Black Paris – Artistic Circulations and Anti-Colonial Struggles, 1950–2000

I had to see the Paris Noir exhibition. Art and anti-colonialism have always been part of my life, most of which I spent in southern Africa before 1996. I was born in Zimbabwe and studied art in South Africa, but the most significant years of my artistic life were spent working at Mpapa Gallery in Lusaka, Zambia, with Cynthia Zukas, Joan Pilcher and Patrick Mweemba from 1984 to 1994. I had to see what had been happening in ‘Black Paris’ during those years, so I could understand and assess what was the same and what was different from what was happening in the Southern African art world at the time. There are many threads connecting these questions that I will have to explain here before I start to talk about the art. John and I woke up at 4.30 a.m. to catch the flight from our local airport, Tarbes, to Paris for the day because I wanted so much to see the Paris Noir exhibition. It contained so many elements that mattered to me and that I had read and thought about while writing my books, making art and studying for my doctorate.

Gerard Sekoto and South Africa 1948

Perhaps the first thread is the beautiful Gerard Sekoto self-portrait used to advertise the exhibition.  Mpapa Gallery had the good fortune to exhibit a blue painting by Sekoto, a South African artist self-exiled to Paris, that Cynthia Zukas acquired because she felt it was of great importance. Sekoto’s self-portrait had been painted just before the South African nationalists brought in their apartheid state. The expression in Sekoto’s eyes says what apartheid meant for Black South Africans. At the same time, the Jim Crow laws and segregation were in full force in the United States of America whilst in Britain lodging accommodation was advertised stating that no Blacks, dogs or Irish were welcome. In 1948, however, the United Nations declared its promulgation of Universal Human Rights, and Paris became a refuge for Black intellectuals, activists, artists and writers. French and British social and political history are different, even if there were intellectual connections. French and British colonialism and slavery were imposed in differing ways on each African country exploited for the slave trade and colonised. This is not to suggest there is a hierarchy of suffering under slavery and colonialism, despite cultural differences, because all humans resist such abuse and feel the same about it. The fact is that Black exiles in Paris included a wide range of experiences of slavery and colonialism, and had varied political beliefs. That thread is in the next paragraph.

The Congress of Black Writers and Artists 1956

This first Congress took place in the Sorbonne in Paris at the time when I had just begun high school. Present at it were Aimé Césaire, Frantz Fanon, Richard Wright, Amadou Hampâté Bâ, James Baldwin, Josephine Baker, Jean-Paul Sartre, Pablo Picasso, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Leopold Sédar Senghor, David Diop, Gerard Sekoto , plus many others from Africa, the Caribbean and America.  W.E.B. Du Bois was prevented from participation by the USA government because of his radical views.  Many of the participants were descendants of slaves. All believed in Universal Human Rights. Every one of them had an extraordinary life that is worth studying. Please look at the links I’ve provided as they will make clear how wide a range of ideas they represented.. As a political writer, I was fascinated to learn about this congress, as many of them had shaped the ideological struggle against colonialism. I would learn about most of them after I moved to France and I have come to admire them all enormously.

The struggle against colonialism and slavery

Resistance to colonisation began immediately, and colonisation was not accepted when early resistance had failed. Resistance in South Africa, Zimbabwe and all African countries grew and developed and was eventually successful. Slavery in Africa and Arabia is however, is a much more complicated story. The truth is that whenever they could, people captured as slaves and sent to the Caribbean and the Americas struggled to escape and be free and to hold onto their own cultures. The ending of slavery is a long and terrible story that took a long time to achieve. Poverty and racism continue today to cause the suffering of Black people.

Art, Culture, Education and the Anti-Colonial Struggle

During the Second World War, Félix Éboué, governor-general of the Free French territory of French Equatorial Africa, organised the 1944 Brazzaville conference on colonialism, and some of those present at the later 1956 Congress were there, too. What is well illustrated in both conferences is the importance of the role that artists and thinkers play in the changes needed for liberation and the power of education to help effect that change. I am struck by the universality of human desire for freedom and equality, our need to share ideas and the enormous significance of the role of art and literature. Some of those artists and writers had survived the occupation of Paris, many were poor and their lives were hard, but they fought on for their art and their beliefs.

Paris Noir and African Art

Levi-Strauss said there was no difference between the minds of people described by colonialism as “savage” or “civilised”. Jung said that creativity is a human instinct. Pablo Picasso saw in African masks the same driving instinct that propelled his making of art with no distinction. Early 20th-century art history, however, describes African art as “Primitive” and European art as superior, while it mentions no women or Black artists. To remedy this, Steven Sachs produced a catalogue for “The Neglected Tradition: Towards a new history of South African Art, 1930 – 1988” an exhibition of Black art in Johannesburg in the apartheid years. In the Arnofini 1996 exhibition of “Earth and Everything: Recent Art from South Africa”, it can be seen how apartheid affected artists. Educated Black artists, making contemporary art critical of apartheid, went into exile. White artists stayed, and some Black intuitive artists were accepted by progressive galleries. Realising the transformative power of art, Robert Loder worked with David Koloane in Johannesburg. He encouraged art in Zambia and started the Triangle International Artists Workshops which are documented in “Making Art In Africa 1960-2010” edited by Polly Savage.

Paris Noir and Zambian Art

No complete account of Zambian art exists, and perhaps it can never be made. There are huge gaps in our knowledge of it at this time. What was recognised at Independence in 1964 was the importance of art to a nation’s vision of itself in the exhibition arranged by Simon Kapwepwe. What was needed was the visionary artists who wanted to see Zambian art grow and develop, artists who did not simply make their own art but opened the doors to art for Zambian artists. Foremost among the visionaries in the early years were Henry Tayali, Cynthia Zukas and Bente Lorenz. All three continued to work for these ends until their deaths, and all were involved with the formation of the Lechwe Trust Art Gallery in Lusaka. Henry’s passionate contribution was to fight against the sanitisation of African art for the tourist trade, while making his powerful political paintings about the fight of people for freedom from oppression and poverty. Cynthia worked tirelessly to encourage artists to make art, particularly printmaking and etching, as well as making art herself. Bente believed in and understood both the need for creativity in every human, but also their innate ability to make art. She kept this certainty alive at the heart of all she did. All three worked with and for art societies, also suggesting artwork for the National Art Collection.

Paris Noir and Mpapa Gallery

In 1978 Joan Pilcher and Heather Montgomerie opened the Mpapa Gallery. Their ambition was to show very varied work of a high standard, if possible from international artists, as well Zambian artists. Over 50 years later it will be difficult to understand how little there was to support Zambian artists then. There were no galleries. the art materials shop had closed. The Evelyn Hone art department had closed and art teachers had minimal art history education. The Zimbabwe liberation war continued and the South African liberation war was intensifying. Life in Zambia was difficult, goods and fuel were in short supply and there was almost no market for art at all. The colonial art legacy was of watercolour landscapes and wildlife paintings. Senegalese and Congolese art “masters” shared their knowledge. Traditional African sculptures prized by tourists could be found, but were not authentic. The Zambian economy was 90% informal. People only wanted to make art to earn a living and duplicate paintings were made and copied. Nobody in the world seemed interested in Zambian art or artists or even in Zambia itself. When I joined Mpapa in 1984 it was a challenging time, but I was helped by Patrick Siabokoma Mweemba, Style Kunda, David Chirwa and Lutanda Mwamba. We had a lot to learn. We needed to sustain and develop creativity and high professional and ethical standards in making, selling, and exhibiting art. That was what was wonderful about the Paris Noir exhibition. I saw that we were comrades and contemporaries with the same desires and passions and creative abilities. What we all did and what we all do is make art and help other artists make art.