Design educated Visual Artist, Dana Whabira, making her Zimbabwean debut.
If African art grew up, visited the galleries of London, Paris and Madrid and then came back to Africa, it might just turn out a bit like Whabira’s Kiss Kiss. There’s a sense of worldly maturity and an uncanny ability to dissect society’s underbelly in how this piece of art is presented. The title Kiss Kiss is taken from a collection of short stories by the Welsh writer Roald Dahl.
The installation has 79 mannequins laid out together on a huge bed. At first glance the mannequins look normal, like the pretty type you find seducing you from a shop window. However, on closer inspection the illusion sinks in, the mannequin’s paint is peeling off as if it’s seen better days. My Jungian mind, which likes to psychoanalyse art takes the veneer peeling off as marriage the shadow of infidelity which lies underneath some marriages.
It’s as if the Artist is digging deep into the crevices of the perfect marriage and then raising a magnifying glass to reveal flaws. As a Television buff, when I looked at the mannequins, the thing that instantly came to me was 80’s TV series V (V for Victory). In V, the Aliens look like normal human beings but underneath the perfect porcelain skin is the dry, scaly skin of a lizard.
The “Idea of self” in this instance is regressive to the perfect loving contemporary marriage. Zimbabwe, which over a century ago was a normal polygamous culture, had western marriage ideals of one man for one woman imposed through colonisation. Kiss Kiss looks at marriage in post modern Africa and how men have improvised extra marital relationships into unofficial second marriages.
Kiss Kiss is a masterpiece in social commentary, a piece that looks at society from the inside out. Whabira’s work is a diagnosis of Africa’s schizophrenic (contemporary over tradition) symptoms that are breaking down the sacred fabric of marriage.
The artist brings a sense of humour to this very serious subject of “infidelity”, which has become sort of normal. I asked a few Harare men what they thought of Whabira’s bold statement and they told me: “My grandfather had six wives, why should I have one?” and “ You are not a real man if you haven’t got a Small House”.
I feel that works of art should play a role in making us question our society and Kiss Kiss achieves that.
Post published in: Arts