1. 11/20/10 5:47 PMCuratorial work at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe
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Curatorial Work
Permanent Collection
National Gallery of Zimbabwe
1993-1995
Chambers performed extensive curatorial work at the National
Gallery of Zimbabwe. The following exhibitions are just a few of
the many he put together from the Gallery's Permanent
Collection.
In pre-colonial Zimbabwe, technology and the arts were
successfully combined to produce the material requirements of a
culture dating back a millenium. The people of Zimbabwe had
developed technology appropriate for the manufacture of tools,
implements, weapons, vessels, musical instruments and
ornaments of all kinds which demonstrate ingenuity and
originality, a sophisticated understanding of the natural
environment and above all, a quality of life in which cultural
values were fully appreciated. They developed a fine sense of
aesthetic understanding and examples of this (and can still be
found) comprise the Zimbabwean display. This society and
culture has its roots in a history stretching back one thousand
years. They settled on the plateau region of modern day
Zimbabwe. And pastoral and agricultural activities were the
major occupations of these people. The mining and smelting of
iron, copper and gold also featured prominently. Ornaments and
weaponry were wrought from these metals. Intercontinental
trade was one of the most important activities of the Zimbabwe
State. Trade goods imported by the rulers of Zimbabwe included
fine cloth (machira), beads, brass and copper wire, porcelain,
ndoro and other items were introduced and bartered for precious
gold and ivory. Gold brought foreigners to Zimbabwe throughout
the last one thousand years. Arabs, Swahili and Portuguese
traders brought their beads, textiles, ceramics and glassware to
exchange for gold and ivory. During the Portuguese phase -
lasting from 1500 to 1900 - a number of wholly indigenous
industries were revived and took on greater importance for the
communities in which they were practiced. Cotton cultivation and
weaving were introduced. The reliance on locally forged iron
suffered from the competition of imported material. The gradual
decline of the local cloth and iron industry accelerated after the
effective seizure and annexation of Zimbabwe in the 1890s by the
administration of the British South Africa Company which marked
the beginning of the colonial era in Zimbabwe's history. Many
cultural traditions were suppressed through exposure to Western
influences alien to their own culture. Most of these traditions
were revived during the struggle against colonialism (Material
Goods of Zimbabwe).

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ZIMBABWEAN TRADITIONAL ARTIFACTS
These stone sculptures are the early works ... 1950s-1970s ... by
Zimbabwean sculptors as a result of the workshops held at the
National Gallery of Zimbabwe by Frank McEwen (first director).
ZIMBABWEAN CONTEMPORARY STONE SCULPTURE
ABSTRACTIONISM: Unrelated to world appearances. It poses
difficulties of understanding and judgment, and calls into
question the very nature of art. It apparently refers only to
invisible, inner states or simply to itself. Some Abstract Art is
'abstracted' from nature; its starting point is the 'real' world. A
form is selected, then simplified until the image bears only
stylized similarities to the original, or is changed almost entirely
beyond recognition. Other Abstract Art has no apparent
connection to the external world. This new 'non-representational'
mode provided a thorough-going challenge to the depictive
tradition, governed since the Renaissance by the rules of single-

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point perspective, and during the course of this Century, it has
been refined and developed in a startling variety of ways. What
Abstract Art has helped to show is that in fact all art makes
theoretical assumptions and exploits conventions. Although it
may seem more accessible, Representational Art is based on quite
complex suppositions and rules concerning reality and imitation.
Abstract Art also rests on a wide range of assumptions and
conventions ... less familiar, perhaps, but no less valid (Abstract
Art, Anna Moszynska, 1990, Thames and Hudson Ltd., London).
ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM: It amounts to a puzzling quality of
narrative suppressed or made secret. What is seen is sufficiently
occult to indicate a larger life outside the frame, of events and
climaxes either just past or about to happen. Furthermore, an
emphasis on surfaces implies that much remains beneath the
surface, especially since an erstwhile public realm has been
turned into an existential space. The collective unconscious is
made known through mediators or 'archetypes'; primal figures,
symbols and the groupings associated with them that populate
dreams and myths which resemble signs pointing towards things
hidden and complex. Hence, to picture the innermost recesses of
the natural world, it becomes a metaphor of life's origins, of its
phylogeny ... the rediscovery of the authentically primitivist
vision of the totem as a hybrid between an animate presence and
a sign, sometimes geometric or schematic in character, yet still
embodying potent forces. The priority is to find a 'pictorial
equivalent' for man's new knowledge and consciousness of his
more complex innerself (Abstract Expressionism, David Anfram,
1990, Thames and Hudson Ltd., London).
ABSTRACTIONISM - ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM
The paintings span 250 years (mid-16th Century - late 18th
Century) of Art History by the Old Masters from Paolo Caliari
Veronese's Astronomer and Patriarch to Thomas Gainsborough's
Portrait of Francis Browne. The sculptures are by Rodin.

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THE OLD MASTERS