Things that don’t actually exist?

Ghosts © Ralph Ziman

I came across these striking pictures this week. The work of African born but USA-resident Ralph Ziman, showing brightly coloured AK47 rifles made from beads and wire. The header of the piece proclaimed:

Ghosts: AK-47 guns made from beads and wire – in pictures

New art installation of replica AK-47s from wire and beads, made by Zimbabwean craftsmen, offers powerful comment on South Africa’s continuing obsession with guns.

I was intrigued. I’ve visited and traveled in Southern Africa a few times and have been fascinated by the ingenuity with which people recycle and manipulate materials to create toys and functional items – making work that is quite often hugely artistic, despite having been born out of necessity.

I worked for many years (in Social Work) with a (white) Kenyan man who had been raised in Kenya, living there for over forty years before moving to Scotland, and he brought with him a fantastic creative impulse that manifested in striking representations of African birds and animals fabricated from what we would simply dismiss as ‘rubbish’, scraps of wood, beads, wire, string, plastic bottles. This ‘skill’ was obviously one that had strong cultural roots and was a fundamental part of his life. His work, and the work of other similar people I worked with fostered in me a lasting interest in ‘outsider art’, the wonderful creative force that exists and thrives on the far fringes of most societies, often proving to be more insightful and politically powerful than the work of the more mainstream creators.

So, looking at Ziman’s striking images of hooded, sunglassed and decorated men with these fantastic confections I was fascinated, certainly by their form, and eager to find out more about the creative forces that drove their fabrication. The leader text stating it offered a “powerful comment on South Africa’s continuing obsession with guns” warranted further investigation. Although I’ve seen several painted/decorated AK47’s in Africa (and some from the UK) I’d not come across such artistic ‘replica’ work before coming out of Africa and was really intrigued by it.

I followed the link to an interview with Ralph Ziman, and was rather perplexed to read:

Ziman says he had always loved the brightly-coloured beaded tourist trinkets made by men at the side of the road in Johannesburg. Last year, driven by the idea for Ghosts, he stopped his car one day and approached some of the craftsmen, asking them to make him a replica of a Kalashnikov.

“They thought I was crazy,” he said. “They laughed at me a lot, but they made it, and eventually they were making 10 or 12 a week for six months.”

So in fact, until Ziman ‘commissioned’ the work, there had been no bead and wire AK47’s in existence. I think it says more about their creation that until Ziman requested one be made for him, there was no need to make ‘fake’ ones as the real thing is so ubiquitous and easily available across the continent. So, are they indeed ‘powerful artistic comments’ or quite simply another “brightly coloured beaded tourist trinket”?

I’m more than a little uncomfortable with the images, all portraying black men, some in balaclavas, eerily lit, edgy, exuding danger and altogether intended to intimidate. They play to so many stereotypes it’s really quite remarkable. Why no image of Mr Ziman wearing a suit and carrying one of his decorated AK’s?

Strikes me it’s rather disingenuous to suggest these items were born out of South Africa’s obsession with guns; they might be born out of Ziman’s relationship with guns, but are in fact born out of, indeed rooted firmly in an artistic and creative tradition that although sometimes may reflect colonial manipulation and exploitation, most often manages to transcend and reinvent the ugly realities of conflict in the way that only art can.

Lest I be accused of a lack of balance in my view of the iconic status of the AK47 as a ‘confection’, you might want to consider this AK47 cake decoration. It’s really heartening to learn that it’s safe for egg and nut allergy sufferers. No dangers from THIS particular AK47 then. Just goes to prove you CAN have your cake and eat it in the world of (decorative) assault rifles.

For me Ziman’s work is less about a continent’s fascination with guns and more an unintended and oblique comment on creativity and need.

Striking though these images are, they are indeed ‘ghosts’.

I’ll leave the last, insightful, observation to RogerJolie in the comments section of the original interview: