Guercino and Kudzanai Chiurai in Dialogue at Zeitz MOCAA

Zeitz MOCAA in Cape Town presents 'Now and then: Guercino/Kudzanai Chiurai', an exhibition pairing the 17th-century Italian Baroque master Guercino with contemporary Zimbabwean artist Kudzanai Chiurai. The show is organized by the Consulate of Italy in Cape Town with funding from the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation as part of the 'Piano di Valorizzazione Immagine Italia'. Guercino's 'Madonna con Bambino benedicente' (1629), on loan from the Pinacoteca Civica di Cento—a town hit by the 2012 earthquake—depicts a tender intimacy between Mary and the infant Jesus. Chiurai's works include 'Untitled (Dress from Moyo)', made of sheepskin, dyed bandages, wood, blood-red beads, and bronzed horns, created in collaboration with South African Marianne Fassler, and his 2013 film 'Moyo', the third in a series. 'Moyo' means 'air' in Shona and refers to the moment of death when the spirit leaves the body; the film shows a woman cleaning the wounds of a lifeless figure while singing a local funeral song, referencing Michelangelo's Pietà. Chiurai uses art as activism, informed by his witness to violence. The exhibition runs until September 25, 2018.