History Doesn’t Repeat Itself, but It Does Rhyme. Dumile Feni: African Guernica

History Doesn’t Repeat Itself, but It Does Rhyme is a new programme at the Museo Reina Sofía that aims to establish a dialogue between Pablo Picasso's Guernica (1937) and other significant works of art that present certain parallels in their modes of representation or thematic concerns, but which come from different historical and cultural contexts. In this first instalment of the series, curated by Tamar Garb, Picasso's emblematic work can be seen for the first time alongside African Guernica (1967) by Dumile Feni (Worcester, South Africa, 1942 – New York, 1991), one of the key artists of African modernity.

Feni's work, which is markedly biographical in nature, emerged in the context of state violence and institutionalised racial oppression under South African apartheid. Created during the 1960s, African Guernica invokes Picasso's work, not only in its title but also in its synergies with the Spanish artist's visual vocabulary. In this way, Feni's large charcoal drawing also draws on the simplification and expressive distortion of figures, monochromatic tone and dramatic lighting, abstraction and dislocation of space, and even the conjunctions between animals and humans. But it is not only formal elements that resonate in the Spanish and African versions of Guernica; the shared use of a monumental scale is also crucial in highlighting the violence inherent in all situations of war, discrimination and oppression throughout history.

Although it has been exhibited frequently in South Africa, African Guernica has never travelled abroad. Displayed in close dialogue with Picasso's work for the first time, this presentation invites visitors to the exhibition to speculate on the similarities and differences between the two works, created in different historical and geographical contexts, as well as to discover other works by the South African artist that are also part of the presentation. The confrontation between Picasso's anti-war cry of anguish in the context of the Spanish Civil War and the South African drawing created thirty years later in the context of the brutal violence of South African apartheid invites critical reflection on the different issues raised by the exhibition. 

History Doesn’t Repeat Itself, but It Does Rhyme is a series of interventions within the Reina Sofía’s Collection, that consist of juxtaposing an equivalent to Guernica from another time or geopolitical sphere, contextualised by an academic work of art history as an interpretative framework. The title of the series is a phrase traditionally attributed to the writer Mark Twain, but apocryphal, never written by the author.