Philip Segola is perhaps Botswana’s most widely recognised and experienced artist. Having just retired from a civil service job, he wants to be a reference point for young artists
A week after the opening of his solo exhibition, Philip Segola serves me morning coffee at his home. I have many reasons for wanting to talk to Segola, the top three being that he is the undisputed elder statesman of the local art scene, whose career spans over three decades, and nobody is better qualified to give an informed analysis of the state of Botswana’s art; secondly, he has just retired from a civil service job as principal curator at the National Museum and Art Gallery ÔÇô he calls it “a time to step back and look at who I am” ÔÇô and I want the perspective of someone who has been an insider on government’s attitude towards promotion of the arts; and finally, I just want to talk art for art’s sake.
Segola’s living-room is filled with his overbearing presence. The walls carry some of his works, and even to a plebian eye, these bear the strokes of masterpieces. Whatever space is left is filled by his engaging voice.
As he settles on the sofa, in between sips of steaming coffee, he expresses a desire to be able to speak authoritatively about art, the kind of talk backed by requisite and relevant research. He is at a point, he feels, where if people (fellow artists, I presume) choose him as an instrument to forward their aspirations they should be able to use him.
To listen to Segola, you get a sense that this is not an old cowboy who is about to ride into the sunset to reminisce about battles fought; instead, you feel you are in the presence of a man content that he has lived long enough to learn life’s lessons ÔÇô and is now ready to apply the knowledge; like a craftsman for whom the long apprenticeship has just ended. He talks of the pain (I think it’s guilt) of not having practised art to the standard expected of someone of his experience because of the many engagements of his previous job. Now that he is unencumbered by a 7:30am ÔÇô 4:30pm (sometimes way past 4:30pm) existence, he talks excitedly about being able to build a point of arrival for young artists.
“When they look at my work they should feel broadened,” he says.
It’s a heavy load to carry ÔÇô even on shoulders that have been rubbed against some of the great and mighty that Africa has produced, such as the late Mozambican phenomenal artist, Malangatana, who died earlier in the year. Heavy load, yes. But it’s not idle prattle.
When Segola retired, friends felt this moment could not be allowed to pass unnoticed. It marked a homecoming back into the fold, and it had to be celebrated. Against his wish (“I felt I was not ready”), they coerced and persuaded him to agree to the idea of the exhibition that has been on show at Frame Gallery for the past two weeks. (It closes on November 30).
On the opening evening of the exhibition, a young artist walked up to him, and said, “Seeing your work I feel I still have way to go”. It’s good to be acknowledged as being good, but the point Segola is making here is about generational responsibility ÔÇô the older generation providing mentorship to the young, not only in words, but in deeds.
“It’s a positive thing to accept that you can still move up,” he says. “You have to put it in yourself that it takes a lifetime to perfect your art. Some people leave this world without having attained the satisfaction that they have arrived. In fact, I never know at what point you can say you have arrived.”
In his previous job, Segola played an important role in the growth of the National Art Collection. I ask him how reflective of our visual arts heritage the collection is. For instance, how much attention was given to quality when purchasing artworks for the national collection?
“The collection was observed carefully,” he states. “We didn’t collect indiscriminately. Obviously, if you buy indiscriminately, artists could end up producing for the wrong reasons. In the end, I would be having money having sold my work, but what is government going to do with the artwork that is substandard?”
I steer the conversation towards government’s initiative to promote local art by actively buying artworks for various departments. By any measure, it’s a positive development for the arts. But there is a flipside. Who looks at the quality of artworks being purchased? Is there a set standard, at all? Now these are questions that are known to hover around. Segola says it’s primarily out of the concern expressed in these questions that on occasion he has cautioned artists to be careful “gore re seka ra helela re senya se puso e batlang go se re baakanyetsa”; the point being that government support for local artists should not lead to a decline in standards.
“This work is going to be exhibited, and if it’s substandard it’s going to lead to questions about the standard of our art,” he says. “Ultimately, it reflects on everybody ÔÇô the artists, buyers who are representing government and misrepresenting the ideals of government. We have to be extremely careful. We need to be serious in everything we do ÔÇô not only in the arts. We need to ask ourselves why we are doing what we do. When people congratulate government for supporting the arts, the challenge for us is to show that we are deserving of this kind of assistance.”
One of the things that Segola wants to see happen, especially through the National Arts Council, is an audit of Botswana arts so as to paint a clearer picture of what part of the country produces what type of art, just as we have come to associate Ngamiland with basket-weaving. He says such an audit would be helpful in guiding and streamlining assistance to artists.
“We need to do visible and realistic interventions,” he says. “Imagine if people didn’t go to work in Namola Leuba projects for three months because they are making baskets for the US market. Through the arts we can make significant interventions in areas such as unemployment.”
I ask Segola to be brutally frank, and say if Botswana art is of the standard that would interest some of the world’s renowned connoisseurs of art. His response is that we still fall short of catching the eyes of the two groups of international art buyers ÔÇô those who buy art as an investment, and those who collect art for art appreciation. We go back to the metaphor of arrival ÔÇô contentious as it is. What would be the indicator that Botswana art has arrived?
“We need more people at my level and others above my level to say we have arrived,” Segola says. “We need to develop an appreciation of art. We need collaborations with foreign artists. We shouldn’t close ourselves within the geographical mass called Botswana because to do so, even our ideas would become territorial, and we won’t be able to understand events in other countries. The most important attribute of art is that it helps us become fully rounded human beings such that when we deal with issues we do so from the standpoint of our values which are reflected in our art. For instance, are we sympathetic and empathetic human beings?”
Is the art currently being produced a mirror of the society we are?
“Yes,” Segola answers. “There are artists who produce that kind of work. Tebogo Gaotshabege’s artworks give an honest picture of life in Botswana. When people come from outside, the propensity is to look at Botswana as wealthy because of the diamonds. But Tebogo depicts the other side of our society; what we could call the slums; people living in depressed locations and environments. The overall effect is that whenever I see Tebogo’s work I am reminded of another image of us. To people from outside, Botswana is a beautiful country with abundant wildlife and that’s it. They don’t know or understand the complexities of our society. People like Tebogo put these complexities into perspective.”
With so much misery, shouldn’t art offer an escape route out of the depressive reality? Segola points out that the notion of art as something just decorative limits the purpose of art.
“Picasso’s painting of the civil war in Spain is in the Security Council building. It is appropriate that the painting is there; it’s a strong statement that war is not a good thing. People die in war,” Segola explains.
The painting he is referring to is Guernica, which Pablo Picasso painted in 1937 in response to the bombing of Guernica, Basque Country, by German and Italian warplanes at the behest of the Spanish Nationalist forces during the Spanish Civil War. With its strong representation of the tragedies of war and the suffering it inflicts on people, especially innocent civilians, Guernica has gained monumental status. It is widely accepted as an eternal reminder of the tragedies of war, an anti-war symbol and an embodiment of peace. It resonates with Segola’s description of art being a deep observation of the human environment. Closer home, he points to the collection of artworks that were entered in the World AIDS Day Exhibition. The work, he says, is a visual arts statement that addresses issues of HIV/AIDS, and is an important record for posterity.
In these times of financial hardships, do people buy art?
“I know that buying art always implies you have extra cash, although I have found myself buying artworks at the expense of other things. It’s ok for people to look at other things they need. When things are tough people don’t buy luxuries and some people might consider art a luxury. But if you don’t buy art you deny yourself things that art can do.”
Such as?
“Well ÔÇô it’s therapeutic, it reaches you the way nothing else can; you deny yourself social discourse, and even the mundane reality of beauty. In other countries apparently there are more people who go to art galleries and museums of art during times of recession, the reason being that art has the ability to communicate reality, but also that art is able to extricate us from deepened sense of despondency. We cope better when we look at artworks. People may not have money, but they fly to Paris to look at the original works of the Cubist movement and works of greats like Picasso. Such is the positive effect art has on people. When countries ask you to visit them, they will tell you about their art, music, and entertainment.”
And has he arrived?
“I don’t think it’s appropriate to talk in the context of me having arrived. What exactly do we mean? To some it might mean that you produce a lot of artworks, you sell well and you live off your art,” he says. “It might also mean that I have accepted myself as an artist. I paint and elbow myself into a crowd and introduce myself as an artist. I function better as an artist than anything else. It’s an interesting recognition and acknowledgement that they have also recognised me as an artist. When they talk to me there is bound to be reference to art. Arrival also means that people have accepted me as well. It also means people have accepted me in a roundabout way that they may say, ‘I was at your exhibition and I liked it, but I didn’t have money to buy; one day when I have money I will buy a piece’. Sometimes that one day does come.”
