UNMASKED: EXHIBITION IN CHELSEA CELEBRATING AXIS GALLERY 20 YEAR OF SHOWING AFRICAN ART

Seminal Cape Town artist, Sue Williamson’s photographic installation, Joyce Seipei – as a mother- Winnie Madikiza Mandela, 1988 at Axis Gallery which addresses the South Africa Truth And Reconciliation hearings is so timely. While it relates to the court appearance of Winnie Mandela and reveals the truth behind the atrocities during Apartheid it points to how facts and statements can be manipulated: Viewers can shuttle fragments of statements within the work, reordering truth and shifting appearance and interpretation. Sound familiar?

Her work is part of a larger exhibition Unmasked curated by Gary Van Wyck and Lisa Brittan for the Axis gallery in New York in honor of the 20^th anniversary of their gallery that includes the work of Theo Eshetu, Jebila Okongwu, Graeme Williams, Sue Williamson and Herve Youmbi.

True to their original stated mission of highlighting the tensions between ‘traditional’ and ‘contemporary’ African art in Western minds they have put together a group of works, largely conceptual, that challenges the West misconception of non western art, its idea of authenticity in African art, and reveals underlying social and economic power dynamics between Third and First World. As if this was not quite ambitious enough they top it all by debunking the idea of the American Dream. Graeme Williams’s triptych, which incorporates photographs of urban and suburban environments with collaged ‘posters’ that reference an idealization of America that excludes its black population, reveal the bleak physical reality of the American dream.

Probing the underbelly beneath surfaces appearances the exhibition includes three stills from Theo Eshetu’s Atlas Fractured, a multimedia installation shown at Documenta 4, that layers images from diverse cultures and periods. Portraits of living people were projected over ethnographic masks. The layered faces are set against a black background in the photographs and gain in intensity. While quite beautiful they are disturbing. Theo Eshetu remarks: “The now is grotesque, uncertain, and burdened by the ghosts of the past. Yet there is also beauty in the present, a vitality for new justices, a search for new harmonies, and, contrary to facile political tendencies, acceptance and desire for hybrid states hitherto unknown.”

Expanding on this idea of the hybrid, the masks included in Herve Youmbi’s multi-media installations entitled Visages des Masques/Faces of Masks combine diverse cultural sources. They are a hoot: One of them includes the Halloween Ghostface mask from Wes Craven’movie Scream. They debunk the Western popular notion of clear stylistic distinction in the African masking tradition or tribal styles.

I was particularly intrigued by this body of work. Youmbi initially in 2013 commissioned Bamileke craftspeople from Cameroon to create a Ku’ngang mask incorporating the face of a Dogon mask from Mali. The mask was later activated during a ritual ceremony and thereby accepted by the Bamileke leaders. Youmbi filmed the ceremony and the video was included in the original installation. I had already encountered the notion of hybridity in the Yoruba masking tradition when I had done s research on the subject years ago during my post graduate studies. Indeed Yoruba masking has shown itself to be open to innovation and able to integrate elements from Islam, Christianity and the Western world, thereby keeping it relevant to the new generations. The Gelede mask includes modern day motifs such as motorcycles, planes, and other mass-produced items such a sneakers, Halloween latex masks. Youmbi expands on this phenomenon more recently with these masks that incorporate, or should I say, appropriate western elements.

SOUTH AFRICAN ART IN NEW YORK

With Performa 2017 with its focus on South Africa in full swing in New York City this week there is much African art to see and not to miss. No need here to pay for a 14 hours plane fare to Joburg to discover the works of some of the most creative talents in Africa. All have an international presence and have been shown extensively in Biennales, museums and fairs.

Photographer and visual activist Zanele Muholi who is best known internationally for her ongoing portrait series Faces and Phases which captures LGBTQI life in her native South Africa will be participating in a series of conversations with other artists and writers. She will be exhibiting publicly her photographs, perform with local and Africa based musicians and organizing with black LBGTQI communities throughout the burroughs.

Multidisciplinary artist Mohau Modisakeng (b.1986, Soweto, South Africa) is choreographing a street procession called ZION of 20 dancers in Harlem Saturday November 11 from 1 to 7pm. As Performa describes it, each dancer will be carrying “an array of personal possessions, various pieces of baggage, and furniture via an exodus choreography of walking, running, jumping, falling, leaning, and sitting – enacting the blistered legacy of segregation, violent displacement, colonialism and apartheid coursing through South African history.” Modisakeng was one of two artists shown at the South Africa Pavilion at the 2017 Venice Biennale where he showed his video Passage. More recently, and further expanding on the same theme of displacement he put together a striking performance in Cape Town that I was lucky to see during my visit to Cape Town. While Modisakeng privileges a poetic aesthetic in all his works there is no equivocation as to the intensity and urgency of his message.

Nicholas Hlobo (b. 1975, Cape Town) whose studio I was privileged to see in Cape Town is presenting umBhovuzo: The Parable of the Sower at the Harlem Parish on November 18 and 19. He is challenging expectations of sexuality and identity within Xhosa culture. Here men clad in dresses and working with cotton and silk at sewing machines point to issues of domesticity, labor and globalization. It is useful to know that much of Hlobo’s work involves fabric and materials such as leather, silk, ribbon and sowing and all of it is done by him and male attendants.

Tracey Rose, (b.1974, Durban, South Africa) a seminal figure in post-apartheid contemporary art, has her video work in the AFROGLOSSIA Film Program at 32 2^nd Avenue.

Four short films created by the NEST COLLECTIVE from Nairobi are also included in AFROGLOSSIA. I met up with Jim Chuchu and Dr. Njoki Ngumi of The Nest Collective when I was recently in Nairobi. Jim is a visual artist (photographer and video artist) and Njoki a medical doctor who in 2012 joined together with 10 other like-minded individuals to create new content and support creative endeavors. They explore through film, music, fashion, the visual arts and literature modern identities, re-imagine the past and re-mix their futures. Their first important ground breaking production was a critically- acclaimed queer anthology film Stories of Our Lives which was screened in over 80 countries. However it is banned in Kenya. They are presenting this time a new production: We Need Prayers : This One Went to Market which questions the ways the global art industry frames African art.

They also recently came out with a new fashion book ‘Not African Enough’ that challenges the narrow expectations of what African design looks like. I am impressed by the quality of the work and I like their forward focus. See you there on Sunday, November 12 th at 6:45 pm at 32 Second Avenue !

Unfortunately I was not able to see William Kentridge’s performance Ursonate . It got booked pretty quickly. The good news: he is coming back in 2018 at the Park Armory.

On the other hand I did get to see South African artist Kemang Wa Lehure’s production I cut my skin to liberate the splinter with theater director Chuma Sopotela at the Connelly theater last weekend.

Wa Lehulere’s installation not only claimed the stage but also spilled over into most of the theater.   It became quickly clear that the order of things was being inverted. On the stage, ceramic dogs were positioned amidst musical stands and mysterious signaling hands and faced the parterre where Wa Lehulere had arranged his sculptural instruments and where the sound performance was going to take place. I recognized the wooden and metal sculptures that I had seen just a month before in his studio in Cape Town. There was the wooden pyramid with its glass tube that functioned as a traveling tunnel for messages in glass bottles; the bird houses which reference the first female black artist in South Africa, the wooden school desk that point to Wa Lehulere’s school years when he chose to not speak Afrikaan: This was then his first act of protest against apartheid.

And again the ceramic dogs which appear in most of his installations these days. During the visit at the studio he explained their link to mythology: if you took sleep from a dog’s eye you could see into the spiritual world. They are for him metaphors for the past, for memory. In addition those kinds of dogs are attack and guard dogs in South Africa. By including them he points again to what happened during apartheid. Black people were forbidden to own dogs and if they did, the dogs were killed.

To the sound of drums, of make-do strings and wind instruments, Wa Lehulere and his female protagonist seemed to be enacting a story as well as engaging in child play. He pushed a wheel with two crutches just like I had just seen a little boy play in Kenya out in the desert town of Merti.

I hope you take advantage of this wonderful opportunity at our doorstep if you live in New York City.

I love that even though I now spend my summers in Provence in an adorable house in the foothills of the Luberon I don’t have far to go to see good African art. The Photography Festival at Arles – Les Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie d’Arles – is an hour away and this year South African artist and activist Zanele Muholi curated with artist Walead Beshty the exhibition Systemically open?New Forms of Production of the Contemporary Image, which among other artists showed her latest body of work Somnyama Ngonyama (Hail, the Dark Lioness).

I encountered Muholi’s work in 2009 in South Africa and met her in Bamako during the Rencontres de Bamako. She was just starting to get known internationally for her work on the LBGTI community. Already an activist she was speaking up for this community that was greatly suffering from hate crimes in South Africa and beyond. At the time she was getting attention for a body of work, the Miss D’vine series. She photographed black queens and drag artists set in an “African” landscape.

“The photos examine how gender and queer identities and bodies are shaped by – but also resist, through their very existence – dominant notions of what it means to be black and feminine”. (Zanele Muholi, 2009). This series was visually alluring and conceptually provocative. I fancied more her photographs of gay women in their own homes. I liked how she captured these quiet private moments with tenderness bringing the viewer into their private world.

Simultaneously she was already working on a long term project, the series Faces and Phases where she documents members of the South African LBGTI community. The work is very different formally. Color had been reduced to black and white. All theatricality had been removed in favor of a formal and deadpan approach. Intent on giving visibility to a community that has suffered from being invisible her focus is unwavering as she imbues the women with a pregnant dignity. This series has received much international attention and praise.

I was familiar with the body of work being shown at Arles– a work of self-portraiture – but I was not expecting the huge scale of the display. Installed in one of the recently renovated Ateliers of the Luma space Zanele had had some of her photographs printed the size of the huge walls. Wow! There was no way of avoiding her unflinching gaze.

In this new body of work she turns the camera on herself. The work is essentially autobiographical. Born in Umlazi, Durban to a working class family (her South African mother was South African domestic worker and her Malawian father a day laborer) Muholi was at first a hairstylist and factory worker before embracing fully her artistic career. There is a theatrical aspect to the work as she uses props, such as materials she created herself and found objects, clothe pins, scouring pads, various hats, wigs to name a few which reference her experiences. She plays with the color of her skin, most of the time darkening it, “reclaiming her darkness” she says.

Unlike Samuel Fosso or Cindy Sherman she is not pretending to be someone else. On the contrary she is making herself vulnerable by exposing aspects of herself and her history, which has been shaped by South African political, cultural and social history. It is as if she is play acting in front of the mirror like I remember doing when I was younger but with great vulnerability as she exposes herself to herself, and to all of us. The result is a multifaceted Zanele, increasingly hard to pinpoint and because of that, that much more fascinating and endearing. All the while she is forcing her audience, us, to confront our own discomfort with some of her uncompromising exposure. Read here a description of her process.

“I have embarked on a discomforting self-defining journey, rethinking the culture of the selfie, self-representation and self-expression. I have investigated how photographers can question and deal with the body as material or mix it with objects to further aestheticise black personhood. My abiding concern is, can photographers look at themselves and question whom they are in society and the positions that they hold, and maintain these roles thereafter? ( Somnyama Ngonyama, Zanele Muholi, Stevenson).

Zanele Muholi was a little tardy for a scheduled talk during the opening week of the Arles festival. She eventually appeared, slowly moving towards the panel like a queen . She had an amazing hairdo almost 8 inches high above her head. I just loved that hard won self-assurance. What a great example!

Wim Botha’s fragmentary spectacle: An engrossing juxtaposition of materials.

From my summer house in the Luberon in Provence, South of France it takes me barely 20 minutes to get to the Fondation Blachere in Apt, which is devoted to fostering contemporary creativity in Africa and to promoting its artists. Situated in the industrial suburb of Apt, a small town in the south of France, the foundation was started by industrialist Jean-Paul Blachere and sits right next to his lighting factory ( Blachere Illumination). The foundation has a top notch exhibition program, offers a series of artist residencies for African artists and has a really cool store (la Boutik) selling creations of African craftsmen and designers from several African countries, and an art book store.   Two years ago I saw a wonderful exhibition of Yinka Shonibare’s sculptural work . This year an installation by South African artist Wim Botha titled Still Life with Water was on display. I had seen Botha’s unique and disturbing busts carved out of leather bound books in the Venice Biennale but besides that I did not know much about his work.

The title did not prepare me for the sculptural spectacle that I encountered. First two fierce heads of a lion and lioness made out of plywood, poised to attack, greeted me at the entrance. There was an undeniable sense of energy and that same energy pulsated throughout the main part of the installation in the next room. It was a stunning beginning though it only partially prepared me for what was to come.

In the main room winged creatures made out of Styrofoam captured in flight and saddled with fluorescent light tubes appeared to be circling around a nest-like cluster of more fluorescent light tubes and reflective sky blue panels.

These panels, an obvious reference to the sky, and their reflection allowed for an amplified effect, a sense of multiple perspectives and an ever-expanding spectacle.

Sculpted busts, some made out of books and some made out of wood, framed this whirlwind of activity, containing and grounding the scene into some kind of art historical continuum by their inherent reference to traditions of woodworking, portraiture and knowledge. No one style dominated; figuration and abstraction coexisted and enhanced each other. The primacy and diversity of materials and their particular physical properties and their associations, either art historical or cultural, was at the core of the experience.

I was left pondering the whole, which I found hard to grasp or take in all at once as the fragmentary character of many of the elements made it almost impossible to complete a narrative or reach a singular cohesive explanation. I came to accept that there was no easy interpretation, and certainly not a singular one. Because of the presence of the lions at the entrance I thought of nature, birds, sky, nature – I was also about to go off into the African bush for a 7 day hike so my mind was wired towards nature ! – yet the presence of the carved busts, with their cultural and art historical references did not quite fit with this narrative. For an interesting analysis of the exhibition it is good to read Benjamin Sutton’s review of the exhibition where he makes reference to the Renaissance tradition of painted ceilings which possibly play a role in Botha’s aesthetic.

Listening to Wim Botha speaking in an accompanying video sheds some light. After having a mostly conceptual focus in his earlier works he now claims to be guided almost solely by aesthetic concerns and aims to get away from meaning. “Balance, form, line, textures,” are at the core of his artistic practice. The process is what captivates him and dictates the work. He wishes to leave the work open, to not shackle it to an over-riding message. Yet it is clear Botha’s work through its use of material is in continual dialogue with tradition and knowledge, yet it is firmly anchored in the present, mostly through the overwhelming feeling of fragmentary turmoil. The installation will travel to the Stevenson Gallery in Cape Town this fall.

Drawing Waves

The Drawing Center in Soho, New York is showing Robin Rhode new photographic sequence entitled, Breaking Waves, 2014-15,  which whimsically depicts a young boy surfing in the sea.

This October was the second year that African art was making a showing in London during Frieze week and it was doubling in size! Named 1:54; 1 for one continent, 54 for 54 countries, the title was a reminder that Africa is not one country but a multitude of countries with distinct traditions, styles, and histories. Founded by Touria El Glaoui  the fair was also the impetus for a critical dialogue organized around a series of lectures and panels curated by artistic director Koyo Kouoh.

While I had been in London just a couple of weeks before I could not miss the event. I made a quick jump to London leaving late Tuesday night after attending suitcase and all a fundraising for a cause dear to a friend of mine. I caught miraculously a few hours of sleep on the flight over and after dropping off my bags at a friend’s house rushed first to the Frieze art fair to see the work of Serge Alain Nitegeka, a Burundi artist at Stevenson Gallery. I had put one of his recent panels on hold – I don’t buy from an image on the Internet – and needed to make a decision. An established South African gallery, Stevenson shows its artists at global contemporary art fairs eschewing the African tag.

The booth looked fabulous with Barthelemy Toguo’s large paintings hanging on the walls and works on paper displayed on easels.

I found Serge Nitegeka’s two recent panels in the back room, out of sight. I was immediately struck by their powerful visual impact. Serge paints on large wooden boxes. Abstract geometry here is imbued with potent psychological power.

In one of the panels Serge has chosen to eliminate any illusion of space: heavy black bands delineate a square slightly off center pressed up against the picture plane. There is nothing serene about this square: shards break up its interior periphery; I even have a visceral reaction and experience a sense of oppression and aggression.

In total contrast, the black lines on the other panel open up to a fictive space allowing for a sense of relief and perhaps hope. The contrast between the two pieces is striking and highlights Serge’s increasing ability to manipulate competently geometry for his own psychological and pictorial purposes.

Despite the fact that I loved the piece I couldn’t figure out where I would put in my apartment so I decided to be reasonable, urged along by my boyfriend who keeps on trying to curtail my art buying. So I very reluctantly let it go, not sure that I was making the right decision. In fact I later chided myself for not following my inclination. Indeed Serge is a very promising artist and he is having a show at Marianne Boesky in New York opening mid-November.

After a quick walk through Frieze I headed off to the Somerset House where 1:54 was housed. Somerset House is a U shaped neoclassical structure built around a courtyard and since the fair has grown from the previous year it now occupies two wings of the building. I confess it took me two visits to realize that half of the galleries were located in another wing! The lack of information given at the front desk was in part the culprit, but my fried brain resulting from the frantic pace of my short visit to London did not help!

I liked ambling on my own through the galleries, taking time to discover, explore, and understand new and different perspectives. There was a healthy mix of art coming from West Africa, North and Sub-Sahara Africa; a diversity of style; plenty of painting, photography, and sculpture. Some rooms were better curated than others, and overall there was enough good work to feel satisfied with the visit.

I was quite pleased to see Abdoulaye Konaté’s wall hangings in the foyer of the fair and later on during my visit at the booth of Primo Marella Gallery of Milan.

Konaté, an artist from Mali started as a painter and later turned to using textiles native to Mali to create large wall hanging where he developed a unique aesthetic combining a local sensibility for symbolism and color and craft with a global political message. I had visited his studio a couple of years back and felt his work had a striking grandeur.

Sammy Baloji’s photograph from his series “Mémoire”was particularly appealing. I was familiar with Baloji’s work and this image was one of his best ones. Born in Lubumbashi, in the DRC he has created photomontages where past and present collide. Here colonial figures, both indigenous and European, are layered over the contemporary architecture of a local mining town in the Kantanga province. Past and present coalesce to expose the underlying economic alliances that benefited colonial masters and a small minority of privileged indigenous people. The juxtaposition here was particularly successful which I don’t think is always the case in his work.

I stopped to ask questions about Nicene Kossentin’s photographic work (Boujmai Fatouma) at the Selma Feriani Gallery. Kossentin has set ghost-like portraits of her late mother and grandmothers against the backdrop of a dried salt lake found in her native city of Sfax, Tunisia. A line of calligraphy delineates the horizon. Because the wordage has no beginning and end it points to her historical cultural lineage. Kossentin’s work is about memory, about remembering, and mostly about the fear of not remembering. She points to the role of women in her culture as “passeuses de mémoire”- a beautiful phrase – or couriers of memory. Long a tradition in her culture it is also the role of women in many other cultures in the rest of Africa where grandmothers are the storytellers and keepers of the oral history of their community. The images were particularly haunting and poignant.

From there I wandered towards the Galerie Mikael Andersen where I had the opportunity to see the lovely drawings of the late Ernest Mancoba, who while perhaps considered the most important modern artist from South Africa is barely known internationally and deserves a new critical look. His drawings – often stylized figures – done during the 60’s and 70’s and inspired by African ritual woodcuts oscillate between abstraction and figuration and convey a unique energy. Having emigrated to Europe at the time of WWII Mancoba was part of the CoBrA movement in Europe before he returned to South Africa. Always present in his mind was his wish to bring his deep understanding of African culture to European art.

I was seduced by the work of Armand Boua at Jack Bell gallery. Using tar and acrylic on found cardboard boxes Boua captures the street kids from his hometown Abidjan.In the process of layering paint and removing it he creates scenes imbued with light and poetry despite the pathos of the subject. I absolutely loved the work though I was not sure the price was justified. Fortunately by then I had reached a state of  temporary wisdom and this time knew to walk away…no matter how much I was tempted.

Across the corridor The October Gallery had an eclectic selection that needed time to take in. I was struck by Homeless Hungry Homo, a sculpture lying on a low stand in the middle of the gallery by the Nigerian artist Adejoke Tugbiyele.

I found myself aware of some of my inner prejudices, which were fortunately being challenged. I was at once intrigued and slightly puzzled and even a bit put off at first. The supine figure disturbed me. It felt unapologetically African and so a part of me – the part shaped by my Western training – hesitated to give it its due. Yet it was so bold and provocative: strangely human despite it being a thing made out of yarn, palm stems, metal, African mask, and dollar bills. Would this appeal to a Western audience? I don’t know but I liked the boldness and the artist commitment to her particular aesthetic.

I hope you notice the variety of styles and aesthetics exemplified by all these artists, which makes it all very fascinating.

I moved on then to the ArtLabAfrica Gallery and soon found myself engaged in a long conversation with James Muriuki and Miriam Syowia Kyambi about their recent seven months residency in Kilifi, Kenya at a science research center as part of the Art in Global Health Residency.

I loved looking at the photographic work coming out of this residency, many of the photographs capturing the local architecture of Kenyan small towns. As you know I have a fondness for Kenya so I was just thrilled.

Great was my surprise when I saw hanging on the wall the work of Kenyan artist Peterson Kamwathi. A couple of years ago I had tracked him down on the outskirts of Nairobi. After he had very kindly offered and then made me tea we had spend two magical hours looking and talking about his work. I was so happy to hear that he was experiencing good success and had just had been commissioned to do a public project in Nairobi.

In the center of the booth were two sculptures by conceptual artist Gor Soudan. Using protest wire – a tangled black mass of wire he salvages from car tires burnt during civil unrests in Nairobi – he reworks them into beautiful, wispy, poetic sculptures, which look like drawings in space.

Photography was well represented with works by Francois-Xavier Gbre, Leonce R.Agbodjelou, Edson Chagas and Frank Marshall. I noticed an interesting trend: two photographers that were getting a lot of attention had originally trained and worked as fashion photographers. Lakin Ogunbanwo and Omar Victor Diop both work with a keen interest in form, color, lighting and design and turn to the inclusion of the self as a mean to address their personal and artistic concerns.

An erotic and subversive undertone can be felt in Lakin Ogunbanwo’s beautiful compositions (shown at Whatiftheworld) where he eludes the gaze of the viewer while highlighting the centrality of his presence in a serial layering of his figure.

Omar Victor Diop at Magnin-A in his project Diaspora is the main protagonist as he adopts the dress and pose of African historical figures having lived in Europe, which he combines with more contemporary props pointing to contemporary life.

Another photographer who has a fashion background is Hassan Hajjaj. His work was unfortunately squeezed between two booths but his take on the “Odalisque”, a video piece, was just wonderful: full of wit and incisive criticism. See upcoming post on his work.

Athi-Patra Ruga’s camp tapestry peppered with eclectic multicultural references was an explosive reminder of the hybrid construct of cultural identity. I was mesmerized by his unabashed combination of gaudy motifs, traditional stitching, and profusion of fake flowers that made the tapestry a textural and colorful delight. He was just included in the Phaidon book “Younger Than Jesus” directory of the 500 of the world’s best artists under the age of 33. It was a fitting and uplifting end to my perusing through the fairs.

I enjoyed the more low key tempo of 1:54, the absence of jaded dealers and collectors, and the opportunity to see more work from North Africa. The big fairs are already so big and to my view a bit of a chore, therefore I like the smaller venue.

I got to see some African galleries that I would not normally see mixed with Western galleries which made for a good mix.  For instance Anne de Villepoix, a mid –size gallery in Paris who has a few African artists in her roster liked the low-key atmosphere which reminds her of how fairs where years back.

Is it ideal to set African art apart? Perhaps not as it risks reenforcing the colonial idea of the African being seen as the other. However, one thing I have learned from all my times going to various African countries,  there are no simple solutions. This one seems the right one for now. It is an unique opportunity for many of these artists to be seen by a greater audience. More importantly it gives them a platform where they can explore keeping an authentic voice while contending with a global art world which demands them to fine tune their  skills, incorporate contemporary strategies, and hone their message to make it more effectively convincing .

PS: No one was walking around talking about being afraid of catching Ebola at the fair. That was a different reaction from the hysteria that I was about to witness at the airport when I landed at JFK! All customs officers were wearing masks and plastic gloves. Go figure….

We landed in Joburg at the crack of dawn after a 15 hours flight, which while long was stress free! Listening to some of the other people we met up with at Joburg who had taken at least 24 hours to get there our journey looked like a piece of cake! This was the first time I was taking my boyfriend to Joburg so I was making sure to limit the hurdles. We met up with Diane and Chuck Frankel who were there with members of the Getty photography council. Diane was introducing them to the Joburg art scene. It is good to know that the Getty is interested in exploring the work of photographers from the African continent!

The next few days were filled with art visits much of them organized by Diane.

While Joburg can seem miles away from everything some of the main galleries there are showing artists that have a worldwide presence.

We stopped at the Goodman gallery on Jan Smutts avenue to see Liza Lou’s beautiful new exhibition called Canvas. Liza Lou is a California American artist who became known for her beaded life –size replica of a suburban kitchen.  She subsequently moved to Durban, South Africa where she is producing a body of work, which is more minimalist. The surface of the “painting” is the subject of this exhibition.  Liza’s works are made solely out of beads. Local Zulu women weave bands of identical off-white beads that Liza provides for them. She then sows the bands together in a unique pattern that integrates the ruptures, pockmarks, and streaks that stain the surface of the bands and are the marks of the weavers’ lives. The resulting “canvases” inspire a quiet and meditative response much like Rothko’s dark canvases in the Rothko chapel. To fully take the effect in I had to sit down and let my eyes slowly adjust so that I could became aware of all the nuances of color in these monochromatic works. Indeed her beaded canvases call for slowing down, taking in the moment, letting things unfold gradually, and challenges one to sit with oneself. There is no big bang or wow. The beauty lies in the holding of the image and gradually feeling whole.

Her more recent work shows her loosening up her grip and letting in a tiny bit of mayhem in her structured design. I loved that piece too.

That evening David Brodie gave us a tour of Serge Alain Nitegeka show at Michael Stevenson gallery. At the entrance of the gallery I ran into Nandipha Mntambo looking FABULOUS. Wearing her hair long and braided she had totally changed style and was presenting a more feminine version of herself. Wearing muted make up, sheathed in a slim-fitting dress and perched on high heels she exuded happiness and confidence. She was just as thrilled to see Diane and I. We had not seen her since our time together last fall in San Francisco.

We then all made our way through the first room of the gallery, which had been reduced to a narrow pathway. Nitegeka had carved out the space with big black sheets of cardboard restricting our space and movements, in other words constricting our freedom. I felt constricted and aware of trying to keep my balance as I walked through the narrow path. Nitegeka considers himself a sculptor of objects and of space and is well known for his installations. However this particular exhibition Into the Black included mostly of painted wooden panels.  It was clear from the geometric forms painted on crates that space was a major concern.

The most powerful piece to me here was the triptych in the second room. Broad black diagonals defined the surface plane while also obstructing our view of the fictive space in the “painting”.  The black bands become obstacles in the path of the indeterminate figures trying to make their way through a fictive space behind the bands. I felt a sense of constrictive power as well as a feeling of struggle. At once abstract and figurative the triptych conveys in formal terms the anguish and struggle of the migrant.

A tall, handsome and elegantly dressed young man, Serge spoke to us about his work. While his concerns here are the exploration of formal and philosophical blackness he speaks also of his experience of escaping the terrible situation in Burundi and moving to South Africa and of the challenges he encountered along the way. I did not like everything I saw but the caliber of the work and his ability to convey through formal means his experience without being literal is impressive and very effective. He also shows at Marianne Boesky in the USA.

Later that evening during a casual dinner at a local haunt I had a wonderful talk with a very smart and talented young artist who works mostly with photography: Mame-Diarra Niang. I checked out her work, which is being shown this month at the Stevenson gallery in Cape Town and I liked it. Creating mostly urban landscapes Mame is expressing her dismay at how much certain places she has known in Africa while she was growing up are losing their specificity and flavor and becoming sterile.  Her views become abstract spaces and instead of transporting us into another world we are lead to look back into oneself.

On the photography front, my main focus, we met Jodi Bieber who came to talk to us at the Goodman Gallery about her work and in particular her latest series: Real Beauty and Quiet and Soweto. Real Beauty and Quiet are series of portraits of anonymous people who agreed to pose in their homes. In Real Beauty the women pose in their underwear and chose the setting. Here Jodi is challenging the media’s idea of what is real beauty by capturing on camera the pride of these multi shaped women from all age groups.

In Quiet she aims to give us an alternative view of masculinity: the men she photographs are posing in moments of vulnerability.

In Soweto she captures on her camera how life really is in the township of Soweto; not the image of a poor community riddled with violence but of a town where people from all walks of life, rich and poor, live, work and play well beyond the township’s history of struggle with apartheid. I could remember my first time in Soweto arriving with my own preconceived notion and being surprised to see the variety of housing ranging from rudimentary housing to spacious mansions with gardens.

Diane arranged for us to make a quick stop at the fashion designer Marianne Fassler’s home and shop. Marianne is a hoot and her very personal collection of South African art is an expression of her temperament: eclectic, colorful, fun, adventurous. She collects with her husband but he acknowledges that he mostly differs to her taste, as she is the creative one!

No minimalism here; instead there is a focus on crafts, imagination, color, and shapes. We left with big smiles on our faces. Her fun loving, inclusive and generous nature was such a booster!

This was a lead up to the Joburg fair, which was a bustling affair, at least the night of the opening. It was good to see a lot of youngish South African looking to buy art and being quite involved with the dealers. Portia Zvavahera was the star of the fair having won the 2014 FNB Art Prize. A young painter from Zimbabwe Portia lives in Harare and is a mother and a wife when she is not painting. Her expressionist canvases which combine textile-like printed patterns with an almost child like way of painting, are inspired by her dreams and speak of her experience with marriage, childbirth and parental love.

Her figures brightly clad are set against richly colored backgrounds. They consistently adopt postures that convey deep emotion tempered in a way by the child like way of painting, which allows us some detachment to what is being depicted and witnessed. Portia clearly loves color and I very much like the way she incorporates those decorative patterns with the otherwise loose wash.

William Kentridge was signing his latest book – 2^nd Hand Reading – at the Goodman gallery.  Each typed page has one of his many drawings printed on it. I bought a copy since I am into buying artist books these days! Much cheaper than buying an original of each!

While waiting for my book I lingered in front of Kuzanai Chiurai’s photograph called Moyo. An absolutely stunning picture it brings up in me a mix of emotion. I felt mesmerized by the deep sorrow and accusation inherent in the young woman’s gaze and deeply moved, yet the bleeding corpse made me at the same time slightly recoil. A beautiful young woman holds the bleeding body of a young man. The formal composition references the classical composition of the Pieta but here the scene is set in a lush jungle and lit by an artificial light that suggest divine lighting. This image comes from his film Moyo and makes reference to the public acts of violence and in particular the Marikana strike: the wildcat strike in the South African Leonmin mine which resulted in many workers death. The title means Air and the image captures the moment in death when the air or spirit leaves the body. He incites the viewers to mourn.

Chiurai, born and raised in Zimbabwe experienced first hand the violence of the Mugabe regime. Now living and working in South Africa his mixed media work tackles the political and social issues that concern his world.

I love this other image, which is part of a body of work called The State of the Nation. In highly theatrical and provocative images he critiques the corrupt ways African revolutionary leaders have dealt with their newfound powers. Intent in sparking a conversation with the African youth in their context he creates images that are dark and brash in their imagery and humor.

Fighting my way through the crowd – it certainly was not like that two years ago – I stopped at Brundyn + Gonsales to look at Mohau Modisakeng’s new photographs that had been part of a large installation for his debut solo exhibition “Ditaola” at Brundyn + . As with his earlier work, Mohau’s images refer to some mysterious ritual whereby he addresses his concerns with South Africa’s tortuous and violent history and current times while delving into personal memories. In this particular instance it is the memory of his mother recounting her dreams. Mohau has a penchant for the symbolic and the theatrical and in these photographs his body becomes the means by which he constructs narratives that address his personal and political concerns.

Set against a green background wearing a pleated animal skin kilt, he stands like an archetypal warrior holding a gun, a symbol of violence and a dove, symbol of peace. The dove departs spraying white dust and returns in other images. Is this a meditation on the precariousness of peace? I feel I am witnessing a mysterious ritual to which I have only small inklings.

Totally different in tenor and style, I liked also at Brundyn +, Jody Paulsen’s bright and colorful wall hangings and photographs. Paulsen is fascinated with fashion and commodity culture ie: branding, clichés in advertising. He is able to mix quite effectively African and European influences in his eclectic vision. I particularly liked his photographs of figures against patterned fabrics. While they were not portraits they certainly referenced the traditional African Studio portrait now turned into a pop version of itself and hollowed out of its original intent.

I was in the mood for fun obviously that day since my eye and mind got mesmerized with Cristina de Middel installation “The Afronauts”. A body of work that includes photographs, drawings, and sculptures, The Afronauts mixes facts and fiction to tell the story of Zambia’s 1964 space project. Cristina is a half -Spanish, half-Belgian photojournalist turned artist who got inspired by the optimism of this story. It is a refreshing antidote to the troubled image one has of the continent. Following Zambia’s independence in 1964, Edward Makuka Nkoloso, the founder and sole member of Zambia’s National Academy of Science, Space Research initiated a mission to send the first African astronauts to Mars. It came to nothing but I love that Nkoloso believed that he could and even tried! I love this capacity to dream and hope!

I had seen part of the work in Arles the previous year and was thrilled to see it again. This time I talked to the artist, and bought her book.

Walking to the bar to get my glass of rose wine I stopped in shock ( at first) when I saw two sets of couples, naked – two men and two women – each couple holding a mirror between them and moving around the mirror as if in some kind of contest. This dance Ritual Resist was choreographed by artist Kendell Geers.  ” A man and a woman engaged in the martial art of vanity. Neither can see the other and both struggle against their own reflection in a square mirror.” K-G. Why shock? Mainly because I was not expecting this. Many of us obviously were captivated abut some reason no pictures were taken or at least posted anywhere!

I was charmed by Namsa Leuba’s fashion photographs exhibited by LagosPhoto ( part of the festival).  Bright, cheeky, witty and technically brilliant her images focus on African identity perceived by Western eyes. She recontextualises African artifacts to fit a western perspective and in doing so challenges both cultures preconceived ideas of the other.

Another artist to follow is Patrick Willocq whose work was shown at the Arles Photo Festival ( Les Rencontres d’Arles). A few booths were showing his work.

Photography is an important medium in South Africa and particularly in Joburg. The famous photographer David Goldblatt started the Market Photo Workshop in 1989 and artists like Jodi Bieber made their start at the workshop. We went to visit it and met some of the young artists there. See next post.

After four days going around Joburg where one does little walking since it is so spread out I was looking forward to going on many bush walks in Zambia, our next destination. I also needed to hear the sounds of the bush. However I was not relishing a 4 am wake up call to catch a 6:30am flight to Lusaka. The rest of the group stayed in Joburg a few more days before going down to Cape Town for more art viewing.

Diane and I were sitting in the cafeteria of the San Francisco Art Institute waiting for Nandipha Mntambo and Mohau Modisakeng.  They were both critiquing the photographic works of a few students.

Nandipha walked in, tall, elegant and stylish, wearing a bright yellow stole around her neck, red lipstick and a red handbag to match. Mohau followed right behind, casually dressed with his backpack thrown over his shoulder.  After brief introductions, they both sat down and immediately made comments on each other’s way of critiquing . One of them felt  the other was too harsh. Nandi, senior to Mohau in terms of age and career has a tendency to be more direct. Mohau, still fresh out of art school  – he graduated with his MFA a couple of years ago – is still sensitive to the students feelings and generally is quite soft spoken.  Diane and I listened with great interest. Soon the tables would be turned around, as during the next three days Nandi and Mohau would be showing their work to curators at the SFMOMA, the De Young Museum and the Berkeley museum of art.

A few words on the cast of characters:

Diane Frankel:

Diane has been committed for the last 7 years to supporting and promoting African contemporary art and in particular South African artists. She feels strongly that it is important that American institutions show contemporary African art, which is unfortunately underrepresented in most US public and private collections. Because of her many efforts – she has organized trips to South Africa and invited curators to join – a few curators on the West Coast have taken some positive steps towards showing Contemporary African photography but it is far from enough.  As a result Diane decided with the help of PUMA to bring a couple of talented South African  artists to San Francisco and introduce them to the art community in the Bay area where she lives and works. She put together a full program of interviews, introductions, and museum tours and drove us around.

Cynthia Plevin:

She has owned a gallery in San Francisco showing exclusively African Contemporary Art and is now working with Diane on putting together a US traveling show of South African art.

Nandipha Mntambo:

Through the use of various mediums, (sculpture, photography, videos and paint), and materials (cowhide, bronze) and narratives Nandi’s work speaks of what unites us. Instead of highlighting difference she aims for a reconciliation: humans are not so different from animals hence the sculptures in cowhide. She sees the cow as being a unifying signifier since many cultures have some kind of relationship with the cow.  The distinctions between men and women are blurred: two dancers, one the male double of Nandi and the other a surrogate dance the passodoble. The focus is on their legs and feet and gender is only indicated by the costume. In her bullfight series she plays the three parts of the contenders – bull, matador, and red cape – and blurs the distinctions between them all. They are part of a whole. In other words they are the splits sides of herself that she is coming to terms through the process of making her art.

While friendly, warm, and outwardly confident Nandi was somewhat reluctant to speak much about herself and her work during the meetings with curators.  It was something I found puzzling at first. It was only the last day during her talk at the Art institute that she lost some of her reserve and revealed how issues of difference and belonging had impacted her as a child.  She is at a crossroads in her work and while she embraces that state at a certain level because of the potential for new directions, being put on the spot seemed to make her understandably uncomfortable.

Mohau Modisakeng:

While Nandi does not highlight the difficult history of South Africa and references it only indirectly in her work Mohau’s work is anchored in it. The personal has its place but it is the references to colonialism, conflict and the legacy of violence that are emphasized in his talks. He weaves his family history with the history of his country creating a potent narrative that finds expression in his installation and sculptural work, as well as his performances and photographs.   With a flair for the theatrical, and a way of conveying meaning through a layering of materials lading with potent symbolism, Mohau turns to traditional rituals to confront head on this history of violence yet also positing the possibility of an alternative to violence as a resolution to conflict. In his photographic work, Mohau emerges as the sole protagonist (following the example of the artist Samuel Fosso) against a background emptied of all distraction and a palette strongly contrasted and limited to black and white.  Referencing the history of race in landownership, he appears dressed as a laborer wearing layers of materials or other props laden with symbolic meaning while engaging in what appears to my eyes at first as mysterious rituals captured in slow motion. I feel something important is taking place as I watch.

Low key and soft spoken, Mohau was quite eloquent when he spoke about his work and was willing to expand on it while introducing his work to curators.

Isabel S Wilcox:

I am a bystander eager to identify ways to encourage and support the work of talented African artists and promote their work to a wider audience.  Writing about it is one of the ways I show my support in addition to collecting the work at times.

After three days of visits to curators of photography or contemporary art, and quickly touring a couple of museums/galleries Diane and I felt a sense of frustration. The curators were not giving enough feedback and the artists seemed to be uncomfortable with having to present their work repeatedly through out the day. At times Diane and I felt like two mothers shepherding our reluctant kids around.

We did see them being fully engaged when we walked through the outstanding collection of Oceanic and African Art at the De Young . Nandi was very much taken by the Samoan notion of Fa’afafine or third gendered people in Samoan culture. Families with too many boys would chose one boy who was then made to look and live like a girl and help with the traditionally female chores.  The subject found an echo in Nandi’s personal and professional interest in androgyny.  Mohau was walking through the display of the African Art collection in a daze as if he had just discovered Ali Baba’s cave.  Nowhere in South Africa do you see African art of that quality or from all over the African continent for that matter! He shared his frustration with how difficult it is to go from one African country to another African country but how easy it is to go to Europe from anywhere on the African continent. He confirmed an intuition I had had after visiting Ghana. While there are many African artists that are interested in knowing the art of the West there are as many whose interest lies within the African continent, which is rich in a multitude of diverse aesthetic traditions, cultural forms, and histories.  What amazes me is that Africa struggles within its boundaries with major issues of migration and yet it is the migration from Africa to Europe that gets all the press coverage and captures the attention of the European intelligentsia and art community! Eurocentric perspective is hard to shake!

After much speculation – perhaps they were frustrated with the lack of response or with the inherent paternalism in the venture – we decided to get their feedback. It seemed that our understanding of how things should be and theirs was different. We needed to understand how things were going for them; our respective expectations were possibly misaligned, mismatched.

A talk with Nandi confirmed some of our thinking. Used to having curators, or gallerists coming to their studios they were not in the habit of having to “sell” their work in this fashion. The shift in the power dynamics was unexpected and made them uncomfortable.  In a country where it is ingrained in us that we have to sell our ideas whether one is at the top or at the bottom of the pile, this sounded a bit strange to us.

Nandi’s comments shed some light on the possible motivation for Mohau’s stand at the Headlands Center for the Arts the previous night. During our visit there it became evident that Mohau also felt uncomfortable with having to speak repeatedly about his work to a bunch of strangers.  He decided to shift the power dynamics and consequently challenged our expectations. Instead of speaking standing up at a social gathering of supporters of the Headlands residency program he chose to speak about his work crouched on the floor with a glass in his hand. All of us who were standing found ourselves looking down at him. That was unexpected; clearly something was going on. Was he choosing this set up to inject a note of informality and/ or had he taken that position to bring out in the open some inherent power dynamic in the set up? Was he trying to regain some control over a situation that he found belittling at some level?

I liked that he took matters in his own hands and did not accept an uncomfortable situation with passivity. Nandi, more familiar with this kind of situation, accepted the format of the visit with more equanimity and eager to also shift the dynamics had quickly contacted directly the curators that were of interest to her.

Furthermore, most of the time Mohau and Nandi referred to themselves as sculptors yet the introductions had been mostly with curators of photography. Perhaps there was a mismatch, which in part explained the luke-warm dialogue between artists and local curators. Indeed while both artists use photography to capture moments of their performances it is only one of the medium they use to convey their message.  I see them more as multi-media artists like many artists today who do not specialize in any one medium. Categorizing them by medium limits a fuller grasp of the depth and breadth of their work. Currently in Nandi and Mohau’s work, ideas of personal, political and cultural identity and issues of place, and history, in another word: the underlying narrative, supersedes the choice of a particular medium and its exploration and application.

After a wonderful lunch with scholar and artist Allan DeSuza,  the visit culminated with a talk at the San Francisco Art Institute. Both artists felt obviously more at ease surrounded by a community of artists and spoke of their work with greater depth and forthrightness.  The idea of participating in a residency program with contact with the artistic community was clearly very appealing to both Nandipha and Mohau, who are eager to discover and explore the potential of various mediums to better convey their artistic concerns.

This was a great learning experience for all of us and very thought provoking.

I was reminded to check my preconceived ideas based on an implicit assumption that we in the US have the best to offer and therefore a newcomer from South Africa should embrace “that best”. I was reminded to get out of my shoes for a few minutes and open my mind to a different experience while not forgetting that there is the inescapable and unfortunate reality of a hierarchy in the art world.

I live in a city, New York,  where art is too often discussed as a commodity.  It saddens me because I have had the most moving experiences and insights into the human mind and spirit in front of paintings.  I do profoundly believe in the power of art to communicate, to make us dream, to move us, and to access and reveal our deepest longings. So when I encounter endeavors such as  the Lalela Project I am reminded of art’s life altering powers and I experience a surge of optimism and elation.

The Lalela Project founded by Andrea Krezner is based in South Africa and organizes art projects and art workshops in schools  in poor communities. Art is seen as a healing tool and becomes a way of inspiring these children to dream, and have goals. To start it keeps them off the street  and provides a safe environment to explore their creativity.

The word “lalela” means “to listen” in Zulu. It is in listening to the children’s stories that the project is able to tailor workshops to the needs of these communities and effect positive change through the use of art and music. The Lalela Project has just completed a project with South Africa born Jason Rhode at the Stevenson Gallery in Cape Town. The exhibition was called Paries Pictus, which means “wall drawing”.  It is a site specific intervention of drawings over the walls of the gallery. Rhode is a multidisciplinary  artist  who espouses a street based aesthetic deeply rooted in the communal South African tradition of story telling. He does 2 dimensional renderings which become the basis of a performance executed by a protagonist ( often the artist) who transforms the wall drawing into a 3 dimensional experience for the viewer.

In this particular case Rhode wanted to engage the community and  emphasize the communal process of wall drawings familiar to him from his childhood. He describes himself  in that occasion as “the conductor of the drawing process”  where the joy of play becomes a central component to the performance. The artist and his art are not existing in a rarefied sphere and art making becomes life changing for the community.

The children used oversized crayons to color in geometric vinyl graphics applied by Rhode.

They sure look like they are having fun!

By the end of the project I would guess some of the children were thinking that being an artist is pretty cool.

This collaborative exhibition came after a very similar one which took place in New York City at the Lehmann Maupin gallery  that included  children from PS63  from the South Bronx through an organization called Time In.

My focus on creativity in Africa and the positive reviews of the play The Suit based on the short story by South African writer, Can Themba, made me overcome my reluctance to see yet again a story about a wife’s adultery and a husband’s revenge. I was afraid it would all feel too familiar and since it was taking place in Africa where polygamy is accepted in many local tribal communities I could pretty much foresee that my blood would boil a bit at some point with the unfair gender standards. Was it going to have a different ending than any of the other precedent works of fiction on adultery such as Madame Bovary, Anna Karenina?  The wife dies and The Suit is no exception from that perspective.

However, I was in for a pleasant surprise.

The story of The Suit takes place in Sophiatown, a Johannesburg township, and centers on Philemon, who works for a middle class lawyer and his wife Matilda. He loves his wife and seems happy with his life until he finds out that she has been seeing another man. He surprises her with her lover who leaves in a rush leaving his suit behind.  Philemon then devises a rather unique form of punishment: the suit must be treated as an honored guest and the wife must take it wherever she goes as a reminder of her betrayal.  William Nadylam plays a husband in full control of the situation, only revealing true emotion at the end when he holds her dead in his arms.  Beautiful Nonhlanhla Kheswa’s Matilda, whose choices in life are so limited, comes alive when she can sing or love.

The play, a production by Peter Brook, Marie-Helene Estienne, and Franck Krawczyk felt fresh and original despite weaknesses in the weaving of the two parallel plots: the unraveling of the marriage and the dismantling of Sophiatown, a black urban cultural hub. The Apartheid Group Areas Act of the 1950’s assigned racial groups to different residential and business sections and as a result nonwhites were forcibly removed and moved to much smaller spaces. This is what happened to Sophiatown, a township of Johannesburg, which was the epicenter of politics, Jazz, and Blues during the 1940’s and 1950’s. Peter Brook’s minimalist but colorful production offered unexpected lightness and humor which combined with a diverse musical score, made the cruelty of both the husband’s revenge and Apartheid oddly bearable. A few brightly colored chairs and several clothes hanging racks were the only props and in a rather fluid and ever changing way became surrogates for beds, doorways, windows and local packed buses.  Most original was the idea of making the suit an instrument of Philemon’s punishment. Peter Brooks suggest that such an idea could only be born out of the violent injustices of Apartheid in South Africa where there was no escape. However, the suit is more than an instrument of torture, it becomes also a reminder of Matilda’s desire for her lover when she so sensuously and playfully pretends that the suit is inhabited by her lover who caresses her.

I loved that it was narrated as a story. It reminded me of how stories are passed down orally from one generation to another in black Africa. The narration also helped make the story of Philemon and Matilda feel like a myth and the spare setting with no specificity further contributed to that feeling. However, that same feeling was quickly dispelled when accounts of local happenings brought forth the harsh reality of the life of black South Africa. The narrator, Jared Mc Neill, describes the rejection South African blacks encounter when they wish to attend “white” churches, which was a phenomenon the author, Can Themba, had investigated during his years working for Drum magazine.

But the greatest pleasure I had was in listening to the songs and to the music. The three musicians playing respectively the guitar, piano and trumpet set the tone for each scene with a selection of musical scores including a Schubert’s lieder, the humming of the African American song about slavery Strange Fruit and African melodies. As a result, the play’s underlying themes of love, revenge and injustice, were no longer limited in time and space and became universal.

My favorite was the last deeply moving song, Maleika, a Tanzanian love song that Matilda (Kheswa) sings beautifully just before she comes to her sad end.

Maleika is sung here by Angelique Kidjo