Zim Welcomes Home Its Most Famous Artist, Kudzanai Chiurai

"We Need New Names" is his first solo exhibition at home.
Kudzanai Chiurai/Goodman Gallery

Zimbabweans aren't just celebrating the possible end of president Robert Mugabe's reign, they are also welcoming home their golden boy -- legendary visual artist Kudzanai Chiurai, who returns this month for his first solo exhibition on home soil.

Called We Need New Names, the exhibition opened at the National Gallery Of Zimbabwe in Harare on Thursday, to the electric sounds of local band the Monkey Nuts. Its subject matter couldn't be more relevant to a Zimbabwe on the brink of change.

The programme notes how the exhibition "references different ideological influences that informed the liberation movement, from the seeds of Pan-Africanism, the American Civil Rights and Black Power movements, nationalism and communism" and traces "the trajectory of Zimbabwe's social and political changes".

South African born curator Candice Allison spoke to HuffPost SA ahead of the opening and said that the atmosphere in Zimbabwe is very much the same as it always has been, and that the recent political upheaval has done little to disturb the relative peace in the gallery and its surrounds.

Kudzanai's critically acclaimed We Live In Silence exhibition ran at the Goodman Gallery and Constitution Hill in Johannesburg earlier this year, and some of his work can also be seen at the newly unveiled Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town.

The We Need New Names exhibition runs until 10 December. Check out some images from the body of work below:

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