Amajita in Conversation at the AVA
by Tambudzai La Verne Sibanda
'Amajita in Conversation' provides an open space for experimentation among seven male artists of colour. Thembinkosi Goniwe, an artist known for his vitriolic debates concerning art institutions in South Africa, provided a very loose curatorial brief that inspired this intergenerational dialogue. 'Amajita' is a colloquial term derived from tsotsi taal that refers to an informal gathering of men. This is a show that finds eight male identities converging to speak about life and a myriad of social concerns that have emerged in their individual journeys.
Participant Garth Erasmus claims that notions of masculinity have been undermined and contested in an era where feminist sentiments have been privileged. Through the exhibition the artists attempt to protect and maintain a fraternity, as well as create conversations that complicate discourse and previous forms of social engineering. Apartheid was a regime perpetuated primarily by notions of space and the manipulation of people in 'space'. 'Amajita in Conversation' marks a group of eight artists colonising the gallery space to voice their individual and most current experiences.
Roderick Sauls, a former lecturer at Michaelis, has over the past 20 years focused his inquiry around themes of identity, memory, loss and absence. These concerns are echoed in a video piece that depicts images of a 'coon' having his makeup applied and erased simultaneously. Sauls makes strong references to an 'insubstantial', shifting identity. The video is framed by an installation of brightly coloured blazers that invokes feeling of nostalgia and notions of disappearance of identity and culture. Through this personal piece Sauls introduces memories of the Cape Coon Carnival and his own contested ethnicity to the conversation.
Kemang Wa-Lehulere is the youngest artist on the exhibition but with exceptionally mature insight, introduces questions surrounding rites of passage and the different ways manhood is understood and has shifted in contemporary South Africa. Employing the 'style' of Amajita, Wa-Lehulere captures on video a single burning cigarette, standing on its end in a landscape with disappearing figures. A cigarette is a communal, conversational object and its obvious phallic nature makes reference to an unstable, threatened masculinity. Kemang who is isiXhosa speaking, comments on the scrambling and loss of language with a soundtrack of initiates singing in seSotho, forming a backdrop to his video.
Vuyile Voyiya's To (G)art(H) or not is a private conversation in which the artist films Garth Erasmus performing and engaging in his art practice during various workshops without his knowledge. This video depicts Erasmus' search for links to his Khoisan ancestry through ceremonial dances and spontaneous musical performances, and resonates with Sauls' exploration of his own ties to his 'coloured' coon heritage.
Garth Erasmus' sound piece Autobiographic' swells up in the gallery and documents the dynamic nature of dialogue between people. Erasmus appropriates the Amajita metaphor of converging experiences by capturing the raw sounds of people in transit at Bellville Station. The sound piece that vacillates between being aggressive and invasive to surprisingly soothing inspires a comfortable space for viewers to converse among themselves, hence dismantling traditional notions of the gallery as a sacred, unreal space.
Erasmus is an artist whose work develops from a strong 'indigenous consciousness' and his connection to the 'first nation' and pre-colonial Africa is evident in his flame pieces that draw on figures and symbols from Khoisan cosmology. In a series entitled Looking for Diakwai, Erasmus invites the viewer into a private personal space, a monologue that narrates his own search for his Khoisan heritage. He achieves this by assuming the persona of Diakwai, a Breakwater prisoner during the 1800's.
Erasmus' etchings and scribbles from this series resonate with Sipho Hlati's monumental graffiti piece. Famous for his work that appropriates the iconic South Africa stamp, Hlati's installations fall aesthetically short of previous works that have framed his practice. Drawing largely on images from popular contemporary youth culture, Hlati adopts a subversive medium of graffiti, challenging conventional forms of artmaking. He boldly and crudely paints directly onto the surface of the gallery wall and makes a Duchampian gesture by inserting a toilet into the exhibition space that speaks of the absurdity of contemporary art discourse. His work raises important questions concerning notions of taste. There is a strong sense of raw urgency in his work that reinforces the experimental, playful nature of the exhibition that Goniwe encouraged.
'Pro' Sobopha's installation of clothing taken from various police officers, attempts to narrate a brutal incident he artist experienced at the hands of the police. A figure plastered to the wall with hands raised in surrender, speaks about a dominant view of black men as prime suspects of violent acts. Sobopha escapes entering arguments about essentialising the black identity by inserting pictures of himself in a collage that individuates the experience.
Randolph Hartzenberg introduces into the conversation a mature silent installation that invites reflection. The poetic piece evokes images of an old science lab and comments on the antiquity and vulnerability of formal western ideology and discourse. His work links with Hlati's scribbles on the gallery wall that form a diatribe of western, 'white' inventiveness as outmoded.
Although the show is sincere in introducing the audience into an ongoing conversation between the artists, there is a lack of strong cohesion between the work, which alludes to the digressions, awkwardness and silences in real dialogue. All artists have produced very personal pieces, but similar themes and concerns connect the work and the innovative, unexpected ways the artists appropriate the 'magic and style' of Amajita is enjoyable. As the curator, Goniwe's aesthetic and cultural biases of subverting traditional western discourse are obvious in framing the exhibition.
The abandonment of previous techniques by some of the artists, momentarily leads one to assume the exhibition adopts a 'post-black' sentiment. Pervasive comments on identity and race, however quickly dismiss this notion. A panel discussion hosted by Goniwe formed a strong appendage to the exhibition and provided an informative backdrop to some of the work. This is problematic, however, as it raises obvious questions about the strength of the exhibition to speak alone. Another concern is the complex conceptual and theoretical vocabulary that underscores the work: although the media used make the work easy to access, many of the intended messages could be lost to a visually illiterate public.
Opens: September 4
Closes: September 22
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