture and Dolly Parton: Inscriptions in the Material World." Paper given at the seminar "Inscriptions in the Material World." The Institute for the Advanced Study and Research in the African Humanities, Northwestern University, Evanston, Oct. 13.

Zilberg, Jonathan. 1994. "Inscriptions and Fantasies in the Invention of Shona Sculpture," Passages: A Chronicle in the Humanities 7:13, 16.

Zilberg, Jonathan. 1995. "Shona Sculpture's Struggle for Authenticity and Value," Museum Anthropology 19, 1:3-24.

Zilberg, Jonathan. 1996. "Zimbabwean Stone Sculpture: The Invention of a Shona Tradition." Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Zilberg, Jonathan. 1997. "The Case of Zimbabwean Stone Sculpture: The Western Reception of a Modern African Art Form," in Zimbabwe: Past and Present, vol. 2, ed. Geert Bourgois. Tervuren (Belgium): Royal Museum for Central Africa.

Zilberg, Jonathan. 200la. "Shona Sculpture and Shona Culture: The Water Spirit." Http://cyberworkers.com/Leonardo.

Zilberg, Jonathan. 200lb. "The Radical Within the Museum: Frank McEwen and the Rhodesian Philistines," in Kunst aus Zimbabwe -- Kunst in Zimbabwe, eds. Till Forster, Marina Von Assel. Ein Ausstellungsprojekt. Iwalewa-Haus. Bayreuth: Afrikazentrum der Universitat Bayreuth.

JONATHAN ZILBERG currently teaches a Shona language course through the African Studies Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.