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Dialogues of Zimbabwean Stone Sculpture

Lance Larkin, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
llarkin2@uiuc.edu

If the African diaspora is a movement of people and a melding of cultural traditions, diasporas are encouraged to move by stories of those who have been there. Often merchants or tourists with disposable income provide such stories of other places.
The international market in Zimbabwean stone sculpture provides a steady flow of goods that tell multiple stories within their forms. The Western tourists who buy sculpture in Zimbabwe tell stories of their homes while in Africa and they also take stories of Africa back home. For their part, Zimbabwean artists travel overseas to workshops and gallery openings, bringing back stories of distant places.
As this suggests, the flow of information in this global art scene is not one-way. The artwork is a referent for what the artists say about their country. When asked about their work, the artists often provide detailed information about their cultural traditions, indicating knowledge of, and a need to dispel, overseas notions of “darkest Africa.” Yet the sculpture is transformed and takes on different meanings as it moves through the international market. Using Arjun Appadurai's 'social life of things' model as a framework provides a rich perspective allowing us to examine the stories told by various actors (artists, tourists, gallery owners, etc.). This, in turn, highlights the tension between a market-imposed polarity of “tourist” and “fine” art. Despite contradiction within the discourse, Zimbabwean sculptors use the international art market as a means to engage questions of the Other.

 

Abstract

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Africa Conference 2006: Movements, Migrations and Displacements in Africa
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