When home is everywhere and nowhere at all with Misheck Masamvu
Encompassing painting, drawing, writing and sculpture, Mishek Masamvu’s practice attempts to articulate and examine the domestic and social impact of political post-independence. Although informed by his relationship with what he refers to as Zimbabwe’s “stagnant state of trying to resolve its humanitarian crises”, being at home in abstraction and figuration, Masamvu’s mutating (or adapting) scenes are expansive enough to apply to the socio-political plights of others. Titled Safety Pin, Masamvu’s latest solo exhibition at Goodman examines the precarious act of withholding vulnerability. Using intergenerational relationships as primary reference, the artist confesses the effects he has seen this have. Featured in this week’s Of Interest, Masamvu puts the exhibition into the context of his practice this far.
“The more time I spend here, the higher the chance that I may quit art and become exactly what I always wanted to be: a priest” says Mishek Masamvu, half joking while taking in the deconsecrated church surroundings that are now home to Goodman Gallery in Cape Town. Here to prepare for a performance of the poem accompanying his current solo exhibition, Safety Pin, he uses the interview to catch his breath after a morning of errands.
In Cape Town for the week, Masamvu says he will head home to Zimbabwe for a few days before spending some time in Johannesburg. Or maybe it was first Johannesburg and then Zimbabwe. He shrugs, settled in his transient nature. Nomadic, Masamvu’s practice documents the ways the artist moves with certainty between styles, themes, mediums and locations.
