Bubblegum Club

Tag: Gerard Sekoto

  • Spellbinders- Whimsical and Witty // Modes of Engaging with the Curatorial Project

    Levitating canvases – layered with brush strokes. Interwoven narratives and dust-laden histories. Display cases bursting with aged newspaper clippings – offer captured moments of an otherwise forgotten history. Ancient objects adjacent contemporary works, working a magic between them. An enthralling juncture of myth and mystery.

    Spellbinders: Myths, Mysteries and Hidden Treasures opened on Sunday to the public at the Johannesburg Art Gallery. Curated by Tara Weber and Philippa van Straaten, this exhibition unearths secrets and truths with a wicked sense of humour. One of the very effective qualities of their curatorial strategy is the full integration of both historic and contemporarywork from the vast breadth of the collection. This in turn creates at rich and dynamic exhibition.

    ‘Mine Boy’ by Gerard Sekoto

    On entering the museum, several works are suspended, displaying paintings in which both sides of the canvas have been painted on. This form of display allows the viewer to access a traditionally unseen treasure. A Picasso is mounted on one of the walls – it was a highly controversial acquisition in 1974. Beside it is a framed drawing of the piece made by two young boys, Ross and Robert, entitled My Child Could Do That! – as an attempt to replicate the Picasso. A display case filled with archival clippings hosts newspaper titles like, Piccasso upsets Nats, and Picasso clown leaves viewers agog. This tongue-in-cheek approach also highlights the importance of generating context through the archive.

    This level of self-reflexivity and criticality is also applied to the founders of the gallery, Lord and Lady Phillips. Two iconic portraits of them stand proud at one of the entrances to the Phillips Gallery. A fairly traditional oil painting of Lady Phillips by Antonio Mancini (1909) is countered by the contemporary work of Johannes Pokela (2015). In Pokela’s imagining of the patroness, she appears in a state of semi-disheveled undress – lounging on a chaise with one hand holding a feather fan and the other placed delicately on an ‘African’ sculpture. This satirical image alludes to the agenda and motivation behind the Phillips’ interest in art as a means to achieve cultural prowess and ‘educate’ the colonial population. In the corner of the panting is a portrait of her husband – the same one displayed in the gallery beside her. Tara Weber believes that these complex histories ought to be discussed openly rather than brushed under the carpet for convenience.

    ‘Boite’ by Marcel Duchamp

    Moments of the exhibition also dissect intersecting mythologies. An early 19th century woodcut print of the goddess Benten by Kiyosanto is placed adjacent to Janiet’s Venus and Tracy Rose’s Venus Baartman (from the series Ciao Bella). This triangulation of images across time, medium and culture show an intersection of feminine ideals and the power if the goddess architype. “Through these artworks and objects, the similarities shared across all cultures of the world reveal themselves to us, along with their fascinating histories. Often theses hidden stories tell us not only more about objects, but also more about us as human beings.”

    Spellbinders also features 18th century fans, ceramics and an elephant skull – as well as the likes of Gerard Sekoto, Salvador Dali, Marcel Duchamp, Henry Moore, Francis Bacon and a plethora of other artists. This layered and nuanced approach to curating highlights the importance and power of display to shape the imagination.

    “Myth is neither a lie nor a confession: it is an inflection.” – Roland Barthes

    ‘Death of the First Born’ by Alma Tadema

  • Subverting Historical Whiteness – The Evidence of Things Not Seen

    The free-standing building is isolated – a visual juxtaposition to the once-high-end and now dilapidated apartments around it. Surrounded by a colourful and bustling city center – it is a relic of a bygone era in Johannesburg.

    A façade of stone and traditional columns preceded by grand stairs elevate up from the local hustle and lead one into an architectural time-capsule. The sandstone cladding was originally sourced from Elands River. The presence of museums in the South African context relates directly to the Colonial project. The physical orientation of the original south facing building designed by a British Architect is implicit of a lack of understanding regarding the African environment – overlaying European norms and values at every turn.

    maswanganyi_johannes_1Maswanganyi Johannes

    However, on entering the historical building – it is difficult to restrain a sense of awe. Immersed in a space flooded with niggling nostalgia. From the Southern entrance one is absorbed into a white rectangular space with arching high ceilings, accompanied by floral embellishments. Several hardwood expansive doors with golden filigree open onto an internal courtyard. Above, gold flakes cascade off chandeliers. ‘The Phillips Gallery’ appears over a pair of curved hallways monumentalizing the institution’s former patrons in the glittering typeface of white capital.

    Only a little more than twenty years after gold was first struck on the Witwatersrand, the Johannesburg Art Gallery was established. Just over one hundred years on, the building and its immense collection still stands. However, in the ‘post’-apartheid, ‘post’-colonial context a radical shift has occurred in the spatial and visual representation within the museum walls. Its latest exhibition, The Evidence of Things Not Seen, opens its doors to the public on the 19th of November. It shares its title and conceptual articulation with a text by James Baldwin – in exploring the lived experience of people of colour. Pain that historically, has been systematically silenced by an overriding and enveloping whiteness.

    belinda_zangewa_1Belinda Zangewa

    The exhibition, curated by Musha Neluheni in collaboration with Tara Weber seeks to engage in social discourse surrounding notions of identity – manifested in the realms of queerness, feminism(s) and the Black experience. The show initially emerged as a “side-project” – mirroring as a platform for the Black Portraitures Conference – but grew into something far larger. One of the aims of the project was to actively engage the work of contemporary artists and allow their work to activate other historical works in the collection. These historical giants include the likes of Dumile Feni, Gerard Sekoto, David Koloane and Cyprian Shilakoe.

    Other artists featured in the show include: Mary Sibande, Belinda Zangewa, Nandipha Mntambo, Tracey Rose, Berni Searle, Zanele Muholi, Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Reshma Chhiba, Johannes Phokela, Santu Mofokeng, Johannes Phokela, Mustafa Maluka, Portia Zvavahera, Moshekwa Langa, Nicholas Hlobo, Nandipha Mntambo, Donna Kukama, Gabrielle Goliath, Senzi Marasela, Turiya Magadlela, Kemang Wa Lehulere, Mohau Modisakeng, Sam Nhlengethwa, Ranjith Kally, Ernest Cole, Valerie Desmore, Ezrom Kgobokanyo Legae, Winston Churchill Saoli, Sydney Kumalo, Julian Motau, Helen Sebidi, Mohapi Leonard Tshela Matsoso, John Muafangejo, Azaria Mbatha, Daniel Sefudi Rakgoathe, Charles Nkosi, Johannes Maswanganyi and the FUBA Archive.

    kally_ranjith_3Kally_Ranjith

    The Evidence of Things Not Seen articulates a critical reformulation of the institutional space, one underpinned by an engagement with a Pan Africanist ideology. A position rarely embraced by public art institutions in South Africa. Tara Weber describes the exhibition as a kind of “homage to James Baldwin” noting that his treatment of identity politics is, “sensitive, but brutally honest”. The curatorial strategy has been made visually manifest in a similar vein – located in a space that seeks to subvert its own historical context.

    “There is never time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is in the moment; the time is always now.” – James Baldwin

    johannes_phokela_2     Johannes Phokela