Absa Bank Mozambique, MFW and Malangatana Foundation pay homage to the maestro in the year he would have turned 85

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Absa Bank Mozambique, MFW and Malangatana Foundation pay homage to the maestro in the year he would have turned 85

12:33 CAT | 23 Apr 2021

Photo: Absa Bank Moçambique on Facebook

The premier branch of Absa Bank Mozambique in Maputo is currently accommodating an exhibition of Malangatana’s works and belongings, in the year he would have turned 85. The exhibition, which opened in April, is on display for a period of three months..

The initiative, developed in partnership with Mozambique Fashion Week (MFW) and the Malangatana Foundation, aims to remember and immortalise the socio-cultural dimension of Malangatana’s art, and his contribution to promoting Mozambique globally.

The interdisciplinary exhibition displays some of the personal belongings which the artist used in his daily activities, and shares his vision of the world and the way the items contributed to his creations.

Vinyl records, record players, ink cases, screens, film cameras, data-show devices, household items will be among the objects on display in the first month, with the aim of sharing a narrative about the harmony between magic and the contemporary past which make up the story of each of the artist’s works.

“They are objects that tell simple stories, but with enormous value, and that show the greatness of the person and the way he saw the world. This exhibition will serve as a reminder that, more than a painter, Malangatana Valente Ngwenya was a man, a fighter, a defender of rights, and, above all, someone who was concerned with equal opportunities,” said Rui Barros, Managing Director of Absa Bank Mozambique, adding that Malangatana was a man of many sides, who continued to enchant the generations.

The Director General of DDB and promoter of Mozambique Fashion Week, Vasco Rocha, recalls Malangatana with fondness and appreciation, and thinks that contact with the artist’s personal belongings will illustrate the way he communicated.

“Twenty years ago, Mestre Malangatana supported the start of the beginning of our work in Mozambique. With his finger he marked traces on the brown sand, under the eyes of attentive children. With his voice he showed us the infinite possibilities. Anything was for him a moment of communication. Nothing gives us more satisfaction than getting to know the Master even more deeply through his personal belongings,” Rocha said.

“Personal objects demonstrate not only how diverse Malangatana’s world of interest in knowledge was,” the Malangatana Foundation representative observes, “but also how important the presence of other worlds was in his space of creation. Amidst the music and the flavours borrowed by the teas and stirred coffees, there are physical and spiritual presences that influenced, many times, the colour tone, or even the simple look of tenderness in a mutilated body on his canvases, which represented, to my meagre understanding, the pain he carried and the hope he conveyed, despite the pain he lived through.”