Pieter Hugo‘s museum retrospective,This must be the place, which is  touring in Europe,  is bringing him lots of attention.  Hugo was born in Cape Town in 1976 where he resides now. Trained as a photojournalist he now favors portraiture. He chooses to focus his lens on marginal communities in Africa, and the particular  community or topic is suggested to him by articles in the media that catch his attention. In part he is interested by the press ability to distort, to create “stories” .

His photographs are compelling, powerful, and disturbing. They appear to be documentary and therefore a record of the truth.  Yet, it is that very quality that Hugo makes us wonder about as we look at the photographs. The art like quality of the images, the extraordinary choice of subject matter, and the sense of a deliberate constructed scene makes us doubt the truth of what we are seeing.

Hugo monumentalizes his subjects. Very often centered on the page and photographed in a deadpan manner, the people dominate the space by their sheer presence as they stare straight back at the viewer with pride, and defiance. The above image Obechkwu Nwoye from the Nollywood series, which depict Nigerian actors portraying rogues, demons, prostitutes, illustrates Hugo’s fascination with issues of power as he describes in the following interview. The provocative, confrontational look, reddened eyes, and full lips against the whitened face of this female actor dressed in a Bundes Marine uniform, who is coolly smoking her cigarette and holding a pose á la Lauren Bacall makes it clear that power is the subtext here. Besides the inferred reference to the relationships of power during Africa’s colonialist past, it is her power that the photographer (and the viewer subsequently) has to reckon with now.

Hugo, self taught and trained as a photojournalist, is himself a force to reckon with.  It is as if he chooses projects where he tests his own measure. Keenly aware that being a tall white man will always set him aside in Africa – he can never blend in or be unnoticeable – he makes his presence as he says “ the crux of his practice.”  He immerses himself in these marginal communities, aiming to convince them to work with him.  The process can be quite arduous, the people can be tough negotiators and in the case of the The Hyena and Other Men series, hanging with hyenas and monkeys can be unnerving!  Photographer and members of the community take measure of each other, and while an understanding is reached so that the photograph can be taken, the power dynamic remains and is palpable in the resulting photograph.

The retrospective look on his work has led to some criticism regarding his choice of subject matter, which has frustrated Pieter very much recently. He defends himself in this other interview with Noah Rabinowitz.

Nandipha Mntambo, born in Swaziland in 1982 and raised in South Africa, is a sculptor who has made cowhide her medium of choice.  Her choice is informed on one hand by a childhood dream where she found herself left with a pile of cowhides and on the other by her interest in science and forensics, which was her first passion before she decided to become an artist.

She makes plaster moulds of her own body and envelops them with the still malleable cowhide that she has thoroughly cleaned and cured.  The hide forms become empty floating receptacles, at once beautiful and repulsive. These hairy feminine shapes defy our notion of feminine beauty. Nandipha Mntambo remembers her early years at girl schools where there was so much focus on getting rid of body hair. With her haunting floating figures, simultaneously human and animal like , she deliberately seeks to provoke a sense of unease.  She describes her use of cowhide “as a means to subvert expected associations with corporeal presence, femininity, sexuality and vulnerability.”  The animal/human association is not new but rarely has it been so provocative. The cowhides seem to be worn as garments caught in movement. As Mntambo explains in the video, the many folds and creases were inspired by the move of the dress worn by a woman dancing the Paso Doble with her partner. Here Mntambo addresses issues of gender, which are also at the core of her work.  She has more recently expanded her work to include video and photography where she explores further associations tied to the cow iconography. Mythology plays an important part and helps position her work in a broader geographical context.

Nandipha Mntambo completed a Master of Fine Arts from the Michaelis School of Fine Arts at the University of Cape Town. She was the 2011 Standard Bank Young Artist Award winner for visual arts and she has been shown in group shows in the US, Europe, Africa, and Australia.

Interview with Nicholas Hlobo by Diane Frankel

Nicholas Hlobo cuts, tears, punctures and resews varied materials such as paper, black inner tube, satin ribbon, leather, textiles that are rich in associations and creates drawings, sculptural installations and performances where he explores issues of personal identity, such as gender, sexuality, ethnicity, origins and colonial history. As Hlobo explains in the following video, he makes the seam, which he highlights by using bright satin ribbon, central to his work by giving it metaphorical significance.  In his drawings he wants to make a mark but instead of using a pen he chooses a sharp object and makes a scar. The action is more violent and the following process of sewing is a process of mending, of repair. Sean O’Toole speaks of the seam as “ the defining metaphor of Hlobo ‘s work, grafting histories and reconciling opposites.”

Hlobo’s drawings are a visual delight: imaginative, intricate and provocative. Increasingly they are gaining a sculptural quality as threads and other materials spill out of the frame onto the wall reaching the floor. His sculptural works often made out of black inner tube with its association to industrialization and urban growth feel more aggressive and invasive yet are tempered by the yielding quality of the rubber material, the softness of the textiles and Hlobo’s general unwillingness to be fully explicit and lay things bare.

Hlobo was born in Cape Town in 1975 and belongs to the Xhosa culture. He tends to title his works in Xhosa. Asked about the reasons of his choice, he responds:

“ It opens up worlds that are closed. It challenges the notion that art making is a purely western tradition and should solely exist within the constraints of the English language.  It challenges the idea that English is the best way to communicate. Most of my work requires curiosity, to look a bit further. The visual language is universal but most work is informed by a personal way of seeing. My work speaks of my place of origin and makes reference to my South African history.”

Nicholas Hlobo is a rising international star. He was included in the 2011 Venice Biennale, was chosen in 2010 by Rolex for the Mentor and Protégé program with Anish Kapoor, and has been included in the Paris Triennale, Tate Modern, and Palazzo Grassi.

Zanele Muholi, is one of South Africa ‘s foremost artists. She sees herself as a visual activist. She addresses in her work the reality of what is to be lesbian and gay in South Africa where homosexuality is not accepted and where some cultural and social beliefs authorize the “ corrective rape” of gay women.  She captures her world, and gives visibility to black lesbians in her project Faces and Phases where she records the distinctiveness of each individual through the traditional genre of black and white portraiture.

There is an inherent bravery in her process as she and her sitters, by making themselves publicly known, put their life and livelihood at risk. Indeed, just this past April, Muholi had 20 external hard drives stolen from her flat in Vredehoek, Cape Town and since little else was taken it is fair to presume that her work was the target. That was five years of work!

In her words: “ The preservation and mapping of our histories is the only way for us black lesbians to be visible.”  ” I have seen people speaking and capturing images of lesbians on our behalf, as if we are incapable and mute… I refused to become subject matter for others and to be silenced. Many have exiled our female African bodies: by colonizers, by researchers, by men. Sarah Baartman became a spectacle for Europeans, and she died in a foreign land. She was never given a chance to speak for herself…It is for this reason that I say ‘ No, not yet another black body’”.

She was recently included in a group show Tete a Tete curated by Mickalene Thomas at Rhona Hoffman Gallery in Chicago, and in Appropriated Landscapes at the Walther Collection, New Ulm / Burlafingen. Her award-documentary Difficult Love is showing in St Petersburg and this summer Muholi will be showing a new series of over 25 portraits as part of Documenta 13 in Kassel, Germany.

I have been increasingly interested in artistic expressions that are not part of the mainstream and that reflect a different cultural experience, perspective, and history.  In great part because I get great pleasure from being in Africa, whether it be Kenya, Mali, Egypt, South Africa to name a few, I became interested in art from the continent in all its diversity of forms. While at first I studied traditional African Art during my postgraduate studies it is Africa’s contemporary art that finally captured my attention. I needed to learn more, so a few years ago I went to the art fair in Johannesburg.  While visiting one of the local galleries I ran into Diane Frankel and her husband Chuck. We hit it off wonderfully. We had three things in common: we lived in the US and shared the same two passions, Art and Africa.   Diane Frankel lives now in San Francisco but she lived in Botswana with her husband at an earlier time. In addition to being a very accomplished professional in museum management, she is very committed to promoting African contemporary artists in the USA.  Buying the art was a first step for her but it became quickly evident that more needed to be done. Indeed, these artists need more international private and public exposure. She is determined to give them a voice that will be heard at least in the USA if not beyond. As a result, she went with a team to South Africa and interviewed a selection of very talented artists, some already known internationally and some yet to be discovered.  I will be posting a selection of these interviews on my blog. So stay tuned!

This first video Introduction to Artists Interviews is an introduction to the series, a foretaste of what is to come.

The first time I saw Nnenna Okore’s work was at the Newark Museum and I found it very poetic and compelling. Hung from the ceiling, transparent strips of shredded burlap dyed with clay like color, felt tactile and earthy yet paradoxically also ethereal and majestic. That dichotomy intrigued me.  Shortly there after, I found myself in Chicago where Nnenna Okore lives and works.  I got in touch with her and scheduled a visit to her studio at North Park University where she teaches.

Nnenna Okore completed her B.A in painting in Nigeria where she was the student of El Anatsui. It was under his guidance that she refocused her studies towards sculpture, which she studied at the University of Iowa completing an MA and MFA. She is now an Assistant professor at North Park University in Chicago.

Okore recycles discarded materials and objects and transforms them into intricate sculptures. While her work highlights the wastefulness of our consumerist society I feel that it is firmly grounded in nature, in the processes of birth and decay, in other words, in life cycles whether it be a tree, an object or her own body as it ages. This awareness of life processes informs her choice of materials. During our conversation she told me that as a young child growing up in southeast Nigeria in the town of Nsukka, she would walk through the rural communities and be on the lookout for objects, either man made or from nature, in partial decay whose texture and shape intrigued her.

I wanted to learn more about her working process. Okore showed me some of her burlap pieces at first and explained how she made them.

Listen to the follow video to hear her working process.

Making art is for Okore a very physical experience. Just as she saw women in her childhood community engage in repetitive daily tasks, she weaves, sews, rolls, twists, and dyes. She responds to the nature of her chosen material whether it is burlap, plastic, paper, or clay and rope and adapts her process. She takes what comes to her and works with it. The process is organic and she speaks of “ collaborating with the material”.  When she creates a large sculptural installation she starts with a broad idea of how it is going to look but no specifics.  The context and the nature of the chosen material play as much a role in determining the end result as her intervention. She has until now very much refused to take full control. However, in one of her more recent pieces, her approach is shifting and she is imposing more structural elements and deliberately aiming for something more visceral.

Finally we walked into the back room where one of her large clay pieces was rolled up and lying on the floor against the back wall. As we unrolled it, hundreds of small rolled clay pieces woven into burlap revealed themselves. This had obviously taken Okore hours to do.  While the sculpture seemed to not have a particular shape – it looked like a  very large wall hanging-  when she showed me how she installs it, I understood the second part of her working method. It is in the installation process that many of her pieces undergo a final shaping as she gathers the material in a particular way or hangs the panels on different planes sculpting the space.