In 2023, Zimbabwean-born art historian Barnabas Ticha Muvhuti became the first recipient of the ARAK Collection Art Writing Residency in Qatar, where he got to interact with the ARAK collection of modern and contemporary African art. Abbreviated as ARAK after the collector AbdulRahman Al Khelaifi, the collection is arguably the most comprehensive collection of African art in the Middle East. The ARAK Collection features more than five thousand artworks by over three hundred fifty artists from countries south of the Sahara and is currently located in Doha.

Chronicles of the Road: Five Nations, Five Artists is the culmination of the six-month writing residency, which, among other things, afforded Muvhuti the opportunity to travel by road across five southern African countries—Botswana, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Namibia, Mozambique, and Zambia. Muvhuti opted to select five artists from regions that seldom get exposure or are included in art historical conversations on modern and contemporary art. In his own words, he “deliberately skirted over many South African artists in the collection because most of the writings on art from the SADC region focus on the country” (07).

Thus, in essence, the book tells the story of his journey to visit artists in their studios, to discover more about their living conditions, creative processes, and sources of inspiration. Nevertheless, the book also indicates that the experience was more than he had anticipated, which enriches the narrative beyond discussing artists and their creations.

The author’s description of a distressing experience traveling across the region on challenging road networks beset by immigration issues exacerbated by corruption in some of the countries he visited rivets the reader. After traveling through surrounding nations with reasonable ease, for instance, there was one point where security personnel with AK-47s took his passport and demanded COVID certificates.

Aside from the physical aspect of the journey, Muvhuti and the artists he writes about in this book are not among the most well-known in discussions of modern and contemporary African art. Therefore, his voice as a commentator seems suitable as the default voice for the crucial duty of narrating art history from a situated perspective that has frequently been overlooked.

The book highlights artists who are not featured in major international biennales, art fairs, and museums in the world’s art capitals. It therefore gives the reader the opportunity to avoid the monotonous clichés that well-known contemporary African artists, curators, researchers, and art historians are known to produce, as they mimic the vocabulary of hierarchical narratives that circulate in the global north.

In Muvhuti, the publisher has an author whose writing style about art is relatable and unpretentious, perhaps because he writes in the first person, in the past tense. But do not be fooled; Muvhuti is a rigorous academic who has worked in galleries like the AVA Gallery in Cape Town, the Centre for African Studies Gallery at the University of Cape Town (UCT), the Centre for Curating the Archive (UCT), and the Curatorial Department at the Zeitz MOCAA Museum, to mention a few. He holds a PhD in Art History from Rhodes University in South Africa and is currently a Nancy and Robert J. Carney Postdoctoral Fellow in Art History at Rice University in the United States. This background is likely the reason he writes with a flowing, albeit often academically rigorous, style.

Nevertheless, he subtly pairs theoretical insights with relatable anecdotes about the art or artist, almost like he is writing for a general audience, which perhaps he is. His approach, therefore, privileges clarity over academic jargon and centers on his experience of the art and the artists he encounters during his journey.

In addition to being an exploration of the interconnectedness and complexity of these countries’ cultures, the book also shows that Muvhuti’s travels to Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, and Zambia for his preliminary research were an adventure of discovery.

Muvhuti breaks his journey down into five sections, aptly named after the artists whose studios he visited, starting with Namibian painter Rudolf Seibeb, in section one, who works from the Okahanja craft market. Muvhuti describes Seibeb’s work as being reminiscent of Jean-Michel Basquiat, and addressing local issues like the Fishrot scandal, where Icelandic fishing corporation Samherji bribed Namibian officials for trawling rights to the tune of fifteen million dollars.

In section two, the author meets with Thebe Phetogo, whom he states challenged the mainstream narrative of Botswana’s unity and peacefulness based on the policy of the British Protectorate. Phetogo, he argues, urges the Batswana people to revisit precolonial myths, like Matsieng, a Heritage Site, and dispel consecrated mythology, reimagining the place as the cradle of humanity.

In section three, the author encounters Zambian artist Victor Kalinosi Mutale, whose idiosyncratic work, known as Kalidrawings, is inspired by the San peoples, but is clearly of his own invention. According to Muvhuti, Mutale’s work highlights the importance of recognizing the San language in the region.

In section four, the author introduces us to Nelly Guambe in Mozambique, where he would learn about her work after a motorbike-related accident. Guambe’s art is reminiscent of Mexican feminist and Surrealist painter Frida Kahlo, but her portraits of women she meets in Maputo’s streets can be interpreted as masks, possibly referencing rejection or estrangement.

In section five, the final segment, Muvhuti showcases the works of Lutanda Zemba Luzamba, a transnational artist from the DRC who studied in Zambia and is based in Cape Town. He mainly depicts the La Sape tradition, centered on Kinshasa and Brazzaville. The French-inspired tradition involves men dressing in the latest styles, wearing expensive French labels like Givenchy, Balmain, Christian Dior, Pierre Cardin, and Louis Vuitton.

You almost forget that the book includes significant details about the intricate, linked cultures of the many regions because it reads like an art-infused travelogue. In addition, there are still remnants of colonialism, like displaced peoples and a divided population, as the author observes.

However, after carefully analyzing the works of a few selected artists, Muvhuti’s personal interactions with artists and thrilling cross-border experiences are made even more memorable by his own harrowing encounters. These realizations then caused him to question if, from an analytical standpoint, these figurative and abstract works ought to be kept apart, much like the borders that separate people who are supposed to be one.

Numerous intriguing facts are scattered throughout Chronicles of the Road: Five Nations, Five Artists, which is rigorous enough to be acknowledged in scholarly settings. A charming summary of the state of contemporary art in an off-the-beaten-path region of the global art world, as implied by the title.