Pieter Hugo, Conrad Botes at Michael Stevenson Contemporary
by Linda Stupart
'Historically, the primitive is articulated by the West in deprivative or supplemental terms: a spectacle of savagery or as a state of grace, as a socius without writing or the Word, without history or cultural complexity; or as a site of originary unity, symbolic plenitude, natural vitality. There is nothing odd about this Eurocentric construction: the primitive has served as a coded other at least since the Enlightenment, usually as a subordinate term in its imaginary set of oppositions (light/dark, rational/irrational, civilised/savage).
'This domesticate primitive is thus constructive, not disruptive, of the binary ratio of the West; fixed as a structural opposite or a dialectical other to be incorporated, it assists in the establishment of a Western identity, centre, norm, and name. In its modernist version the primitive may appear transgressive, it is true, but it still serves as a limit: projected within and without, the primitive becomes a figure of our unconscious and outside (a figure constructed in modern art as well as in psychoanalysis and anthropology in the privileged triad of the primitive, the child, and the insane).' Foster, H. 1985. The 'Primitive' Unconscious in Modern Art. October 34 (Fall 1985).
I entered Pieter Hugo and Conrad Botes' twin exhibitions with an unusual sense of optimism. Botes is, in my view, one of the heroes of South African art and popular culture. As half of the Bitterkomix team Botes revolutionised protest and Afrikaner youth culture, and his dark, beautiful prints and paintings were, for a while, a welcome intrusion into the squeaky clean microcosm of Cape Town's highbrow galleries. And although I have always found Hugo's work nauseatingly problematic in its exoticisation and romanticising of black African culture, what I had seen of his new Nollywood series impressed me.
Unlike most of Hugo's pseudo-documentary oeuvre, the photographs I had seen of bloodsucking vampires and bloodied businessmen were obviously and dramatically staged, based presumably on the costuming of actors in Nigeria's film industry. Unlike images of albinos, hyena men, wolf women and soccer supporters, these shots presented real freaks, or, importantly, African actors portraying freakery. For a moment I believed that Hugo might even be wittily exposing the problematics of his earlier work, and the colonial gaze in general, giving his audience the darkest Africa they clearly crave.
Then I saw the black midget with a sword on the invitation (Omo Omeonu, Enugu, Nigeria, 2008).
Unfortunately, Hugo's latest offering, particularly when viewed in conjunction with his 'collection' of pillaged movie posters (to be discussed shortly) is not the intentionally macabre, ridiculous fantastical take on Othering I had hoped for, but rather yet another opportunity for the artist and his gallery to profit from an audience desperate for images of the transgressive, the dark, the primitive; neatly masked and framed so as to avoid real menace. Although some of the works used the language of schlock-horror to undermine the colonial gaze, many are just undisguised reflections of its scopophilia, made more offensive by Hugo's subjects' inability to return such a scrupulous eye-balling.
The most iconic image on exhibition, and certainly the one that garnered the most attention at the opening was Azuka Adindu. Enugu, Nigeria, 2008, a photograph of a naked black man wearing a Darth Vader helmet. While one could, indeed, give Hugo the benefit of the doubt and presume some irony in this iconic presentation of the 'swart gevaar' dressed as the ultimate evil father figure, the fact is that all that everybody at the show could look at was Hugo's subject's sizable penis: a well endowed black man, unable to look out of the picture and framed with all the conventions of the classical nude, his virility clearly visible, yet pacified in his facelessness, his smooth skin, and remarkably unimaginative placement in the picture frame.
Many of the subjects in this exhibition were similarly masked - with ridiculous fake faces simultaneously denying their subjectivity (and thus masking their threat) and accentuating their otherness. Indeed, these are pretty pictures, but despite and because of this, their patronising, othering and fearful implications cannot be overlooked.
Perhaps even more worrying than Hugo's constructions is Michael Stevenson's choice of displaying the artist's collection of hand-painted movie posters from Ghana in an attempt to contextualise Hugo's own work. After centuries of colonial collection and display of African art and artefacts without any regard to said objects' cultural context, I would have thought that, particularly in Africa, art institutions and artists might be wary of replicating this practice.
Hugo, however, has no such qualms - exhibiting, salon style, a room full of painted movie posters without any key to the artist's collecting practice, the posters' original contexts, nor who had authored them (many of the posters were signed by painters who remain unnamed and ignored in this gallery context). These posters are seductive, fascinating and exotic, and were viewed with wonder and appreciation by the assembled crowds on opening night. Indeed, they would look great in my lounge, next to the curiosity cabinet and underneath some rare artefacts raided from African royalty. More, even, than any of Hugo's own work, this mini-exhibition lays bare the artist's Eurocentric approach to the African unknown, negating any sense of irony as we giggle at Darth Vader's big willy in the adjoining room.
Botes used to be dark, savage and controversial, as anyone who has ever picked up a copy of Bitterkomix will attest. However, it seems that the gallery system has swallowed Botes whole, with 'Cain and Abel' demonstrating nothing of his legendary provocation. Though the show presents some suitably disquieting imagery, all of the subject's potential is hidden in overly slick renditions, pastel colours and wannabe Claudette Schreuders sculptures. And overly-designed tears. Everywhere.
Hostile Territory I - V is a case in point: retreading visual ideas previously and more ably considered by Paul Stopforth in his Biko series, this seems to have little to offer beyond generalised notions of human vulnerability. Similarly, the large-scale Cain and Abel seems more concerned with the visual cleverness and pleasing design of its landscape than with anything illuminating about familial breakdown, violence or murder.
Not unlike Hugo's work, Botes' latest offerings would look good in the foyer of an expensive hotel or waterfront loft apartment. Offensive on one hand, boring on the other, these shows are both almost perfectly executed, with each offering painfully aware of its selling price. The Market, as exemplified by Michael Stevenson's McMuseum, wins again.
And it's going to take a lot to rouse my optimism next time.
Images courtesy the gallery and the artists
Michael Stevenson Gallery
Buchanan Building, 160 Sir Lowry Road, Woodstock
Tel: (021) 462 1500
Fax: (021) 462 1501
www.michaelstevenson.com
Hours: Mon - Fri 9am - 5pm, Sat 10am - 1pm
