In the Studio With Artist Kudzi Chiurai

Artist Kudzi Chiurai is one of my favorite in South Africa—which is to say, living in South Africa, since he is Zimbabwean. We—that is, my bff /photographer David and I—have been here for more or less seven weeks, and Kudzi—I don’t know, Kudzi just breaks my heart. He is the most soft-spoken artist I’ve ever interviewed, which contrasts entirely to his artwork, which tends to involve things like election violence and depictions of Robert Mugabe on fire. I asked him if he thought that art could ever exert political muscle—if art could change dire political realities, like those in Zimbabwe—and basically, he has to say yes, because otherwise, he is engaging himself in a lifelong struggle with futility. But of course he said no, that it didn’t, that art was powerless in the face of corrupt institutions designed to make money for those who support them. (Them being the institutions.)

These are photos from our shoot at Kudzi’s apartment in downtown Johannesburg this weekend.

This is a crazy, unbelievable, ridiculous city with an equally ridiculously early last call. We will be happy, I think, to be back in NYC next week, but we’ll miss it in a way I would not have thought possible. I mean that in the most literal way.