Sculptures from Zimbabwe featured at Powell Gardens this summer

Jun 16, 2008, 11:43

Raghvendra Singh

KINGSVILLE, Mo. -- Powell Gardens has brought 54 monumental stone sculptures from the Chapungu Sculpture Park from Harare, Zimbabwe, as its major exhibition this summer and fall.

The exhibition of the contemporary stone art, also known as “Chapungu” is now on display.

“We are always looking for things that would offer something different, for people to visit us every year,” said Callen Fairchild Zind, Powell Gardens director of marketing and events.

“Chapungu has been exhibited in some major gardens in the United States, and last summer, it was at the Missouri Botanical Garden,” said Zind. “Since we had the opportunity of seeing it in other gardens, we thought it would really work well for the Powell Gardens.”

Zimbabwe sculptor Collen Nyanhongo and his family traveled to Missouri for the exhibition at Powell Gardens. (Photo by Raghvendra Singh)

Zind said the Chapungu exhibition is one of the largest showings of such sculptures in the United States, and is spread across the area in a traveling garden exhibit.

The Chapungu exhibit is the expressive work of 30 artists from Zimbabwe.

Collen Nyanhongo, a sculptor from Zimbabwe, and his family have traveled here for this exhibition. He said he is excited about this intercultural learning process.

“It's really a great opportunity, that we can share with the Americans something about our culture through this form of art,” he said. “Most of the sculptures deeply resemble life and myths from our part of the world.”

The sculptures, some of which tower up to 11 feet in heighth and weigh from 500 to 5,000 pounds, are shaped in the form of animals, families and creatures of legend.

Nyanhongo said the visitors to Powell Gardens have greatly appreciated the sculptures, and that they could travel from Zimbabwe to promote their art in this part of the world.

“I think people throughout the world are connected by art,” he said. “It is an expression, through which we break the barriers of language and culture, and bring people of the world together.”

Nyanhongo said his success with such stone sculptures hasn’t just been due to his own creativity, but also to his belief of life existing in those stones.

Zind said the Chapungu exhibition traces its roots to the early 1950s, in what was then known as Rhodesia under colonial rule.

“The government then was really interested in spreading the art,” she said. “So, they hired a man known as Frank McEwan, who got the natives interested in various art forms, eventually evolving into the sculpture moment.”

Since 1962, sculptures by these native artists have toured internationally, from the Musee Rodin in Paris to the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

“When we went to London in 1981, they received us very well and noted our event as one of the most artistic events of London in recent years,” Roy Guthrie, director of the Chapungu Sculpture Park, said. “In 1990, we started to bring major exhibitions into big gardens. We started in the Yorkshire sculpture park in the United Kingdom, and there the exhibition we put up broke all attendance records.”

Guthrie, who has been involved in this art process since the early days, opened the first gallery of such monumental stones in Harare, Zimbabwe, in 1970.

“It’s quite remarkable the quality of sculpture that is being created,” he said. “These are some of the finest stone sculptures you will find anywhere in the world.”

Guthrie said Powell Gardens people had seen the exhibition last year in St. Louis, and eventually contracted with them to bring the exhibition here.

“Some of the sculptures have traveled around the world from Zimbabwe the last 20 years,” he said.

As part of the festivities planned for the Chapungu celebrations at the Powell Gardens, the Nyanhongo family will be representing the artists from Zimbabwe.

“The Nyanhongo family is probably the most important family of artists in Zimbabwe,” Guthrie said. “The kind of work they have produced makes us think they might have been doing this for centuries; however, that is not the case, since this art erupted only 50 years ago.”

Gedioan Nyanhongo said Americans have everything in their country and so as leaders of the free world, it is important for them to understand cultures of other countries.

“People in Zimbabwe are really attached to their culture and the three basic subjects of life--nature, man and myth,” he said. “And so as Zimbabweans, we are proud as ambassadors to promote this aspect of life through an art form.”

“We may come from a different part of the world, we may have our differences, but what matters at the end of the day is that an art of such kind brings us together,” he said.

“It’s an exhibition of celebration of handmade stone sculptures, and as we understand much of the history of mankind evolves from such sculptures,” Guthrie said. “Here, we have living people carving not only their culture, but also adding a page to our history.”

Guthrie said many of those monuments have taken months of painstaking work by the artists, and a lot of determination.

Other programming at the Gardens include workshops with the sculptors, African music and dance presentations. Selected works from the Chapungu collection also will be displayed at sites in Kansas City, including the Kauffman Memorial Garden, the Kansas City Zoo and the Leedy-Voulkos Art Center.