EXHIBITION
diary
TOP LEFT AND TOP RIGHT: COURTESY PEER, LONDON. PHOTO: STEPHEN WHITE & CO. BOTTOM: COURTESY THE ARTIST
Samson Kambalu MODERN ART OXFORD Pembroke St, Oxford In an early-career epiphany, Malawian artist Samson Kambalu had the idea to cut pages from his Bible and plaster them on to a football. The outcome was a gleaming sculpture that immediately eclipsed the figurative paintings that had so far defined his work. Taking his Holy Ball (2000) to local market vendors and college kids, a kickabout became an invitation to ‘exercise and exorcise’. The work was later reconfigured for the 2015 Venice Biennale and is acknowledged by its creator as having ‘brought me much closer to my audience than painting ever did’. In the following two decades, Kambalu has developed this socially led practice, where an aesthetic of witty exchange prevails. Working with a variety of media, including installation, video and performance, the artist, now a professor at the Ruskin School of Art, has also used writing to establish a context for his art (he describes his 2008 memoir, The Jive Talker, as ‘a way for me to find my place’). Autobiography, in particular childhood, remains a critical resource, and the artist’s Oxford exhibition, his largest to date, further explores the symbiosis between art and life. The films on view form part of the artist’s ongoing ‘Nyau Cinema’ series, for which he is best known. In these seconds-long, silent clips, Kambalu takes on the role of an everyman who performs simple looped actions, such as walking backwards or reaching for a hat that hovers above his head, to disrupt the narrative or landscape. Surreal and irreverent, these black-and-white productions draw on the Nyau traditions of the Chewa tribe, to which the artist’s family belongs. Nyau rituals include lively masquerades in
which playful performance leads to personal transformation. Just as masks are used to detach people from their habitual identity, Kambalu’s improvised scenes function as an escape from the conventions of daily life. Here, to play is to become free. A more explicit connection to mask ceremonies is made via two monumental sculptures that replicate an elephant costume Kambalu remembers encountering as a child – only this time, the costume is composed from traditional gowns worn at the University of Oxford, a recognition of the rituals that now permeate the artist’s life as a don. It’s also a nod to his hero, John Ruskin, who likened education to poetic liberation. Kambalu also shows us that performance can be used as a form of resistance, taking inspiration from the dandified appearance in photographs of John Chilembwe (1871-1915), a Malawian pastor and radical pan-Africanist who fought against colonial rule. The artist’s flag works, meanwhile, approach nationalism through the syncretic cultures that emerged in Africa as Western influences fused with native traditions. In these colourful textile pieces, flags from around the world are deconstructed to form new emblems. In essence, they celebrate the black diaspora. In drawing connections between seemingly disparate cultures and customs, Kambalu stresses the search for collective humanity that is at the heart of his project. SAMSON KAMBALU: NEW LIBERIA runs 22 May-5 Sept (restrictions permitting) $ ALLIE BISWAS is co-editor of ‘The Soul of a Nation Reader: Writings by and about Black American Artists, 1960-1980’, published by Gregory R. Miller & Co on 28 June
Top left and top right: ‘Postcards from the Last Century’, 2020, installation views at Peer, London. Above: Elephant Quilt I (details), 2021
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