When the Belly Is Full the Brain Starts to Think: Craft and Criticism in the Work of Daniel Halter

The democratizationof technology in the digital age allows artists to produce films, music, and other media at much lower costs, purportedly allowing the user control of the means of production. Conversely, handcrafted goods often associated with the outmoded (including analogue recording technologies, vinyl records, and art such as William Kentridge’s laborious animations) not only retain their place within the digital age, they resist the totalizing technological forces creating a dialectical pairing between the new and the outmoded in contemporary art. Zimbabwean-born artist Daniel Halter works in this dichotomy between the mass-produced and the bespoke object. Halter frequently uses curio crafts to engage with the Zimbabwean dollar’s hyperinflation thus recontextualizing work and value. His work also considers the modes of production and consumption that tie Zimbabwe to Western perceptions of Africa. Halter’sYes Boss (2006) is a handwoven image displaying a map of a farming region of Zimbabwe. The warp is made of pieces of the map and the weft is formed from shredded $5,000 banknotes and gold thread. The woven image evokes a number of traditional West African ceremonial wraps that emerged when the British introduced silk to Africa. The dual European and pan-African textile is used in Yes Boss to refer to two difficult aspects of Zimbabwe’s post-colonial history: inflation, and president Robert Mugabe’s land redistribution policies.

The redistribution of white-owned farmland is evoked in Yes Boss’s map of former farming plots. While initially purchased for fair prices, in 2000 Mugabe supporters forcibly seized approximately 14 million hectares of land, resulting in the beating and murder of white farm owners. Despite redistributing in the name of giving land to blacks, it has largely gone to Mugabe supporters. Because of the small size of the parcels, nepotistic redistribution, and a lack of expertise, agricultural production has declined and led to malnourishment in Zimbabwe.¹ 1 - David Smith, “Mugabe Allies Own 40% of Land Seized from White Farmers,” The Guardian, November 30, 2010. The second, and related, issue is the Zimbabwean dollar’s rapid inflation as the government printed the necessary currency to meet its needs, leading to estimated inflation of close to two trillion percent a year and bread prices of nearly $10,000 for a single loaf.² 2 - Sebastien Berger, “Zimbabwe Inflation hits 231 Million Per cent,” The Telegraph, October 9, 2008. In this endlessly expandable domain of inflation and the dispossession of production, Yes Boss is a specific, crafted object made from something that is itself endlessly disposable. Yes Boss as a work of art — and artworks frequently being lodged in questions of value — is made of currency that is, in essence, without value. This pairing of disposability and the handmade gives the work an ironic quality. The repurposing through a loss of value also recalls the land appropriation that led to a decline of agricultural production.