Now that Fanizani is no more, the most intriguing question we need to ask ourselves is what did we learn from him? Surely, 50 years in any art genre carries with it some experience, wisdom and direction and whenever possible we should benefit from that.
Before we talk about that let’s quickly talk about vultures. Being birds of prey, vultures survive solely by anticipating death, so, in nature they wait for an animal to die before they devour it or they simply chase away other animals from their kill so that they become the masters of the kill.
Without doubt, vultures are very special birds because they take part in the ecosystem but it becomes very saddening and dangerous when humans take up their attributes.
When an artist dies vultures quickly appear on the scene. The death of Fanizani was no exception.
Vultures came along, mostly those with white feathers.
It was only at this moment that ‘the falcon failed to bear the falconer’.
Simply put, the demise of an artist brings two things. For others its deep mourning and recollection yet for others it’s time for business.
And it is the latter that makes others mere vultures.
There’s nothing wrong with having a collection of works by good artists like the late Fanizani but the question we need to ask ourselves is, why wait for the demise of the artist?
Yes, some vultures came but along came true friends. Needless to mention vultures by their names, but true friends always ring a bell. The National Gallery of Zimbabwe, National Arts Council and The Springstone Trust in Ruwa proved to be such.
Fanizani was such a colourful personality that if we are to talk about all of it we might end up talking about how he travelled most parts of Mashonaland and other places as a photographer before committing himself to stone art.
To avoid all of that lets stick to what he did in the last 50 years of his life as a stone artist.
His view of art
“Art should come from the heart” was one of the things we benefited from the 50 years of the 79 which Fanizani lived. Speaking during an interview carried in the book, Tengenenge Art-Sculpture and Paintings by
Celia Winter Irving, Fanizani says, “My art is not from the stone, it is from the heart.”
By that he meant that the purpose of art is to thrill others and to have a connection with the people.
He meant that art should not be governed by money or fame but it should be motivated by love.
He would say if someone looks at your work and says this is nice then you would have served the purpose of art.
This strongly reminds us of Nicholas Mukomberanwa who declared that his life sorely depended on working with the stone.
Many an artist went through metamorphosis to become creatures we have never seen and this is mainly so because their art did not stem from the heart.
During another interview with Artlife, a journal published by the National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Fanizani jokingly spoke about how Enos Gunja once left stone sculpturing for an office job.
Not suggesting anything to the fact that Enos’ art did not come from the heart but he was trying to bring out a point here, that you really cannot trade some things in life once you have found a true essence and connection with them.
In a way, Enos realised this and came back to his trade and today he still stands strong with his art.
Charity Work
Fanizani participated in many charitable organisations, events and exhibitions. In the 90s he was very much involved with the Child Survival and Development Foundation, the organisation which was the brain child of the late Amai Sally Mugabe. Together with artists like Tapfuma Gutsa, the late Nicholas Mukomberanwa, Bernard Matemera and Henry Munyaradzi they contributed immensely as participating artists. It was during this period in the 90s that his piece the – Mother and Child – became very prominent and became a must have for most collectors.
In 1993, he worked closely with CamFed (Cambridge Female Education Trust) and the noble idea was just to support girls’ education in Zimbabwe.
He was involved with the John Rogers Centre, an Institution that deals with the study of African American Culture.
Nurturing young talent
Fanizani helped a lot of young artists with ideas but he was very particular about originality and hard work.
At times he saw it fit to even give tools and raw stones to young artists whom he thought had potential. Some of the artists he nurtured, are today, standing tall and some are well travelled while others have even gone on to win the Kristen Diehl Sculpture Prize as in the case of Perlagia Mutyavaviri.
He was also invited to be a judge in different competitions around the country where different young artists participated.
Awards
Fanizani was a holder of many awards and accolades from ordinary certificates to diplomas of art from different institutions. In 1988, The National Art Gallery of Zimbabwe awarded him a certificate of Excellence in
Visual Arts.
He was awarded the Highest Honour given to visitors or artists by the then Mayor of Paris and was presented with a rare book that features France’s prominent artists and painters in 2000.
The whole world has only 750 of these books and his was number 374. In 1994 he was recognised by CITES for his depiction of nature in his art especially the ‘flying elephants.’
During that period Zimbabwe was at cross roads with the international community which wanted us to get rid of some of its elephants. The argument was that they had become unbearable for the environment and over-populated.
Zimbabwe won the right to keep its elephants.
In 2005 The Humana People to People a worldwide organisation also awarded him with a diploma for his contributions to the arts industry. Other awards came from the National Arts Council and many other different organisations.
From as early as 1967 he managed to drizzle through the market creating works that were sought by doctors, professors, scientists, banks, universities, embassies and many organisations. Prominent people around the globe became personal collectors of Fanizani’s art amongst them was Jorn Utzon, the architecture who designed Sydney Opera House.
The second question we now need to ask ourselves is, do we really have to wait for an artist to die for us to consider and discuss what we benefited from him/her?
Aren’t we making ourselves the proverbial vultures?
I tell you with confidence that we have many things that we benefited from great artists who died years ago and we don’t take time to appreciate them.
What did we learn from Nicholas Mukomberanwa, who perhaps, was the most versatile of all the first generation artists? What did we learn from Henry Munyaradzi who at one time, Michael Shepherd described as the equivalence of Brancusi? Or rather, we find it easy to embrace Henry Moore and leave our own. Do we have anything to benefit from Bernard Matemera? I strongly feel the best way to avoid being vultures at our own making is by benefiting from those who are still living. Not those who abuse their talent by excessive drinking, not those who are ever experiencing metamorphosis nor those who have been sculpting birds that are looking up for more than 10 years but, from those who have mastered the art of art, from those who have taken art to heart. Without doubt art should indeed come from the heart. Lest we forget, not all sculptors are artists and not all artists have talent.
Timothy Akuda is a freelance journalist and a stone artist.