“He Who Dines with the Leopard Is Liable To Be Eaten”

摘要

Bicycle paint—thick, slow to dry, and available—proved just the right medium for working onmasonite, canvas of choice for tingatinga art. The conceptoriginated with Edward Saidi Tingatinga (1932–1972), aMozambican who lived and worked in Tanzania.Tingatinga had scant opportunity for artistic training oracademic pursuits. Growing up in a farm family, he waspreoccupied with survival, doing odd jobs to escape pover-ty. Talented nonetheless and energetic and living in EastAfrica, a region rich in artistic traditions (music, poetry,dance, sculpture), he drifted toward creative work: musicat first, then embroidery, weaving, and house paintings—atype of continuous decoration wrapped around dwellings,forcing the viewer to circle the work to experience it fully(1). In the 1960s, he started painting animals and other sin-gle motifs in a consistent and colorful but spare style