Zimbabwe Art Exhibit Is Shut Down for (Literally) Providing a Window into the Past. Your Reaction is?

The New York Times had an article in today's paper describing how Robert Mugabe's government censored a public display intended to literally provide a window into a disturbing episode in Zimbabwe's history and arrested the artist - Owen Maseko.

Voti Thebe, who heads the National Gallery, said the artist, Owen Maseko, created the Gukurahundi exhibit to contribute to reconciliation. There was no money, so Mr. Maseko, 35, did it on his own time. He was just a boy at the time of the Gukurahundi, but he recalls the sounds of hovering helicopters and sirens.

“The memories are still there,” he said. “The victims are still alive. It’s not something we can just forget.”

In a large painting, a row of faces are shown with mouths open in wordless screams. In another, women and children weep what seem to be tears of blood. Three papier-mâché corpses, one hanging upside down, fill a picture window. Throughout the galleries are recurrent, menacing images of a man in oversize glasses — Mr. Mugabe.

The day after the exhibit opened last year, it was closed down. Mr. Maseko was detained, then transferred to prison in leg irons before being released on bail. Mr. Maseko’s case awaits the Supreme Court's attention. He is charged with insulting the president and communicating falsehoods prejudicial to the state, a charge punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

Can anyone share more details? What's your reaction to this?

Tags: Gukurahundi, Owen Maseko, Zimbabwe

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Permalink Reply by Ngwatilo Mawiyoo on January 25, 2011 at 12:12am

hey John, i actually don't have much to weigh in on this. In Kenya we feel like we can pretty much say what we like these days. And yet one of our prominent activists, Okoiti Omtata just got jailed on Friday and a rally permit revoked for no reason. He was later released on bail. The rally itself didn't seem to be the type to raise too many eyebrows really. I was out in Zim doing poetry last year which is a whole other story. I would say there is a sense that you think you "might get away with things" but I suppose the idea that you are "getting away" means if you are "caught," things will go bad. I could go round and round in circles over the issue of Zimbabwe, I don't understand it and it doesn't matter who you talk to, you're likely to get a million different stories about what exactly the state of freedom is down there.

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Permalink Reply by Brooke McGowen on February 3, 2011 at 1:00pm

Many people don't know that Zimbabwe was once the home of an incredible group of sculptors mixing African traditional sculpture with newer forms of sculptural representation influenced by Henry Moore, Picasso and others.

This groundbreaking work which spanned several generations was destroyed by Mugabe who moved to kill the sculptors and uproot their community. This tragic demise of one the most interesting developments in sculpture on the planet should not go unnoticed and unavenged.

What can we do to help Mr. Maseko and other artists in this repressive and deadly system?

We must take action!