Keiskamma Guernica | photojournalism

Keiskamma's Guernica Tapestry

PICASSO'S GUERNICA: The original painting by Pablo Picasso, painted as an expression of protest against the bombing of the ancient market town of Guernica in northern Spain on April 26, 1937.

KEISKAMMA GUERNICA: The large anti-Aids tapestry by the women of the Keiskamma Trust was purchased by the MBDA for the Red Location library and archive with Lotto funding. Picture: MIKE HOLMES.

By IVOR MARKMAN

The attack was clearly intended to intimidate the local population - but instead, it resulted in enormous international outrage.

At first glance it appears as though the Keiskamma Guernica tapestry is simply a copy of Picasso’s painting, but closer scrutiny will reveal a host of very thoughtful differences.

Picasso’s work was an expression of indignation, particularly of the misery caused to blameless persons, a message with markedly similar sentiments about the suffering of the victims of HIV Aids virus.

As the majority of the town's men were away fighting, most of the victims were women and children.

At first glance it appears as though the Keiskamma Guernica tapestry is simply a copy of Picasso’s painting, but closer scrutiny will reveal a host of very thoughtful differences.

The Guernica tapestry should not be confused with the 120m-long Keiskamma Tapestry in the entrance to Parliament in Cape Town and which was motivated by the famous Bayeux tapestry of the 11th century.

Picasso’s work was an expression of indignation, particularly of the misery caused to blameless persons, a message with markedly similar sentiments about the suffering of the victims of HIV Aids virus.

Some of the differences between the two artworks include: in Picasso’s version a white woman screams, in the left hand side, while holding the body of her dead child whilst the Keiskamma tapestry shows a correspondingly placed Xhosa woman sitting quietly with her mouth covered while holding her child is a reference to Michelangelo's Pïeta. The child’s ribs are sticking out, indicating the loss of body weight, typically caused by the HIV Aids disease.

"The (artists) at Hamburg decided to use (the Picasso painting) as the model to create an embroidery, the same size, along the same sorts of motifs to describe what Aids has done with the rural community, which they would see as big to Africa as Germany bombing the marketplace at Guernica," Riordan said.By Ivor Markman

A trip to the Settlers Monument in Grahamstown during the annual National Arts Festival in 2010 resulted in the purchase of a major artwork for the Red Location library and archive building.

A 3.5mx7.8m tapestry, Keiskamma Guernica, crafted by about 100 women at the Hamburg-based Keiskamma Trust, is based on the famous oil on canvas painting by Spanish artist, Pablo Picasso, about the infamous bombing of Guernica.

"We went to the arts festival and were told to go and see (the tapestry) in the Pringle Room," said Red Location cultural precinct business planner Rory Riordan.

"There was this massive tapestry styled on Guernica.

It was just absolutely dramatic, something one could see was of enormous value."

The first thoughts were to place the tapestry in the new art gallery, but because of the columns and smaller spaces it would not fit, so another space had to be found.

"The obvious place that came to mind was the reception area of the Red Location Library and Archive where the wall behind the reception area is exactly the right size.

“We had planned on having a work of art on it anyway," he said.

He then got hold of Dr Carol Hofmeyr of the Keiskamma Trust and told her he was interested in purchasing the tapestry.

As Riordan was part of the Mandela Bay Development Agency team tasked with finding public art for Port Elizabeth, he mentioned it to Dorelle Sapere, who had applied to Lotto for funding of public art.

By that stage the tapestry was hanging in Wits University's five arts department, so Sapere, project architect Joe Noero and Riordan, flew to Johannesburg to inspect it.

"Dorelle walked up and down the room and said: `It's done,' " Riordan said.

The intention was for the R200 000 tapestry, paid for by Lotto, to be hung once the library was completed.

Picasso's Guernica was painted in 1937 as a protest against the German and Italian bombing of the market town of Guernica, in the Basque country of northern Spain.

"Franco, the dictator of Spain, got Hitler's air force to bomb Guernica ," Riordan said.

The raid, on April 26, 1937, market day, lasted over three hours during which the town was completely destroyed.

Fighter aircraft machine-gunned innocent men, women and children as they raced for cover in the fields as the Germans tested their new fighter aircraft.Many animals were also shot dead.

Some of the differences between the two artworks include: in Picasso’s version a white woman screams, in the left hand side, while holding the body of her dead child whilst the Keiskamma tapestry shows a correspondingly placed Xhosa woman sitting quietly with her mouth covered while holding her child is a reference to Michelangelo's Pïeta.

INSPIRATIONAL WORK: Michaelangelo's statue, the "Pieta," in St Peter's Basilica in Rome.

The child’s ribs are sticking out, indicating the loss of body weight, typically caused by the HIV Aids disease.

The bird, to the left and below the light, is barely visible while in the Keiskamma tapestry it is bright and very visible.

Moving across the painting, while Picasso has used a horse as the main animal, the Keiskamma tapestry uses cattle, animals you are more likely to see in a Xhosa kraal and far more meaningful in their culture.

Next, a hand holds a lamp in Picasso’s painting while the Keiskamma tapestry hand is holding a candle, a widely-used symbol in the fight against HIV Aids.

The “stretched” face is replaced colourful birds flying away, used as “a symbol of hope” and skinny HIV Aids victims.

Picasso’s figure looking up to the heavens with outstretched arms is replaced by a depiction of Carol Hofmeyr Black woman with long blond hair in a white dress and more HIV Aids victims, some standing and some lying on their backs.

Back on the bottom left of Picasso’s painting a man with a dismembered arm holding some sort of broken farming tool has been replaced with another cow with what appears to be blood pouring from a gash in its neck.

Next, the woman with what appears to an injured foot and who is staring up into the light has been replaced by a very colourful group of women in mourning dressed in traditional Xhosa garments. The colours chosen can be found in many traditional Xhosa items.

All along the bottom border are small beaded “broaches”. Each one is in memory of a family member, who died of HIV Aids, of one of the 50 women from the Umtha Welanga health care centre who made the tapestry.

There are numerous other symbolic items in the tapestry as well.

"In Picasso's (painting) a lot of women and children died and most of the women were crying," said Nokuphiwa Gedze, one of the tapestry designers.

"It was the same thing when HIV/Aids exploded in our area.

“It left women crying for their children who died of HIV and Aids," she said.

All the motifs used in the Keiskamma version of the famous painting are intended to convey the difficult emotions experienced by the older women who suddenly found themselves burdened with looking after their children’s children.

In Picasso's work, a bull with staring eyes stands over a woman clutching a dead child.

Of the equivalent figure in the Keiskamma tapestry, Gedze says: "It is an old woman carrying an adult child.

"This is the experience of everyday life.

"Older women bring adult children to the clinic.

"At some point, they die and leave the grandchildren with the older women.

“So the older women, at the end, are the victims," she said.

The Guernica tapestry should not be confused with the 120m-long Keiskamma Tapestry in the entrance to Parliament in Cape Town and which was motivated by the famous Bayeux tapestry of the 11th century.