Important South Africa and International Art

Live Auction, 23 May 2016

Evening Sale

Sold for

ZAR 136 416
Lot 340
  • Kudzanai Chiurai; Go Back Home


Lot Estimate
ZAR 90 000 - 120 000
Selling Price
Incl. Buyer's Premium & VAT
ZAR 136 416

About this Item

Zimbabwean 1981-
Go Back Home

signed and dated 2006

mixed media and collage on board
110,5 by 200,5cm excluding frame

Notes

The rough compositional style of Kudzanai Chiurai’s early paintings, which melded new trends in contemporary street art (such as collage and stencil) with the influence of expressive mark makers like Jean-Michel Basquiat, generated widespread interest. Chiurai was the subject of a 2005 profile in the Sunday Times, in which he spoke of the complexities involved in openly criticising Zimbabwe’s veteran president, Robert Mugabe: “I might sound brave, but I am very disturbed … my mother still lives in Zimbabwe … I still want to go back … The country is in my bloodstream.”1 This mixed-media work was produced a year after his breakout exhibition Y Propaganda at Obert Contemporary and appeared on curator Storm Janse van Rensburg’s 2006 travelling group exhibition, New Painting. This work’s muted colour tones register Chiurai’s sombre mood at the time, while its scratchy text component highlights a complication faced by many Zimbabwean exiles: xenophobia. Two years after making this work South Africa experienced widespread anti-immigrant violence, which Chiurai witnessed first-hand from his Johannesburg studio.

1 Madondo, Bongani (2005). ‘Pop goes the easel’, The Sunday Times, 1 May 2005.

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