Dumile Feni

African Guernica

1967, charcoal on newsprint, 226 x 218 cm.

University of Fort Hare. Photo courtesy of University of Fort Hare ©Dumile Feni Family Trust 2021.

In 1937, fire rained down on the town of Guernica, in Spain. The Nazis wanted to send a message to the Spanish resistance and dropped bombs on the quiet village for about two hours. As most of the menfolk were in the resistance army, most people in the village were women and children. Over 1500 people are believed to have been killed. The attack shook the world, and artist Pablo Picasso painted Guernica in response. The artwork symbolized those in power inflicting violence and suffering on defenceless people.

30 years later, Dumile Feni created African Guernica. In this work, several human and animal figures emerge from inky black darkness, as if they are in a spotlight. A baby is seen suckling at the teat of a cow, and a three-legged man seems to be dancing. A couple embraces in the corner. At the bottom, a man looks as if he is ready to order dinner at a table, but nobody is helping him. All around them are animals, and in the shadows, we see more figures. This artwork was completed a year before Feni went into exile, frustrated by life under apartheid. Just like the original Guernica depicts the powerful oppressing the defenceless, Feni uses metaphor and symbols to critique the apartheid government. The system of apartheid not only treated black and brown South Africans as people with fewer rights, on the same level as animals but also robbed everyone in the system of their humanity.