Tayali and Kulya both were hard
working, dedicated artists, and indeed, art is the plane that links these two
very different human beings. So let’s have a look at their art.
Tayali, over time, developed styles
ranging from realistic, to free figurative rendering to non-representational. His
first work, when he started art as a talented schoolboy in the sixties, was
figurative and fairly realistic; with an expressionistic touch. His best known
work of that period is the large painting Destiny,
now in the collection of the Lechwe Trust.
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Photo 3. Bull. Scrap metal sculpture by Tayali.
Reproduced from Art in Zambia.
|
In his mature life this “figurative
realism,” or “realistic figuration,” was limited to his sculptural work.
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Photo 4. The other side of the Bar. Woodcut by Tayali, 1982.
A typical example of Tayali’s style in woodcut. The main figures stand out clearly against the background. The background is composed of supporting dynamic patterns and structures. |
Out of this youthful realistic
rendering of scenes either real or imaginary a much freer style evolved characteristic
of most of his graphic art. Tayali presumably developed it during his studies
in Düsseldorf as this is the style in which most of his post academic graphic work
is executed. This work takes off from realistic topics or scenes (i.e., a woman
carrying firewood, women gossiping, queuing for food, men drinking in bars
&c.) which are executed in his characteristic dynamic style in which the
purpose is not to render the subject realistically but to create an expression
of it in which the act of imagery construction at least is as important as the
reference to an actual reality. These prints, woodcuts, have clearly outlined
main characters that stand out against a background which is made up of free
patterns and structures as cut by the gouges and which ideally support the central
subject.
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Photo 5. Huts. Henry Tayali, 1974. Probably a silk screen print.
A good example of his evolution towards abstraction. |
His painting evolved to a form of
abstract art or near abstract art, often by super imposing layers of
brushstrokes rather than working in planes, sometimes taking off from very basic
imagery as shown in photo 5. In this painted silk screen print we can discover
“real elements,” such as faces, a tree trunk and hut like structures. The relation
between pictorial imagery and “the real thing” is not one of visual and visible
similarity. What matters in this kind of work is the way of rendition: how layers
of different, superimposed structures combine to create an image the “meaning” of
which is contained in itself and not by the reference to a specific concrete
event or situation. “Meaning” here is mostly “emotional expression.” In a way
one might conceive of his paintings as an abstraction of his graphic style in
which the structures and patterns made by gouges now are transformed into brush
strokes. Tayali felt his abstract paintings to be highly emotionally charged –
a perception not necessarily shared by an observer of these works.
The emergence and development of
these styles is related to the environments in which Tayali lived in his
formative years. Tayali, at secondary school in colonial Southern Rhodesia, painted
the kind of pictures which could be appreciated by his teachers and supporters:
it showed talent in a way that they could understand. Tayali, at university and
the art academy in the seventies, was exposed to Western art traditions and was
influenced by modern and contemporary Western art. His graphic style of figurative
expressionism painlessly fits in the pre World War II Western graphic
tradition. He applied this style to African/Zambian subject matter (daily life
scenes of so-called ordinary people) and in this sense his graphic art combined
African and Western elements. The dominant post W.W. II art fashion was
abstract art, in particularly a variety labelled abstract expressionism. This strand
aimed at “expression” without reference to a visually recognisable reality and
at best had only rudimentary figuration in it. The expression had to arise from
the “imagery” itself; an imagery that was its own subject matter. Tayali picked
this up while studying and moulded it his own way. This kind of abstract art,
in the seventies, in the Western world was passé, a thing of the past still
practiced of course by recognized masters and pioneers, but not by the next
generation of artistic innovators. It was, however, new to Zambia.
Fackson
Kulya’s artistic development does not show such diversity and variety. He
evolved right from the beginning a singular figurative style which drew its
inspiration and subject matter out of daily life, folklore and his own fantasy.
The extremes within this style hovered between realistic representation of
realistic scenes (such as shown below in the lino cut In school) and imagery of fantastic scenes often inspired by
folklore or his own at times bizarre imagination; the latter being dominant.
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Photo 6. In school. Kulya. 1980, lino cut. |
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Photo 7. The Drunkard. 1980, gouache.
|
In school shows Fackson’s variety of realism,
The Drunkard his bizarre humour. Note
how the body of the drinker and the pot from which he drinks his traditional
beer have amalgamated into one structure, situated in an almost surrealistic
setting.
When
I met Fakson in 1975 he was busy experimenting with bronze casting but he soon
gave that up – the failure rate was too high and these small bronzes were
expensive to make. He did continue to sculpt in wood. Wood sculpting was,
however, a technique where his lack of formal and informal education in that
medium showed: many of his sculptures have technical flaws such as poor varnish
or poor finish in general. Generally I like his graphic art, drawings and
paintings better. These media proved a better vessel for his fantastic imagery,
the stories he told in pictures. All of this work appears to be not-premeditated; the imagery was drawn or cut spontaneously, in the spur of the
moment; it hence never appears to be contrived, and indeed at times naif in its
oblivion of aesthetic rules and regulation of the formal world of Academic Art.
All of this work genuinely is folk art; art made by a folk artist and presenting
folk life, lore, subjects, fantasies and themes.
Fackson,
lacking the exposure that Henry had, could not but draw his inspiration from
what he experienced in his own life and from what he created by his own
fantasy. Fackson’s art is local and folksy; Henry’s work is academic and
international.
In
Henry’s work, however, there is a strong reference to “the life of the people,”
and in particular to its hardships and misery. Certainly this was, in the
Kaunda days with its socialist/humanist policies, the politically correct thing
to do. Tayali made images about people whose life was familiar to him but which
he no longer shared; an almost inevitable result of successfully climbing the
social ladder and thereby distancing himself socially and physically of the
common folk.
Fackson
was a man of the people, Tayali was not. Henry was, or had become, an observing
outsider. This difference is reflected in the manner both artists present
people. Fackson did not portray the so-called common folk as poor, down trodden,
ugly or miserable. He portrayed them as human beings in a fantastic, humorous,
bizarre and imaginative world. Look at the reproductions below below.
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| Photo 8. Rushing out of the bush....... Lino cut, 1988 |
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| Photo 9. Sitting a bad branch. Lino cut, 1988 |
Photo’s
8 and 9 illustrate Fackson’s at times bizarre imagination. Both linocuts are
made around 1988, about a year after Tayali’s death. The title of the lino cut on
Photo 8 is “Rushing out of the bush with
the nose in the hand but that big I saw it.” The print of photo 9 is titled
“Sitting on a bad branch.” The prints,
from the point of view of conventional “academic” composition, are uninteresting,
and the print of photo 8 at art school would be a failure in that regard. The deliberate
arrangement of visual elements into an interesting, intriguing, balanced
structure is absent; instead we see what could be called a spontaneous visual
narrative. What redeems the prints is originality, humour and locality. They
are Zambian prints by a Zambian
artist; original because the imagery could only have arisen in Fackson’s mind
and one (no 8) is funny, even incorporating a pun on the I – eye. The imagery
does not picture the human being in its degrading or pitiful aspect. The men in
the pictures are men in a story in fantasy land; an intriguing place where
anything is possible - unlike in practical reality where only money buys you
food, education, health care and generally a comfortable life. Money does not,
however, according to a famous band “buy you love.” Neither, I would say, does
it buy you artistic fantasy, imagination or talent. Fackson, poor as he was,
had these rich artistic gifts.
As
a note to the above I would say that often the aspect of “composition” is low
keyed in Fackson’s work. Fackson’s two dimensional work is visually structured
by its unfolding narrative, not by superimposed compositional regulation or
aesthetics. “Composition” also is not an aspect of outstanding interest in
Tayali’s graphic work, but his prints do not confront you with the lack of it.
Fackson’s
deficient formal education and exposure in Fine
Art indeed had fortuitous side effects. It preserved his originality and
prevented him from adopting styles not his own. There is, indeed, a great
divide between Fackson’s bizarre, humorous, fantastic, figurative imagery and Henry’s
emotionally charged brush strokes which are mostly so charged for only Tayali
himself. One trouble with abstract art is that you have to be very, very good
to make interesting, lasting work; or you must be truly original thus making
your work last by its originality; and of course the best is to have both
qualities. Tayali was not a pioneer of abstract expressionism. He joined an
ongoing and established style/movement – at its post avant garde stage. His role in it is local or localised, not
global. His abstract fathers, artists such as Willem de Koning and Jackson Pollock
in the USA or Karel Appel and the Cobra movement in Western Europe, had done
the pioneering work of a movement whose very foundations left very little space
for future innovative development in the
same style. Post World War II “abstract art” in the “expressionistic vein simply
was the realisation of one of the theoretically possible extremes in Art; and
once it was done, that was it.
Fackson’s
lack of exposure, his very provincialism, kept him out of this global artistic
extravaganza. A picture, to him, was not an element of an artistic discourse or
an exploration of logical possibilities in art production. A picture, to him
has a story to tell, often actually was
a visual story; and in that sense is the opposite of abstract art which by its
very exclusion of figurative association had no story to tell other than the
sensation of its perception; and such sensation
fundamentally is non-verbal.
In
the eighties, if you had asked anyone in the inner Lusaka art circle: “Who is
the better artist, Tayali or Kulya?” chances would have been that even amongst
the artistic in-crowd some would have asked “Kulya – who is that?” For most the
answer would have been, without hesitation: “Tayali of course.” And they would
have considered the question ridiculous and out of place.
What
I have tried to tell you in this text is that it is not that simple; and if it
is not that simple the question might be wrong. Perhaps the question should be
something like: “What are the outstanding, lasting qualities of the art work of
these two artists?” (That is how it is done in science: if the question is too
general for a sensible answer, split it up in manageable components). At that
level of detail, I hope to have shown, Fackson had qualities that mattered which
Tayali did not have; and surely, the reverse is also true. So true that we can
leave Fackson entirely out of the picture? That, in my judgement, is carrying
things too far. Fackson’s work has something Tayali did not have: It had
locality, it was Zambian; not just because it was made in Zambia by a Zambian
artist, but because it connects to traditional culture and oral traditions in
particular; his imagery is made the way stories, riddles or songs are made. In
so doing he presented the so-called common (wo)man as a person of interest,
even of marvel and not, as so often in Tayali, as a being which at best
deserves sympathy by its misery; living in squalor, struggling for survival. Two
complementary artists indeed, and of each you can say that “the same thing that
makes you rich makes you poor.” Kulya as his station in life enabled him to
make genuine imagery about folk life and culture but excluded him from
obtaining the social skills and education necessary to function in the higher
strata of society – and make a lasting name for himself by himself. Tayali,
whose very international training and exposure lead him to make art that was
international and provided him with the means to socially be a leading figure,
a member of the uppa mwamba and an
achiever, by these very same privileges lost touch with the life of the common
folk who in his work mostly are depicted as inferior beings.
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| Photo 10. Untitled. Woodcut, 1979. |
The print depicts gossiping women: compassion with the
wretched of the earth or projected prejudice of black inferiority? Or none of
that – just a picture, iconic indeed, of the malice of gossip?
You may ask whether his choice of daily
life scenes as subjects is motivated by compassion for the cause of the “wretched
of the earth,” or that his true commitment simply is in the art of imagery
construction. I believe the latter to be true, but not to the exclusion of a
social commitment.
Here
then we find the plane where both artists are equal: each one lived to make art
as art; not as ideology, not as realistic representation of real scenes or
unrealistic representation of real scenes, but principally because of the value
of the artistic imagery as it is by itself.
About the author:
The author is a cultural anthropologist and artist who has worked in Zambia
during 1975 – 1980 and as of 1988 till the present. He has published on The Net about Art in Zambia and art material technology.
Bibliography and
references
Barde, Bob (1980). "Henry Tayali: Zambian
Printmaker". African Arts (UCLA James S. Coleman African Studies
Center) Vol 13 (3):
p. 82.
Ellison, Gabriel
(supported by the Book Committee of the Visual Arts Council of Zambia) (2004). Art in Zambia. Lusaka: Book World
Publishers.
Leyten, Harrie and Paul
Faber (1980). moderne kunst in Afrika.
Amsterdam, Tropen Museum
Witkamp, Gijsbert (2015). The Lusaka Artists Group.
Zaucha, Grazyna (1996). Zambia: identities in
print. Gallery, no 8, pp.11-13.
29
March 2013
