Nomthunzi Mashalaba at blank
by Tavish McIntosh
When Robert Rauschenberg took a drawing from Abstract Expressionist Willem de Kooning and spent a month erasing the heavily worked marks, the 'almost-blankness' of the square paper implicitly critiqued the posturing of the Abstract Expressionists, their claim to authentic expression through mark-making. Oftentimes Nomthunzi Mashalaba's 'Square' at blank projects appears to be on the same trajectory.
Installing five square canvasses within the tiny white cube of blank projects, Mashalaba covers over the traditional whiteness of the fabric with a dense, reflective black lacquer, or loosely pins black cotton over the canvas. In the largest canvas dominating the room, the impenetrable blackness reflects only a vague outline of the viewer. By not allowing the viewer anything to hold onto in this instance - except their mirrored selves - Mashalaba succeeds in questioning the institution of mark-making in art. In the mark, we seek evidence of artistic subjectivity. The importance attached to the artist's mark, as evidence of a performance of artistic authenticity, is upended and repressed. The dominating black lacquer and black fabric are strictly unexpressive. However, like Rauschenberg's piece, Mashalaba's installation is not only about nihilism: the evidence of erasure Rauschenberg left was a statement in itself. And Mashalaba leaves evidence of a different kind - scratching away at the black paint, peeping from between canvases and subtly chalked onto the painted surface, these slippages in the pure absence denoted by the reflective black lacquer point to content.
Two canvases, equal in size, are suspended barely 10cm from each other. Exploiting the tension between these two elements placed in such proximity, Mashalaba inserts a telling element in the uncomfortable space between. Whilst one outward facing side is blank and black, the space between the two produces an unwieldy excess which is attached to the surface of interfacing. Two excrescences of scrunched brown and white fabric are carefully pinned to the black interfacing. Mashalaba's exhibition investigates the role of traditional fabrics in contemporary society. Initially brought to South Africa by German settlers, the cotton was rapidly adopted by the local people and has become part of the 'fabric' of South African iconography. Mashalaba shows the role that England has played in producing and exporting these familiar intricately patterned two-toned cottons to South Africa. It was only just over 20 years ago that the distinctive 'shweshwe' fabric began to be produced locally. Vague outlines of the three leopards - the logo of local manufacturers Da Gama textiles - appear elsewhere.
For Mashalaba the fabric takes on a very human element. In the first instance, it looks rather like an enormous pimple. Elsewhere, a small canvas positioned at knee-height, shows a grid - both an immensely magnified image of interweaving threads and a fleshy close-up of skin. The occasional swathes of fleshy paint that break through the surface and the lumpy fabric evidence that the production of meaning around the 'shweshwe' fabric is linked to the more general cultural contestation of the colonial mentality. If one moves the two facing canvases apart one can glimpse the chalked up evidence of a mathematical equation, the net result of which is 'African traditional fabrics'. The artist reflects on social and industrial processes whereby objects accrue meaning - meanings that sometimes contradict their origins and escape repressive histories. Mashalaba points to the power of human agency so often undermined by official histories to slip through the gaps created by official stories.
The formal aspects of the installation, its hanging and colour combinations are well executed. Where previous exhibitiors have been tempted to pack the space conceptually - addressing too many issues simultaneously - Mashalaba's pieces visually coalesce and this is vitally important in the same space of blank projects. However when the abstract blackness of the pieces is undermined, where the paint establishes itself on the black surface Mashalaba's technique lets her down somewhat. The starkness of the black surface makes extra demands on the handling of paint - demands which are not always met. This is especially evident in the execution of the painting of a female torso (itself an extraneous element to the show) which fades into the black background.
Opens: May 9
Closes: June 2
blank projects
198 Buitengracht Street, Cape Town
Tel: 072 198 9221
Email: blankprojects@gmail.com
Hours: Wed 4pm - 7pm, or by appointment
