Archive: Issue No. 62, October 2002

As has become the working practice of today's young artists, Thembinkosi Goniwe moves between large scale digital imagery, video, printmaking, painting, and drawing, using the materials and techniques he needs to work through each idea. A primary concern is the "unspoken racial constructs that are visible and implicit in our 'post-colonial' and post-Apartheid era". Goniwe's work has also examined the effect of African tradition and culture on society today. The subject on which Goniwe wrote his Masters thesis (at the Michaelis School of Fine Art in Cape Town) is 'ulwaluko', the Xhosa male initiation rite in South Africa, in which a youth, in the company of his peers, is ritually circumcised and instructed in the ways of manhood. Goniwe also made a powerful performative video in which an initiate acts this primal ritual out.

"My work is a response to what I see, hear and feel; whether this is influenced by external reality or by imagination. I am mostly concerned with personal experiences that are individualistic yet collective. My work is about simple ideas, things that are known or obvious yet complex and provoking.

"Although my work could be seen as being contextually based in that I deal with particular concerns and experiences of a place or people, I never see any reason to confine my ideas to a prescribed audience. I did not plan to become an artist, rather my art found me. I continue discovering it every day I work on it. What I find interesting in doing my work is the fun and joy I get, and the challenge and confrontation I experience".

Most recently, Goniwe collaborated with the Native American Hachivi Edgar Heap of Birds on "Eagles Speak", a project exhibited at The Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence. USA and last month at the Association for Visual Arts Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa. For this, Goniwe presented a panel of five mixed media drawings executed in a variety of styles which included imagery drawing on artworks from traditional carvings to a Mapplethorpe photograph and included graffiti style text. Entitled Too much talk, the piece seemed to question the sources from which ideas on racial identity are constructed.

One of Goniwe's most striking projects was conceived as part of the 'Returning the Gaze' exhibition, in the Cape Town City Festival in 2000. A billboard on the side of a house near the lower campus of the University of Cape Town showed portraits of two men, Goniwe, and fellow artist and lecturer, Professor Malcolm Payne. Both had a Bandaid strip on the cheek. A "flesh coloured" strip.

Goniwe is currently studying history of art at Cornell University, at the same time working on ideas for new art projects.

Born in Cape Town, 1971. Contact tgoniwe@hotmail.com
Academic Record:
2002	Currently MA-PhD. History of Art, Cornell University
1999	Master of Fine Art Degree, UCT
Solo Exhibition:
1999	"RITUAL", Association of Visual Arts, Cape Town
Selected Group Exhibitions:
2002	"Eagles Speak", a project by Hachivi Edgar Heap of Birds, at The Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence. USA and Association for Visual Art Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa.
2001	MTN New Contemporaries, curated by Clive Kellner, Camouflage Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa. 2001 Foire Internationale Africaine Des Arts Plastiques (FIAAP), curated by Yacouba Konate, Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire, Hotel Ivoire, Centre Culturel Francais, Lycee Francias, Galerie Arts Pluriels et AAA. Bag Factory/Fordsburg Artists Studios, Johannesburg
2000	"A.R.E.A.2000 - Art Region End of Africa", curated by Gavin Younge, Reykjavik Art Museum, Iceland. "Ubudoda", Men and Masculinity, curated by Jeremy Mulvey, Association of Visual Arts Gallery, Cape Town. "Returning the Gaze", organised by Black Arts Collective, Billboard in Rondebosch, Cape Town.
1999	"HOMELAND", UK & SA artists, curated by Margaret Tietze, Salford Museum and Art Gallery, Lancashire, England. "Bloedlyn", Klein Karoo Festival exhibition curated by Lien Botha, Principal Collage, Oudtshoorn and Association for Visual Arts, Cape Town.
1998	"Sixhentsa Sicula Xa Si Sonke: The South African Aesthetic", Group exhibition curated by Harris Wiltsher, Mississippi, Detroit, New York and Florida. "Cape Town Vital Signs", curated by Leeanne Crisp, Canberra School of Fine Art, Australia National University.
1996	"Barricaded Rainbow...", curated by Andrew Steyn, Centre for African Studies, UCT.
1995	"International Exhibition of Art Collages Hiroshima 95�" - Japan
Art Residencies:
2002	Resident artist at the Amgueddfa Ceredigion Museum, Aberystwyth, Wales Resident artist at the Greatmore Studios, Cape Town
2001	Resident artist at the Bagfactory/Fordsburg Artists� Studios, Johannesburg
2000	Resident artist at The Africa Centre, London
1999	Residence artist at the Wrexham Art Centre, Wrexham, Wales
1998	Residence artist at Florida A&M University, Tallahassee, USA
1997	Aluminium Plate Lithography Workshop, The Tamarind Institute of Lithography, University of New Mexico