AzaNYa
by Joost Bosland
The Big AzaNYa Kentridge Competition
A big apology to all the readers of AzaNYa, to the galleries who depend on this column to get their information out, and to all the artists who were expecting to see their shows listed or reviewed.
I hoped to keep my final column Kentridge-free, but writing about South African art in New York there is no avoiding the artist. I realized I had yet to mention his work in the contemporary galleries of the Modern.
Because I forgot to write it down, AzaNYa promises a bottle of wine to the first person to email the correct title of the work.
Across from Kentridge hangs a large Mehretu painting, Empirical Construction, Istanbul. It is a work in her signature multi-layered architectural dream aesthetic, and commands significant attention from the masses that really just came to see Starry Night.
Last month I promised you two reviews: Imprints at the Axis Gallery, and Marlene Dumas: Selected Works at Zwirner & Wirth. Due to a combination of end-of-semester stress and uncertainty over the fate of ArtThrob, these reviews have not materialized. To make up for this failure to deliver, let me give you a brief glimpse of the Dumas spectacle.
Paintings and works on paper alike were sourced from private collections, and span fifteen years of Dumas� career�1987 through 2002.
The New York Times dedicates an entire page to the career of the South African painter. A show at commercial gallery rarely spurs such attention, but the recent increase in the price of Dumas� work apparently caught the attention of an editor.
And Saatchi�s patronage sure didn�t hurt.
Near the entrance, a large painting shows five nude couples in different stages of an embrace. Despite plural in the title, Couples, the sequence suggests that we see the same couple five times. When read from left to right as a succession of moments, the last image escapes the boundaries of the canvas. What happens next?
The most recent work shows a preoccupation with death, such as the 2002 painting The Deceased�. The black and white fields border on the abstract, yet the face of a dead man is clearly visible. Starker, less bulgy, it made me curious about her current production.
I went to see Little Boy: The Arts of Japan�s Exploding Subculture. The title of the latter is subtly subversive��Little Boy� was a code word for the nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Under the guidance of artist/curator Takashi Murakami Japan has traveled to New York for non-violent, cultural revenge.
Capetonians interested in Murakami�s work should check out 34 on Long, where he was part of the opening show. They might still have some pieces sitting around�
April 22 Columbia University organized a symposium titled Emerging Scholarship in African Art. They recently hired Susan �Intimate Outsider� Vogel, and she is determined to make it the university an important hub in the national African art history network.
Vogel told the audience that she thought contemporary African art had broken off from the field, and �did what it wanted, thank you very much.� She must not have noticed that several of the presented papers addressed contemporary art in one form or another. The perceived split is more wishful thinking on the part of a frustrated classical Africanist, than a perceptive theoretical insight.
One term I heard at the symposium I do not want to keep from you. A visitor accused the scholars of practicing WA-WA Art History: West Africa Wins Again.
At the conference I finally had a chance to meet Gary van Wyk of the Axis Gallery, who asked the audience why everyone was so incredibly full of self-doubt. Can�t Africanists lighten up already?
At the Brooklyn Museum, currently showing a divine Basquiat retrospective, I met with South African curator Tumelo Mosaka. Better qualified than many a museum professional in SA, he lives in a self-imposed exile in New York City. To my astonishment, he knew who I was before I even walked in the door. I am glad to know that at least someone reads this column. I asked him when South Africa could expect him back.
With a devious grin on his face, he replied �They aren�t ready for me yet.�
Writing AzaNYa has been a true honor for me. I am sad that I can no longer inflict my views on you, but at the same time I know it is time for me to stop.
I want to thank both of my readers: Tumelo Mosaka and my girlfriend. I also want to thank both of my editors�Andrew Lamprecht for giving me the column and Sue Williamson for heroically re-assuming the editorship of her fledgling brainchild.
This is it. No more AzaNYa next month.
