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Masimba Hwati

Antennas and Memes X

Artist

Masimba Hwati
Born in Harare, Zimbabwe, in 1982

Title

Antennas and Memes X

Date

2016

Materials

Assemblage of found objects

Dimensions

248 x 46 x 22 cm

Credits

Purchase, Horsley and Annie Townsend Bequest, inv. 2018.125

Collection

International Contemporary Art

Hwati is a multidisciplinary artist whose work engages with the legacy of colonialism in contemporary Africa. To make the spears in his Antennas and Memes series, Hwati collected objects – superhero figurines made in China, musical instruments, sports equipment and bone fragments – with multi-layered associative meanings in the realms of history, culture and politics. He juxtaposed those items with a culturally significant African object, the spear, as a way of exploring the exchanges among African, Western and Asian cultures. Understood as a symbol of both attack and defence, in Hwati’s practice the spear decries the dilution of traditional African cultures and questions the infiltration of Western and Asian cultures in Africa today.

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