Lavar Munroe: Kurova Guva

Jack Bell Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new paintings by Lavar Munroe. This will be the artist’s ninth solo show with the gallery.

During a recent trip to Zimbabwe, Munroe had the privilege of being invited to an all-night ritual ceremony, in which members of an extended family called and communicated with the spirit of a dead woman. Through traditional ‘Mbira’ music, drumming, clapping, dance, food (vegetables, meat and ‘sadza’ (mealie meal or ‘pap’), snuff (tobacco) and the consumption of a locally brewed beer known as ‘Seven Days’, members of the ceremony reconnected with the spirit of the woman, who died one year prior to the event. The ceremony is known as a Bira, and the act of the ceremony is called Kurova Guva (‘hitting the grave’).

This work explores the ritual-myth of Kurova Guva – a ceremony used to ‘call home the spirit of the dead’ among the Shona People of Zimbabwe and surrounding areas. Munroe borrows from the field of anthropology, immersing himself in the traditional Zimbabwean practice of Bira and Kurova Guva, with the intention to explore ritual, belief systems, spirituality, ancestry and communion. Through mystique and charming music and dance, it is believed that the spirit of the ancestor was lured back to the community where she resided while alive. A spirit medium was present to channel the voice of the ancestor spirits to the people in attendance. The Shona culture is based on ancestors and the ‘bira’ ceremony is primarily held because people want to receive information from the ancestors.

Munroe is interested in investigating cultural similarities between his Caribbean belief systems regarding death and afterlife and that of the Shona People of Zimbabwe. Themes of death, religion, journey, utopia, magic, love and the celebration of life are explored in this work. In Munroe’s large immersive paintings, he combines paint, collage, ceramic, glass, feathers, jewelry and other found objects to explore his subject matter. All the works are titled in the language of Shona with English subtitles. 

Munroe (b. 1982 in Nassau, Bahamas) works between Baltimore, USA and Nassau, Bahamas. Recent solo exhibitions include Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago; Walters Museum of Art, Baltimore, USA; Meadows Museum of Art, Shreveport, USA; and SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, USA. Notable group shows include The National Art Gallery of the Bahamas; Centre Pompidou Metz, France; Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, Virginia Beach, USA; Perez Art Museum Miami, USA; and Nasher Museum of Art, Durham, USA. He has also been featured in the ‘Prospect 4’ triennial, New Orleans, directed by Trevor Schoonmaker; ‘All the World’s Futures’, 56th Venice Biennale, curated by Okwui Enwezor; and the 12th Dakar biennale, curated by Simon Njami. His work is in the collections of The Baltimore Museum of Art, USA; Studio Museum of Harlem, New York; The National Art Gallery of the Bahamas, Nassau; and the MAXXI Museum, Rome, Italy. In 2023, Munroe was named a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow, awarded by Robert De Niro.