Valentine Cascarino CRAFT
Whether in Sofia, Sai-gon, Addis Ababa, Khumasi or Durban, French contemporary artist Herv di Rosa is always on the lookout for pavement images, plastic objects or naive paintings in shop windows for inspiration. Since 1992 he has been globetrotting to escape the confines of his Paris-based workshop, which can sometimes lead to a monotony of ideas. Using local craftsmen and techniques in the countries he visits, Di Rosa has produced some impressive works like the Bulgarian Icon in Sofia, skin-painting in Ethiopia and hairdressing in Ghana. His 1998 involvement with the Siyanda Telephone Wire Basket Weavers in Durban has resulted in an unusual blend of his wild world and the technical brillance of the Zulu basket makers entitled DiroZulu, which is currently exhibited at the Standard Bank Gallery in Johannesburg. Di Rosa arrives at each destination with a liberated mind and an uninhibited personality to work with the best local artists. His interaction with the Siyanda project created many new challenges for the weavers.
Departing from their traditional Zulu symmetric and geometric pattern of weaving non-figurative baskets of only 30cm in diameter, Di Rosa+s chemistry of multi- shaped figurative designs, pumped up to about a metre, resulted in adaptations in visual perception and scale. -The manner with which traditional works of art influence, change and transform my work seems magical. My work is usually like the work of another artist, an artist deep inside me … I+m surprised by my own work,+ Di Rosa says. But collaborating with local artists is always a Herculean task. Di Rosa said in Vietnam the Lacquerers had difficulty adapting to his patterns, which are simple but vastly different to what they traditionally do. The same difficulty was experienced by the weavers in Durban. Di Rosa worked on his sketches, fiddled with them and made alterations. Some of the traditional circles weaved on baskets were given diamond shapes. The weavers complained they were used to working with unusual patterns. Zulu basket weavers usually work instinctively, weaving variations of abstract lines and shape, based on aesthetic symmetric themes – completely different from Di Rosa+s multiple-shaped chimeras. Executing the job required various forms of communication, especially gestures. Increasing the sizes from 30cm to more than 90cm was intended to make the baskets pieces of art and not just decorative objects. Some of the baskets are subject to a remarkable change in weight and physical relation: some are so flat they could be called mandalas. -It rapidly came to me that the mock-ups, the overload of details I intend to impose was quite unrealistic with that technique, which is rigid in its possibilities. Certain forms, certain intervals, all radiating towards the centre, were simply impossible to make. I thus made up smaller mock-ups to simplify my drawings and enlarge them on a printer. All I had left was to specify the definitions and to apply a palette of around 15 colours. -Since the end of my trips to and from Durban … I have had a feeling that there has been an increase in the number of figurative elements in the designs of Zulu craftsmen when before their designs were almost exclusively geometric and non- figurative,+ says Di Rosa. Director of the French Institute in South Africa Catherine Blondeau, who opened the exhibition, hailed Di Rosa as -one of the most successful French artists bent on strengthening the relationship between France and the rest of the world+. South Africa will seal the eighth chapter of Di Rosa+s Autour Du Monde and Mexico is next.
The DiroZulu exhibition at the Standard Bank Gallery, corner of Simmond and Frederick streets in Johannesburg, runs until August 19