BY DR TONY M. MONDA
Art is an intellectual, cultural, economic and national asset. Unlike gold, which fluctuates and depends on the volatility of the American dollar, art is immune to such variants and tends to rise steadily over the years providing it is documented, preserved, curated and kept in excellent conditions.
Additionally, and more importantly, art is internationally exempted from any and all forms of taxation – i.e state taxes, value added tax (VAT) and shipping taxation and is a hedge against inflation.
According to the UN Declaration of 2 December 2002, of which Zimbabwe is a signatory: “The
production, preservation, transportation and exhibition of art as Intellectual Property should be
mandatory for the nation”. Only then will Art in Zimbabwe be worthy of corporate investment. Surely art in Zimbabwe will then be worthy of corporate investment, with all its attendant socio-economic benefits.
Exhibitions of Zimbabwean art were organised from the late 1960s and held at the most prestigious art galleries in the world, including Musée Rodin, Paris; Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) New York, USA; Musée d’Art Moderne, Paris, and the Commonwealth Institute London, UK, by the National Gallery of Rhodesia’s controversial director, Scotsman Frank McEwen, who was forced to resign in 1973 and was repatriated by the then Rhodesian authorities.
The former British Council representative, art critic and historian, McEwen had defied Colonial Rhodesian authorities by associating and befriending indigenous Africans that became the first “old Master Artists” from 1956 to 1973. These included: Joram Mariga, Thomas Mukarobgwa, Boira and Richard Mteki, Joseph Ndandarika, Sylvester Mubayi, John and Bernard Takawira, Tubayi Dube, Chrispen Chakanyuka, Bernard Matemera, Henry Mudzengerere Munyaradzi, Edward Chiwawa, and Nicholas Mukomberanwa.
At the time of Zimbabwe’s political and economic upheavals (1965 –1979), which included the United Nation’s imposed sanctions on the illegal Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) in 1965 by Rhodesia; it was during those same years that Zimbabwe’s Stone sculptors of yesteryear received international recognition at the world’s highest echelons of Art.
It was during those same years, when exports, particularly tobacco, were affected by UN sanctions that art kept the economy buoyant. To think that in those stringent economic times the artworks of Zimbabwe’s first group of modern artists were ranging from £50 to £3000 sterling, which is a pipedream today.
Those early artworks, which were relatively small in size, were ‘snapped up’ by international philanthropic magnates like Rockefeller, Rothschild, Peggy Guggenheim, the Paul Getty Foundation, the Gianbolognas Collection, the Goethe Foundation and closer to home, the Oppenheimer family. Today those famous works of art from the late 1950s, 1960s and 1970s are still trading hands between Euro-American dealers from anything between US$500 to US$500 000, and are rivalling contemporary Western art in price and position in private art auctions. Such is the market’s resilience of art!
However, like all great art all around the world, over the years Zimbabwe’s art was not immune to the passing whims of time. The movement “…waned due to negative reactions against it…” The art buying public citing “ . . . the lack of intellectual content as its downfall . . . ” – as it did with Impressionist art in Europe. Similarly, the Zimbabwean Art Movement went through a stasis and slump from 2000 for almost 10 years to 2010 due to the Land Reform programme and the negative media publicity the nation received.
Luckily Zimbabwe has abundant talent regenerating through an informal apprenticeship system spread throughout most high and middle-density suburbs and in the rural conurbations of Guruve, Murehwa, Mtoko, Chiweshe, Nyanga, Zvimba and Masvingo. A spate of good fortune, improved education, travel and tourism has since yielded a crop of new educated indigenous artists in Zimbabwe.
On pure artistic merit, many young Zimbabwean artists have been invited to study, exhibit and experience the art and culture of countries as far afield as Canada, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, Japan, Austria, France, Germany, Holland, Bulgaria, Greece, Sweden, Spin, Portugal, Norway, UK and the USA.
With new idiosyncratic subject matter, new profiles and new media from Zimbabwean artists being warmly received in the international art arena, the light has been rekindled. But how does one begin to collect this elusive / indefinable/intangible investment known as Art, which presents itself in many guises and media? For example, paintings, ceramics, stone sculpture, mixed-media sculpture, constructions, installations, video projections, photography and performance art.
The public value of the arts has been a topic of debate since the culture wars of the early 1990s. Today’s prevailing view is that the arts have public value because they promote broad social and economic goals, such as economic growth and better academic performance.
These benefits are called “instrumental” because the arts are seen as an instrument for achieving them.
The intrinsic benefits of the arts experience, such as aesthetic pleasure and engagement, are viewed as having strictly private, personal value. They are primarily qualitative and thus less amenable than the instrumental benefits to the increasingly results-oriented, quantitative approach that characterizes public policy analysis.
HOW TO INVEST?
While South Africa at the last head count had just over 30 internationally accredited evaluators or assayers, with the exception of this writer, there are none in Zimbabwe.
Like gold, art has intrinsic values. Like any commodity, art is brought and sold. Generally, before venturing in any acquisition of visual art, know that investing in art is usually a long-term investment.
Collect art because you enjoy it.
An expert should be able to assure a collector/buyer of the quality of workmanship, artistic integrity and criteria of materials used as well as the durability of the materials overtime.
Within the Arts’ domain there reigns an absolute equality as far as true artistic merit is concerned. Size does not determine price. For example, it is better to purchase a small well-resolved sculpture artwork from a master than a huge distorted serpentine stone hacked by a novice or worse still, a huge mish-mash and farrago of pseudo-abstract painting (of which there are many about).
It is advisable to always buy two or more, works of art, from the same artist at a time, it lends credibility to your collection when reselling your art works.
Dr. Tony Monda holds a PhD. in Art Theory and Philosophy and a DBA in Post- Colonial Art and Heritage Studies.
About Author
