Wim Botha at the Durban Art Gallery
by Francesca Verga
Wim Botha's Standard Bank Young Artist's travelling exhibition 'A Premonition of War' has already been shown at the Grahamstown festival, The Nelson Mandela Art Museum in Port Elizabeth and The Tatham Art Gallery in Pietermaritzburg. However, its début in the Durban Art Gallery is unique in the way in which the artist has integrated his work with the gallery's architecture and permanent collection. The DAG is housed in the typically colonial City Hall, and to access the exhibition spaces one climbs two flights of steps. These are covered in red velvet and the balustrade is wooden with elaborate brass-work detailing which seems to be an ideal setting for Botha's body of work.
Gallery Two, in which the exhibition has been hung, is a large rectangular room and has been especially lit with a reddish tint. To the unsuspecting visitor, the room doesn't appear to have been altered from its 18th or19th century salon-style setup. However, Botha has cleverly deployed his works amongst the DAG's permanent collection and it is only upon careful inspection that something seems amiss. Botha's ploy is conceptually deceptive and well camouflaged - he physically inserts his works into the art history upon which they draw. By doing so, the works no longer stand outside the history, or just refer to it, but they are placed within the narrative of Western colonial art that they so strongly critique.
According to the artist, specific works and themes were selected from the collection to add interesting and new interpretive possibilities to the works themselves. These include portraits, landscapes, pastoral scenes and prints. A viewer cannot help feeling a lingering sense of unease that permeates the show. This is created by the disjunction of the familiar with the unfamiliar. As Botha points out, 'There is an immediate recognition that takes place, which is then undermined by the reality and implications of what is seen.'
Scapegoat embodies this process precisely. The carved figure, made from anthracite, epoxy
resin and eco-solvent, assumes a Christ-like pose, with outstretched arms and tilted head, but has cloven hooves, horns and an overt phallus. No doubt, this will be the work to create the most controversy among the visiting public, as the immediate assumption is that this is a Christ-figure. The work incorporates the image of a Greek satyr, renowned for immorality and hedonism, and whose physical attributes were adopted for Western images of the Devil. For Botha, this work is the culmination of ideas surrounding the goat as a slaughter and sacrifice mechanism used to appease ancestors, to carry sins and to bear evil. The crucifixion in Christianity has similar associations. When one combines these principles, the sacrifice of goats, the carrying of sins, crucifixion and a man-goat (satyr), the resulting image is an icon that is as familiar as it is incongruent.
Botha uses subversion as a means of re-interpreting existing structures and icons. When his Mieliepap Piéta was exhibited at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York last year, it was mistaken by a group of visiting tourists as an authentic Piéta. It is very easy to confuse this as a replica of the original, but Botha's rendition is a life-size mirror image of Michelangelo's masterpiece. The piece positions Christ in his mother's cradling arms, matching death and despair with compassion and comfort.
Botha's overtly visible hanging mechanisms form an integral part of the meaning and the interpretation of the pieces. As Botha elaborates, 'I want them clearly and purposefully 'hung', without trying to conceal or minimize the visual interruption, the fact that these works are floating is integral to their reading, but also the fact that they are presented in a suspended state.' Untitled (Body Double) is presented in the style of a typical portrait bust. Such images were traditionally created to immortalize important members of a community. Here Botha is able to subvert this original intention by removing the work from a pedestal and suspending it instead.
It is the manipulation and subversion of known imagery, coupled with the translations of these into new media that make Botha's exhibition so effective. He questions authority and is skeptical of preconceived ideas, offering in their place an objective insight.
Opens: November 23
Closes: January 27
Durban Art Gallery
2nd Floor City Hall, Smith Street, Durban
Tel: (031) 311 2262
Email: brownc@durban.gov.za
Hours: Mon - Sat 8.30am - 4, Sun 11am - 4pm
