Kudzanai Chiurai

Kudzanai Chiurai (born 1981) is a Zimbabwean artist and activist.

Since his first solo exhibition in 2003, his artworks have been exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt, Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and documenta in Kassel, Germany. Forbes listed him among "Thirteen Africans To Watch In 2013". In 2015, he was named among the "15 Young African Creatives Rebranding Africa" by Forbes.

Kudzanai is not only an artist but also a poet, an activist and a cultural philosopher who addresses social and political injustices in Zimbabwe. Kudzanai is not known as a photographer, but he collaborates with other photographers to diversify the studio photography.

Life and career Chiurai was born in 1981 in Harare, Zimbabwe, but spent most of his later years in South Africa where he became the first black student to graduate with a bachelor's degree in Fine Art from the University of Pretoria. Kudzanai is also considered as part of the "born-free" generation since he was born one year after the independence of Zimbabwe.

He started his career by painting landscapes and portraits until he left his country Zimbabwe for South Africa where he developed an interest in using art as a form of activism. In 2004, Chiurai went on a self-imposed exile after he received arrest threats following his exhibition of Rau Rau and the Battle of Zimbabwe, two controversial artworks that depicted Robert Mugabe as a demonic figure during the build-up to the 2008 Zimbabwean general election.

In 2012, his short still film Iyeza was screened during the 2013 Sundance Film Festival.

Kudzanai was a winner of the FNB art prize in South Africa 2011: Art Basel: Miami Beach, Miami, Florida, USA 2011: Ars 11 at Kiasma, Helsinki, Finland 2012: dOCUMENTA (13), Kassel, Germany