HARARE, ZIMBABWE – Gift Rusere, 25, is a sculptor who sells his pieces at Newlands Street Market in Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital.
Newlands Street Market is a strip of land on a main road in Harare where rows of stone sculptures stand waiting to be purchased. There is no parking for the customers and no shelter from the elements. Many locals drive by with no more than a glance. Meanwhile, under the blazing sun or afternoon thunderstorms, Rusere and the other vendors wait for the rare tourist or African curio fan to stop by.
Rusere says that sculpture sales have improved during the last three years after a decade-long economic meltdown and the destruction of street markets by the government in 2005. Still, he says he struggles to make a living out of his art.
“This business is more of a struggle,” Rusere says. “I use fruit serpentine stone, which comes from Guruve, 180 kilometers away from Harare. It is a mission sourcing it. Yet at the end of the day, I must sell it for U.S. $75 – sometimes U.S. $50 if I am desperate.”
Rusere’s collection of abstract artwork perches on upside-down wooden crates, almost hidden among the cheap copies of hippo, elephant and lion sculptures that flood the market. To find a unique piece, Rusere says buyers have to thoroughly search the makeshift stalls.
Still, Rusere says he can sell his art faster here than he could in a gallery.
“Customers come to the markets more than to the galleries,” Rusere says. “If I sold a piece through the gallery, then it would sit there for months before anyone bought it. Here I know it will be bought in a matter of weeks.”
Rusere, who learned to sculpt at a young age, had his first exhibition as a teenager when he was selected to feature his work at the Harare International Festival of the Arts, HIFA.
“In 1999, I had my first exhibition at HIFA,” he says. “Sculpting is my passion. It’s not just about the money.”
But then in 2005, a government shutdown of local markets compounded a financial crisis that had begun at the start of the decade. Rusere says he had to put his passion on hold.
“I used to sell my art at Africa Unity Square by Meikles Hotel,” he says. “But it was demolished in 2005, and I had to stop art for a couple of years.”
After the economic crisis and government shutdown of local markets during the past decade, the stone sculpture industry has begun to recover in Zimbabwe. Its recovery has also resurrected the decades-old debate about true art versus cheap imitations and street markets versus galleries.
Zimbabwe has a long history of stone sculptures. Many consider Frank McEwen, the first director of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe, then Rhodesia, to be the founder of the Shona sculpture art movement in the late 1960s. The movement receives its name from the Shona, the largest ethnic group in Zimbabwe, because of the prevalence of sculpture in Shona culture. Through his contacts in the international art world, McEwen was able to give the movement its first international exposure, with collectors eventually including names such as Prince Charles and Michael Jackson.
But both the formal and informal markets suffered during a decade-long economic meltdown in Zimbabwe, when the economy declined more than 45 percent between 1999 and 2008, according to the World Bank. Street markets received another blow in 2005 when government officials demolished many of them during Operation Restore Order or Operation Murambatsvina. According to the government, the operation aimed to curb illegal housing and commercial activities. But a U.N. report called it “disastrous” for destroying the homes, livelihoods or both of 700,000 people and indirectly affecting an additional 2.4 million people.
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