Current Review(s)
Self-Portrait or Self-Justifying? The Portraits of Roelof van Wyk
Roelof Petrus van Wyk at Commune.1Roelof van Wyk's show ‘Jong Afrikaner: A Self-Portrait’ has garnered a surprising amount of attention in recent weeks. On opening in Cape Town it not only made the cover of this month’s Art Times, but was featured on national television with eNews. The latter is perhaps the more remarkable given the rarity of broadcasting the visual arts in South Africa – it’s obvious that the work has struck a nerve.
In its current form at Commune 1, the show comprises a series of head-and-shoulder portraits of 48 'young' white Afrikaans South Africans shot against an empty black background. Grouped in one room are the blondes, while the rest – the brunettes and a few redheads - are elegantly arranged around the rest of the exhibition space. All appear unclothed and unadorned, apparently revealed without pretension before the camera. In its stark formulaic depiction, this collection makes obvious reference to a legacy of ethnographic photography, with its attendant racial and classificatory imperatives. And it is an ironic, if not terribly self conscious gesture. A white man turns his lens on himself, on white people rather than black people, on middle class people rather than the poor. Not those who are others and othered, but his friends and his acquaintances. There is no Pieter Hugo curiosity nor Roger Ballen deformity here. Framed as a self-portrait, it is an intentional, self-evident reflection of the artist's ideals in the choice of his subjects. This doesn't happen enough and we should certainly be pleased. But for some reason I'm not.
28 June 2012 - 26 July 2012
Listings(s)
'Jong Afrikaner - A Self Portrait'
Roelof Petrus van Wyk at Commune.1Commune1 is proud to present Roelof van Wyk’s Jong Afrikaner: A Self-Portrait.
The exhibition consists of frank and sumptuous portraits of urbanised, engaged Afrikaners who present a challenge to preconceived ideas about Afrikaner identity and values. These ‘new’ Afrikaners negotiate their lives as a minority group in South Africa. Their connection to each other—by kin, marriage, friendship or shared beliefs, preferences and tastes—suggests a cohesion very different from the forced identity of the apartheid years. Van Wyk chose his subjects—all of them known to him personally —for their often extraordinary lives that demonstrate a multi-layered and richly varied Afrikaner identity. Van Wyk's artistic practice resides in the space between art and architecture and his work has been exhibited locally and internationally.
The exhibition will coincide with the launch of the book Jong Afrikaner: A Self-Portrait, published by Fourthwall Books, with text by Stephanus Muller (translated into English and Dutch by Michiel Heyns and Riet de Jong).
28 June 2012 - 26 July 2012
