'C-Stunners and Black Mamba'
Cyrus Kabiru at SMAC ART GALLERY CAPE TOWNCyrus Kabiru is a self-taught emerging Kenyan artist, best known for his elaborate and detailed sculptural spectacles or “C-Stunners”, made from found objects and recycled material sourced on the streets of Nairobi. A confident and individualistic artist, Kabiru is eloquent and forthright in explaining his practice and resolve to follow his own path. These ‘Afrodazzled’ spectacular bifocals are entirely his own invention and are intimately linked to his life-story. The project has rapidly evolved in recent years and Kabiru now exhibits all over the world. Exhibitions take the form of installations and larger works such his bicycle series, where discarded and outdated cycles are ‘recycled’ and transformed into unique sculptural assemblages. Kabiru’s work also falls within the venacular of ‘Afrofuturism’, a term coined by the American cultural theorist Mark Dery in his essay; Black to the Future (1993) – a term which has become increasingly popular in discourse surrounding African contemporary art and art inspired by new trends on the continent, such as the recent “Afronaut” project by German photojournalist Cristina de Middel (2012). Afrofuturism is described as; “ an emergent literary and cultural aesthetic that combines elements of science fiction, historical fiction, fantasy, Afrocentricity, and magic realism with non-Western cosmologies in order to critique not only the present-day dilemmas of people of color, but also to revise, interrogate, and re-examine the historical events of the past. (Interview: Between 10 and 5)
29 January - 14 March