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Malindi, last african frontier of the pop-art

From the shop walls to matatus, street art more then graphic

30-03-2017 by Freddie del Curatolo

On the one hand the era of computer graphics, 3D printing, photoshop, and robots that draw.
Across a Continent, the African one, which grows twice as fast as the limping Western world and that, at least in big cities like Nairobi, tends to cover with a veil of modernity, everything that somehow could be retrograde Africa , old-fashioned, out of time.
But all is not throwaway that Africa (rather, I am among those who believe that there would be much to save).
Kenya is in many ways still a "reserve" of ancestral good habits, instinctive approach (even in its naivete) and sincere to the company, which would be a shame to see some of his utterances disappear to the detriment of the flattening globalized and globalizing civilization, compulsive consumerism and "non-places" of aggregation.
If in Nairobi are disappearing many testimonies of an era that was, in Malindi (either because it is south, or because it is distant province of the empire) still resist habits and details that make us smile and we like to point.
Take, for example insignia of the Old Town shops, to the murals along the streets of downtown and the graffiti on the "matatu", the most widely used by the community means.
Something that already the great African art critic and patron Sarenco few years ago had called "the last drift of pop art".
We agree: Andy Warhol would have "busted" for serial reproductions of the Taifa flour sacks, so similar to his Campbell's soup cans.
And what about the boutique that paint every year their collection next to the entrance?
And the music store that instead of putting them on display draws them on the wall?
And yet the charcuterie reminiscent of a balloon that is the hen producing eggs and that there are also hot dogs cattle?
This is not "street art" for its own sake, because this way of understanding advertising, trade and consequently social life, has created a real current visual art and painting which is still a source of pride for Sub-Saharan Africa.
Great artists celebrated at home but also in New York, London and Venice as Michael Soi and Robert Onyango drew heavily from this type of pop art African.
And Malindi (not for long, perhaps) remains one of the art galleries in the open for these works of making do they have the brilliance that combines talent and imagination, just like old times, and not technical, and algebraic formulas.
Take a tour of the Old Town and the Barani and Majengo districts, in addition to going to see the colorful matatu terminus of the new market.
It 's definitely one of the most alternative, fun tour, real and interesting that you can do in the city.

TAGS: Malindi artArte Malindi

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