The exhibition hall this year was much smaller than the spacious top-floor hall used in the past few years.
The cash prizes won’t be quite as sumptuous as those received by the professionals who got Sh300,000 as the first prize, Sh150,000 for the first runner-up and Sh75,000 for second runner up.
The judges' choice of winning works was well received: Andrew’s ‘‘Rat Race’’ was conceptually interesting .
This year’s Manjano’s Nairobi Visual Art Competition and Exhibition had to be the best Manjano expo that I’ve seen since the former provincial government event got renamed in 2010 and privatised as a project of the GoDown Art Centre.
There are several factors that contributed to the success of both the exhibition which opened last Saturday at Village Market and the announcement of the competition’s award winners. One had to do with the decision by the GoDown bosses, Joy Mboya and Judy Ogana to split the event in two this year.
Much Smaller
Normally, the two categories of professionals’ and students’ art have been shown together. Saturday’s opening only featured artworks by professional’ artists.
The exhibition hall this year was much smaller than the spacious top-floor hall used in the past few years. But by displaying the best professionals’ works without mixing them with the students, the show had more clarity of focus and thus more quality, strength and depth. The other half of Manjano which will exhibit the best works by ‘students’ will open tomorrow at The GoDown.
There will be another round of award winners that day. The cash prizes won’t be quite as sumptuous as those received by the professionals who got Sh300,000 as the first prize, Sh150,000 for the first runner-up and Sh75,000 for second runner up. These awards went to Dickson Were, Aron Boruya and Andrew Mwini Mutuku respectively. In contrast, the student awardees will get Sh50,000, Sh25,000 and Sh12,500.
Dickson Were (Centre) won 1st prize of sh300,000 at Manjano 2017. PHOTO | MARAGARETTA WA GACHERU | NMG
Another factor contributing to the success of Saturday’s event related to this year’s choice of adjudicators. Lydia Galavu, James Muriuki and Rose Jepkorir are all experienced curators. This hasn’t always been the case with Manjano judges. Some had only been in the country a relatively short time before getting the job of judge.
Why that brevity of experience could be problematic was clarified by James Muriuki who defined the criteria for selecting the best works (54 out of 160 submitted) as well as the winners.
The first three criteria were clear-cut. The first was how appropriate was the artist’s response to the Manjano theme, ‘The city of Nairobi’. Second was technical skill or workmanship. Third was attention to presentation.
But the fourth criterion involved a judge’s personal ‘bias’ or preference. The problem comes if a judge is not very conversant with the local scene. Then, he or she might not appreciate local symbolism, concepts or even originality of the work. But with judges like James, Lydia and Rose, this was not a problem.
Their choice of winning works was well received: Andrew’s ‘‘Rat Race’’ was conceptually interesting . Aron’s technique of using photography and acrylics to portray everyday life in Nairobi is imaginative and Dickson’s ‘‘Winning Story’’ of Nairobi gave an illusion of collage while he mixed concepts, current events and Kenyan newspapers using delicate brush strokes and details.
One of the most interesting paintings in the show was made out of cell phone scratch cards.
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Note: The results are not exact but very close to the actual.
