Beauty of Our Ancestors: Enthralling Art by South Africa’s Zizipho Poswa
Almost a year in the making, uBuhle boKhokho (which means Beauty of Our Ancestors ) marks the beginning of yet another ambitious chapter for the extra-talented South African artist Zizipho Poswa. And we are in awe.
The series of ceramic and bronze sculptures draws inspiration from the elaborate art of hairstyling practiced by Black women across the African continent and diaspora.
Presented by Southern Guild uBuhle boKhokho recently concluded as solo exhibition which ran for 3 months until 2 February 2023.
Zizipo continues the exploration of her own cultural story as a Xhosa woman through the making of her sculptural works. Hair, with its profound symbolic relationship to Blackness, remains a relevant source of inspiration and dialogue within contemporary cultural discourse.
She created and wore 12 hairstyles over a period of five months, documenting each embodiment photographically as part of her process. Through this charged metaphoric lens, hair becomes a personal script for language, for the carrying of meaning and the celebration of self as an act of defiance.
Measuring up to two meters high, the sculptures are confrontational in their monumentality while retaining an imposing sensuality.
Their hand-coiled ceramic bases reflect Zizipho’s shift in focus from pattern and colour to shape and texture, culminating in elaborate adornments made from either bronze or clay.
The series of 20 sculptures employs a visual vocabulary that straddles figuration and abstraction, reflecting the three-dimensionality of woven, braided, and threaded hair.
The manipulation of Black hair
Many of the historic and contemporary hairstyles that Zizipho references include architectural constructions where the hair (or artificial extensions in many cases) is wrapped over armatures. These include the complex crested arrangement worn by Fulani women from West Africa and the fan-shaped headpiece of the Zande from Congo.
Having specialised in textile design at university, Zizipho was drawn to the process of constructing each hairstyle and the meditative aspect of crafting their patterns. The manipulation of Black hair is a long-recognised traditional art form that has only recently entered the mainstream lexicon of cultural iconography.
The works in uBuhle boKhokho are palimpsests in their visual power, echoing a lineage of artistry that includes traditional hairstyles documented in archival materials, the iconic images of Nigerian photographer J.D. ’Okhai Ojeikere and the contemporary creations of Chicago-based artist Shani Crowe. Like the work of Ojeikere and Crowe, in Poswa’s ceramics, the ephemerality of these cultural symbols finds a new transcendental sense of permanence.
This exhibition expands on Zizipho’s earlier Magodi series, titled after the Shona word for traditional African hairstyles, in one sustained and more in-depth body of work. Curated throughout the entire gallery space, the exhibition invites the viewer to walk through an assembly of selves with each work reflecting a different hairstyle worn during the project’s embodied research.
Some of the exhibition’s sculptures have been titled after specific hairstylists whom the artist knows, and their country of origin. Others refer to historical female figures, the regional names given to specific hairstyles, or groups known to wear the depicted coiffure and their geographical origins. In so doing, Zizipho interweaves the personal and historic; situating herself in a vast and ever-expanding network of Black women who continue to self-define and affirm their own standards of beauty.
Who is Zizipho Poswa
Born in 1979 in the town of Mthatha in the Eastern Cape, Zizipho studied surface design at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology. In 2005, she and fellow ceramicist Andile Dyalvane co-founded Imiso Ceramics, whose handmade vessels and tableware have earned the studio an international following.
Zizipho turned her attention to fine art ceramics in 2017, participating in various group shows at Southern Guild and exhibiting with the gallery at fairs such as Design Miami, The Salon Art + Design in New York and PAD London. Her work has ascended rapidly in scale, technique and recognition, and can be found in important private and corporate collections both locally and internationally, including the Metropolitan Museum in New York, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Loewe Foundation.
Her debut solo exhibition, iLobola, was presented by Southern Guild in 2021. She has taken part in group exhibitions in Paris, Hamburg, Liverpool, New York, Los Angeles and Perth, including the 2021 Indian Ocean Craft Triennial and Self-Addressed, curated by Kehinde Wiley at Jeffrey Deitch Gallery.
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