Moffat Takadiwa
Moffat Takadiwa
C-Section (a), 2019
found computer keys and toothbrushes
106 x 44 x 4 in
270 x 112 x 10 cm
Moffat Takadiwa
C-Section (a), 2019
(detail view)
Moffat Takadiwa
C-Section (a), 2019
(detail view)
Moffat Takadiwa
C-Section (a), 2019
(detail view)
Moffat Takadiwa
C-Section (a), 2019
(detail view)
Moffat Takadiwa
C-Section (b), 2019
found computer keys and toothbrushes
106 x 44 x 4 in
270 x 112 x 10 cm
Moffat Takadiwa
C-Section (b), 2019
(detail view)
Moffat Takadiwa
C-Section (b), 2019
(detail view)
Moffat Takadiwa
C-Section (b), 2019
(detail view)
Moffat Takadiwa
C-Section (c), 2019
found computer keys and toothbrushes
106 x 44 x 4 in
270 x 112 x 10 cm
Moffat Takadiwa
C-Section (c), 2019
(detail view)
Moffat Takadiwa
C-Section (c), 2019
(detail view)
Moffat Takadiwa
C-Section (c), 2019
(detail view)
Moffat Takadiwa
C-Section (c), 2019
(detail view)
Moffat Takadiwa
C-Section (c), 2019
(detail view)
Moffat Takadiwa
C-Section (c), 2019
(detail view)
Moffat Takadiwa
Son of the Soil, 2019
found plastic bottle caps, perfume stills
110 x 158 x 8 in
280 x 400 x 20 cm
Moffat Takadiwa
Son of the Soil, 2019
(detail view)
Moffat Takadiwa
Son of the Soil, 2019
(detail view)
Moffat Takadiwa
Son of the Soil, 2019
(detail view)
Moffat Takadiwa
Son of the Soil, 2019
(detail view)
Moffat Takadiwa
Son of the Soil, 2019
(detail view)
Moffat Takadiwa
The Space Bar, 2019
found computer keys, toothbrushes
118 x 106 x 9 in
300 x 270 x 23 cm
Moffat Takadiwa
The Space Bar, 2019
(detail view)
Moffat Takadiwa
The Space Bar, 2019
(detail view)
Moffat Takadiwa
The Space Bar, 2019
(detail view)
Moffat Takadiwa
The Space Bar, 2019
(detail view)
Moffat Takadiwa
Chapungu/Water Eagle Bird, 2019
found computer keys
94 x 64 x 4 in
238 x 162 x 10 cm
Moffat Takadiwa
Chapungu/Water Eagle Bird, 2019
(detail view)
Moffat Takadiwa
Chapungu/Water Eagle Bird, 2019
(detail view)
Moffat Takadiwa
Chapungu/Water Eagle Bird, 2019
(detail view)
Moffat Takadiwa
Land of Coca-Cola and Colgate, 2019
found toothpaste tubes, toothbrushes, and mixed plastic caps
137 x 80 x 6 in
348 x 203 x 15 cm
Moffat Takadiwa
Land of Coca-Cola and Colgate, 2019
(detail view)
Moffat Takadiwa
Land of Coca-Cola and Colgate, 2019
(detail view)
Moffat Takadiwa
Land of Coca-Cola and Colgate, 2019
(detail view)
Moffat Takadiwa
Land of Coca-Cola and Colgate, 2019
(detail view)
Moffat Takadiwa
Exoticism of Africa, 2019
found plastic bottle caps, perfume stills
144 x 104 x 6 in
366 x 264 x 15 cm
Moffat Takadiwa
Exoticism of Africa, 2019
(detail view)
Moffat Takadiwa
Exoticism of Africa, 2019
(detail view)
Moffat Takadiwa
Exoticism of Africa, 2019
(detail view)
Moffat Takadiwa
Exoticism of Africa, 2019
(detail view)
Moffat Takadiwa
Exoticism of Africa, 2019
(detail view)
Moffat Takadiwa
The Occupation of Land, 2019
found computer keys, toothbrushes, and plastic bottle tops
120 x 144 x 7 in
305 x 366 x 18 cm
Moffat Takadiwa
The Occupation of Land, 2019
(detail view)
Moffat Takadiwa
The Occupation of Land, 2019
(detail view)
Moffat Takadiwa
The Occupation of Land, 2019
(detail view)
Moffat Takadiwa
The Occupation of Land, 2019
(detail view)
Moffat Takadiwa
The Green-Gold, 2019
found computer keys, toothbrushes, foil caps, phone digit keys
128 x 44 x 5 in
325 x 112 x 13 cm
Moffat Takadiwa
The Green-Gold, 2019
(detail view)
Moffat Takadiwa
The Green-Gold, 2019
(detail view)
Moffat Takadiwa
The Green-Gold, 2019
(detail view)
Moffat Takadiwa
The Green-Gold, 2019
(detail view)
Moffat Takadiwa
The Green-Gold, 2019
(detail view)
Moffat Takadiwa
The Tengwe Farms 2019 (a), 2019
found dishwasher liquid bottle tops and plastic bottle caps
138 x 148 x 13 in
350 x 375 x 35 cm
Moffat Takadiwa
The Tengwe Farms 2019 (a), 2019
(detail view)
Moffat Takadiwa
The Tengwe Farms 2019 (a), 2019
(detail view)
Moffat Takadiwa
The Tengwe Farms 2019 (a), 2019
(detail view)
Moffat Takadiwa
The Tengwe Farms 2019 (a), 2019
(detail view)
Moffat Takadiwa
The Tengwe Farms 2019 (b), 2019
found dishwasher liquid bottle tops and plastic bottle caps
132 x 146 x 17 in
335 x 370 x 33 cm
Moffat Takadiwa
The Tengwe Farms 2019 (b), 2019
(detail view)
Moffat Takadiwa
The Tengwe Farms 2019 (b), 2019
(detail view)
Moffat Takadiwa
The Tengwe Farms 2019 (b), 2019
(detail view)
Moffat Takadiwa
The Tengwe Farms 2019 (b), 2019
(detail view)
Nicodim Gallery is pleased to present Moffat Takadiwa’s (b. 1983, Karol, Zimbabwe) first solo exhibition in the United States. Takadiwa reassesses his own Korekore craft culture through the appropriation of garbage from the West, elevating found objects into sculptural forms that engage with issues of cultural identity, language, social practice, and the environment. All of his artworks are composed from the discarded remains of consumer waste, woven together in the language of traditional Zimbabwean textiles. Macrobiotic in his approach to material, his repurposed objects tell stories of each piece’s past lives to viewers brave enough to confront their own ecological and colonial legacies.
Throughout recent decades, Zimbabwe’s government has been in a state of constant flux, not so much democratically self-ruled as dominated by corrupt officials eager to sell the country’s natural, historical, and spiritual resources to the highest bidder. Corporate and geostrategic interests from China, Russia, Britain, and the U.S. prey upon political unrest. A collapsed economy precludes any opportunity for students in Zimbabwe to acquire new art supplies, so the country’s boundless landfills became Takadiwa’s muse. His work draws attention not only to the problems of waste management and global consumption patterns, it actively encourages us to question our daily activities.
Takadiwa’s wall-mounted golems are brought to life from the discarded toothbrushes, keyboards, aerosol lids, and vaccine bottles of Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and other industrialized cities reincarnate. He considers his impossible tapestries a sort of post-colonial African Dada; the strands of keyboard pads and plastic bits spiral in allegorical urinals within the work. The oft-romanticized abundance of natural resources in Africa remains a Eurocentric mythology. Western waste allows past colonizers to repopulate the lands of their former settlements with trash as a stand-in.
For Takadiwa, the polluted lands in his country are as problematic as the detriments of colonial power. With works like The Land of Coca-Cola and Colgate, he not only seeks to raise environmental concerns, but to metaphorically highlight the Zimbabwean experience as a culmination of residual complications left behind by imperial British rule. The strong link between land ownership and the language of refuse is a driving force in his new body of work.
Land reappropriation, a key pillar of the African Liberation Movement, plays a major role in Zimbabwe’s contemporary political agenda, with issues of ownership, control, distribution, access, and displacement not adequately addressed by the post-colonial regime. Disputes over the control of property have often occurred between and within states on the continent. The visual language Takadiwa employs is born of the land itself, with artworks in the exhibition inspired by scale models of Hurungwe tobacco farms and their topographical faults, ridges, valleys, and hills and the plastics that litter them. Takadiwa’s work seeks to answer colonialism with the visual force and will of his own people.
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Moffat Takadiwa lives and works in Harare, Zimbabwe in the neighborhood of Mbare, one of the biggest hotspots for the recycling and repurposing microeconomy in the country. For years, Takadiwa has been utilizing his practice with a focus on rehabilitating his community, promoting an urban development project with the goal of establishing a community-oriented arts district. Working with local upcoming young artists and young creatives, Takadiwa aims to create the world’s first arts district made of reused and repurposed materials. Takadiwa graduated with a BA Honours from Harare Polytechnic College, Zimbabwe in 2008. Part of the post-independence generation of artists in Zimbabwe, Takadiwa has exhibited extensively across major institutions in Zimbabwe as well as internationally. Recent exhibitions include Stormy Weather, Museum Arnhem, The Netherlands (2019); Second Hand, Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai (2019); KUBATANA, Vestfossen Kunstlaboratorium, Oslo (2019); Ex Africa – storie e identità di un’arte universale, Museo Civico Archeologico, Bologna (2019); The Eye Sees Not Itself, Nicodim Gallery, Los Angeles (2018); De Nature en Sculpture, Villa Datris Foundation, L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, France (2017); and Say Hello to English, Tyburn Gallery, London (2017, solo).
The tapestries, part of an exhibition, Son of the Soil by Zimbabwean artist, Moffat Takadiwa, include pieces such as Land of Coca Cola and Colgate, The Green-Gold andOccupation of Land. They are so mesmerising that the hefty topics they examine—land ownership and consumer culture—almost come as a shock. Looking at the draperies is like gazing back at Earth from the uppermost atmosphere. But go closer, much closer, and you soon realise all is not as it seems.
Caps, lids, toothpaste tubes, toothbrushes, rings and everyday objects with a more than ephemeral life - from a disposable perspective - become part of elaborate compositions that recall the artisan tradition. Every piece, every infinitesimal waste, recovered from immense mountains in landfills, is the bearer of a story, of a responsibility, often told by a printed name, by a brand, from a source. The theme of reuse and recovery, present in the production of numerous artists, in these works takes on particular value precisely because of the multiplicity of readings they offer and the extraordinary link with the origins, in a complex path that manages to bring out a profound dimension cultural.
Moffat Takadiwa considers the intricate wall-hangings that he stitches together from old computer keys or used toothbrush heads ‘post-colonial African Dada’; these abstract tapestries of waste confront Western viewers with the ugly fallout from their late-capitalist lifestyles, giving them the opportunity to buy it back, now redeemed through beauty.
Takadiwa rarely anthropomorphizes his clusters of shapes, rather the human presence is evoked through the materials and the volume of waste generated, as if to say, I am making a collective portrait without defining an individual. The impact of Takadiwa’s forms is undeniable. The pieces resonate visually as well as conceptually as they are rooted in Zimbabwean history and hardship, but they also celebrate the possibilities of making something lasting and positive out of the ever-growing mass of global waste.
Making an auspicious start, Nicodim features Moffat Takadiwa for their first show in the new building. From afar, Takadiwa’s wall hangings might be confused for textiles, as glamorous and over the top as any Bob Mackie beaded gown. They are woven and drape under the weight of their components but instead of luxurious fabrics, they are like colorful chain mail for our modern times.
Greater LA host Steve Chiotakis speaks with CARLA Editor-in-Chief Lindsay Preston-Zappas about Moffat Takadiwa's Los Angeles solo show. "A lot of America's trash and plastic recyclables end up in landfills of poorer nations, like Malaysia, India, and South Africa. Harare houses one of the largest landfills in Zimbabwe. Artist Moffat Takadiwa lives there. Takadiwa mines landfills for plastic trash. Much of it contains labels and logos of American brands. He then meticulously sorts and weaves together the found bottle caps, toothpaste tubes, toothbrushes, and keyboard keys into elaborate tapestries."
Son of the Soil is Moffat Takadiwa’s first solo exhibition in the United States. Takadiwa reassesses his own Korekore craft culture through the appropriation of garbage from the West.
Artist Moffat Takadiwa, who lives in Harare, Zimbabwe—a city that houses one of the largest landfills in the country—mines landfills for plastic trash, much of which contains labels and logos of American brands. He then meticulously sorts and weaves together the found bottle caps, toothpaste tubes, toothbrushes, and keyboard keys into elaborate tapestries. Not only will you leave this show delighting in the stunning compositions and arrangements of these labor-intensive sculptural works, but you will also reconsider your own relationship to consumerism and plastic waste.
Downtown itself has more than one ecosystem, and tonight they’re all activated. Amidst a plethora of art openings this first week of September, exuberant found-material assemblage tapestries by Moffat Takadiwa activate Nicodim Gallery’s inaugural show in their brand new space on Santa Fe Avenue.