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ART TIMES
February 2010
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Dada South?
well worth a visit

Dada South?, one of the most thrilling exhibitions


ever to grace our National Gallery

By Lloyd Pollock almost never seen in this country.


Survey exhibitions of major art
On entering Dada South?, one movements occur regularly over-
experiences a jolt of dismay. seas, but they are regarded as far
too ambitious and expensive for us
A riotous profusion of sculptures, to mount. The astronomic costs
paintings, assemblages and vid- of foreign loans, and not curatorial
eos violate the gallery’s classical oversight, explain the lacunae at
architectural severity, and the ex- Dada South? Schwitters, Ernst
hibits are arranged in a seemingly and Picabia are barely repre-
chaotic, anti-museological display: sented, and Cologne, Hanover
islanded on the floor; climbing up and New York Dada are to a large
the pilasters, spilling out of show- extent passed over. However Van
cases, dangling from the ceiling, Wyk and Smith have displayed
or craning down from the walls. immense ingenuity in pressing
Video soundtracks and snatches printed material into service to
of music and nonsense poetry stand in for absent works, and only
create a boisterous charivari, and the most desiccated pedant would
one’s senses are bombarded by nit-pick, for clearly the curators
teeming, unruly forces that refuse have attempted the impossible,
to be contained. and come up with results so ad-
mirable that the show is bound to Heidi Erdmann puts the squeeze on the darling of South African painting Robert Hodgins well before his 90th birthday in June. Heidi Erdmann gave
This an apt introduction to Dada become a museological milestone. Robert a Tea party held in his honour at The Erdmann Contemporary in Cape Town. Photo: Carla Erasmus
which rejected logic and causality,
espoused chaos and irrationality, Like a snowy Xmas, one as-
and deliberately outraged ‘good’ sociates Dada with the Northern A great South African artist passes
taste and all the protocols of the hemisphere, but Dada South
museum and art gallery in order to reveals just how tenaciously it took Jackson Jekiseni Hlungwane
inflame the imagination, expand root here. The exhibition which
the mind and reinvent the world. explores the impact Dada had 1923 - 2010
Dada South?, one of the most upon us in Africa, and the impact
thrilling exhibitions ever to grace Africa had on Dada, transforms
Acclaimed woodcarver and Charismatic spiritual leader passed away on 20 January 2010
our National Gallery, achieves just our understanding of the entire
this goal. movement. at his home in Mbhokota, near Elim, Limpopo Province. Read his obituary on page 13.
The fact that it is devoted to a sin-
gle ism, makes it the kind of show Continued on Page 4

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South African Art Times February 2010 Page 3

Spier curators discussing the way forward (left to right) Clive Van Den Berg,
Mwenya Kabwe, Farzanah Badsha and Jay Pather - image courtesy Spier Contemporary. (Photo:Robin Jutzen)

Countdown to an exciting Spier Contemporary 2010


Veronica Wilkinson 2,700 submissions the curatorial the works “grittier” than in past released at this point and it must
team has selected 132 artworks by years and more “incisive in their be stressed that the artwork in the
On the evening of 13th March 100 artists which will be assessed commentary on peculiarly South supplied image (if published) is not
at the Cape Town City Hall five during the week commencing African themes with the range in necessarily one of those selected
winners of the Spier Contemporary 8th March by the judges. Please terms of media and performance by the curators.
arts award will be announced and visit www.spiercontemporary2010. pretty widespread including some
an exciting new artist in residence co.za for more comprehensive works of great quality.” Former The prospect of an exhibition of
category will provide another six detail. I spoke to artist and curator Spier award winner Zambian this size and nature with its prizes
artists with overseas experience Clive Van Den Berg about the Mwenya Kabwe who lectures and opportunities for residen-
and opportunities at established show to obtain his impressions at the University of Cape Town cies overseas is an optimistic
art institutions. The value of the of the work submitted. He said has contributed her insights into development in South African art
prizes to the winners selected that he considered the mood in performance augmenting Jay at a time when global economic
by judges Rose Lee Goldburg, 2007 more optimistic than at the Pather’s expertise on the curatorial circumstances are discouraging.
N’Gone Fall and Mark Coetzee present. However despite changes team. Ethiopian anthropologist and What better incentive to develop
is equivalent to R100,000.00 per in circumstances there has been curator Meskerem Assegued has and nurture the creative impulses
winner and a sixth prize of the much art of good quality among been invited to share her brand and ingenuity of artists around
same value will be awarded to an the submissions. This show pro- of international curatorial and South Africa.
artist nominated by public vote at vides opportunities for younger art- specialized experience to assist
the end of the exhibition. Johan- ists to show fresh and challenging the selection process. Although every viewer will have an
nesburg architect Nabeel Essa is work to the public. Clive van den opinion shaped by his or her expe-
working on the design for the ex- Berg is excited about the platform It seems almost ironic that from rience, education and knowledge it
hibition by transforming the grand provided by Spier to showcase the the innovative nature of the previ- will be interesting to see what sort
Edwardian interiors into spaces of work of emerging artists away from ous Spier Contemporary show in of work challenges the critics and
historic engagement through skill- the competitive commercial gallery 2007 this exhibition will straddle prompts comment in its visitor’s
ful use of colour to encourage dia- circuit. Project manager Farzanah style and time to present Cape- book. It is to be hoped that art
logue between artwork, viewer and Badsha is enthusiastic about the tonians with contemporary South teachers at Cape Town education-
locus. The central access to the city hall venue because she feels African art history in the same al institutions will take the opportu-
building is to be re-opened for the it will draw large new audiences building that houses the Central nity to expose their students to the
duration of the exhibition restoring and says that the project is running library with its reference, art, fiction show which promises innovation in
the traditional role of protective to schedule for its 13th March and music sections. No im- its design and stimulating quality
matrix to the structure. From over opening. Jay Pather considers ages of selected artwork could be with its content.
Page 4 South African Art Times February 2010

Dada South? well worth a visit


Continued from page 1

cal issues of oppression, violence a naked male torso with prominent the art market, and thus it appears
and conscription in subtle, elliptical pubic fuzz and callipygian buttocks. like a tame, potty-trained Dada
ways that never degenerate into the The artist’s scopophiliac gaze can when set aside John Nankin’s
often woeful literalism of ‘protest only be construed as undressing Box (1967/1975/2009) and Adrian
art’. Susan Bristow’s terrifying the subject. Kohler’s puppet Saw Dog (1997)
saw with a blade fashioned from which were not designed for sale,
alligator hide and Rolf Streuber’s The silk-screens prove that Battis’s and thus possess the provocative
gargantuan chair – a devastating rejection of outright political involve- posture and jarring, outlandish
Many consider Dada a tiresome, symbol of the kragdadigheid and ment, in no way compromised his identity of authentic Dada.
immature and attention-grabbing baaskap of the Nationalist state stance as an anti-puritanical agent
nihilist movement of destruction that – prove extremely arresting. of personal liberation working in Willem Boshoff’s magnificent
cultivated shock for shock’s sake, line with international avant-gardists Bangboek, a work of great intellec-
however Dada South? reveals that Why have such artists been who exploited the concept of Eros tual rigour, imaginative range and
even its wildest excesses had a firm neglected? as an embodiment of the power of aesthetic splendour, spectacularly
spiritual raison d’etre. The Cabaret resistance. outclasses all the local Dada-tinged
Voltaire, for instance, used Afri- Our recent art history has largely works. Kendell Geers’ Title With-
canised masks, poetry, dance and been shaped by politically correct There is also nothing parochial eld (After an Allegory with Venus
rhythmic drumming to reshape their agendas constructed around about Christo Coetzee’s Celestial and Cupid) (1995), for instance,
consciousness, shatter their ego transformation. The reigning Bicycle (1958-60), which indicates consists of a postcard reproduc-
boundaries and enable them to en- orthodoxy is that resistance and just how eagerly he participated in ing Bronzino’s painting which the
list chance, and create collaborative protest art dominated the scene for radical international experiment. artist has stained with semen.
works which challenged the notion the two decades before democracy, Executed in Paris, the bicycle, The act of masturbating over the
of individual artistic genius. While and artists that do not conform to which was exhibited at The Art of image implies that it is high-faluting
many contemporary European art- this scenario have, in general, been Assemblage show at MOMA in pornography. Such gestures of
ists simply appropriated superficial marginalized. New York in 1961, is in the van- contempt for the greatest Western
African stylistic traits, the Dadaists guard of Neo Dada innovation, and masterpieces follow in the tradition
showed deeper understanding, contemporaneous with Rauschen- of Marcel Duchamp’s LHOOQ
clearly intuiting the transformative berg’s ‘combine paintings’ such as (1919), a defaced Mona Lisa. As
goals of African ritual. Monogram 1959, a paint be-spat- Duchamp said it so much more wit-
tered stuffed goat enveloped in a tily a century before Geers, one can
The heady excitement that at- car tire. Celestial Bicycle consists only question whether ‘die verlore
tended the birth of Dada in Zurich of a torn canvas through which the kind’ has spilt his seed in vain.
and Berlin is rousingly conveyed real world - in the form of a bicycle
by work by many key figures, and - erupts. The bicycle and remain- Bangboek by contrast is no mere
a reconstruction of the First Inter- Aspects of Battis’ oeuvre have ing canvas are encrusted with thick sophomoric prank. It forms a
national Dada Fair in Berlin. The suffered from this neglect. His silk- ropes of pigment a la Jackson record of deep, personal trauma
Prussian Archangel, a sculpture screens created in Hamburg at the Pollock, and like Rauschenberg’s transmuted into a cool, classically
by Schlichter and Heartfield flies height of the ‘swinging sixties’, the work, it functions as a critique of disciplined statement that combines
overhead, and Hindemith’s organ permissive society and the sexual the rarefied hermeticism of Abstract the irrefutable authority of Moses’
music from Richter’s film Ghosts revolution, exploit the new-found Expressionism. tablets of the law, with the irresist-
before Breakfast (1928) charges freedoms to explore the artists’ ible mystery and intrigue of an
the atmosphere with compulsive ambivalent sexuality. In Artist’s South African art by relatively archaeological relic.
arpeggios. Dada South’s strong Silhouette (1969) a rent-boy-type obscure artists not only holds
aural component enhances its slouches against telephone booths up well when juxtaposed with See Dada South? for this is only
enthralling visual impact, creating in a public place. The white void great Dada icons like Man Rays’ one of the many wonders that await
cymbal-clashing fortissimo effects. representing the artist’s silhouette, Obstruction and Marcel Duchamp’s you.
and the phallus-shaped speech boite-en-valise, it also upstages
The curators must be congratulated bubble near the boy’s head, imply our big guns - Robin Rhode, Tracy To contribute to Dada South?’s
for tracking down potent works by involvement between the two. In Rose, Jane Alexander and Robert participatory documentation and
obscure artists like Lucas Seage, One Way Street, images of a Hodgins. The format and content research project, please email their
Jacques Coetzer and Belinda raffish youth on a London street of their work is largely determined archive of experimental practices:
Blignault which address socio-politi- are juxtaposed with side views of by the commercial pressures of dadasouthza@gmail.com

SA_Art Times JANUARIE_10.indd 1 2010/01/25 09:55:18 AM


l’Afrique: A Tribute to Maria Stein-Lessing
and Leopold Spiegel at Museum Africa
A collection of traditional African art and
South African modernist painters
Curated by Nessa Leibhammer and Natalie Knight
Open daily Tuesday to Sunday 9-5 Running until December 24, 2010
Enquiries 011-833-5624 Museum Africa
The education programme includes walkabouts and NCS linked
interactive workshops on African art for Senior Phase Arts and
Culture learners and an FET Phase Level workshop for History
and Visual Arts educators, linked to an essay competition
with major prizes for FET Phase learners. Education resources
include a poster, DVD and a treasure hunt of 20 questions.
Enquiries: Helene Smuts Arts Education Consultants cc Cecil Skotnes, Reclining Figure, 1970 Barotse wooden bowl Maggie Laubser, Woman and Baby,
Email: helene@africameetsafrica.co.za painted wood panel, woodcut Collection Natalie Knight 1922; Collection University of the
Or phone/fax (011) 622 7871 Collection Johannesburg Art Gallery Witwatersrand
South African Art Times February 2010 Page 5

Exciting nEw RElEasE


Launched in Feb 2010

BILL DAVIS
SCULPTOR
HIS LIFE
&
JUMP! A standard, white, queen-sized bed drifts about in the CBD all week long. Bishop Tutu has jumped on it. Fisher-
WORK
men have jumped on it in Kalk Bay Harbour. So have cleaners from the Mount Nelson Hotel. Kelly invites you to take off your
shoes, lay down your burdens for a few minutes, and exercise your basic right to bounce on the bed. Jump in the middle of the
city. Jump for the joy of jumping. Kelly Vaagsland Wainwright: a conceptual artist straddling the globe between both Oakland,
California & Cape Town, Kelly has been working on a project called PLAY JUMP EAT in Cape Town for the past year. The project
will culminate in an auction of several playful photographs capturing “quintessential Capetonians” jumping on a bed.Images:
Conceptualist: Kelly Vaagsland Wainwright Photographer: Inge Prins

Infecting the City 2010 explores “Human Rite”


Infecting the City (ITC) – the Spier wounds? What shape can rituals The works are created by top local residency, returning to Cape Town
Public Arts Festival – is taking to take in the communal spaces of and international artists, and are in January 2010 to spend a month
the streets, squares and public the 21st Century Global Village?’ ” staged free to the public in the developing their artistic plans into
spaces of the Cape Town CBD for communal spaces of the Cape public performance artworks.
the third year from the 13th to the With the theme ‘Human Rite’, In- Town CBD.
20th February 2010. Presented by fecting The City 2010, asks artists ITC 2010 will be launched on
the Africa Centre, and curated by to grapple with these questions, to The flagships of ITC are the New Saturday, 13th February. The
Brett Bailey, ITC promises to bring make works that incorporate all the Collaborations. Seven artists from Saturday launch and the Festival
audiences a week of thought-pro- people of Cape Town into an urban South Africa, other African states closure on Saturday the 20th
voking, well-crafted and innovative community. “We hope to refigure and non-African countries are February allow audience members
public art works. the public spaces of the inner city participating in creating two new unable to travel to the city during
Every year, ITC raises a social as arenas in which we confront our large-scale site-specific perform- the week, to experience Infecting
issue for artistic response. This demons and attempt to put them ance works. Their residency the City in its entirety.
year’s Festival explores the theme to rest. We want to seek out silent began in mid-November and will This hard cover publication of 208 pages
‘Human Rite’, which investigates memories and invisible stories include an intensive three-week All daytime performances are free encapsulates Bill’s unique vision,
the role of rites and rituals as tools and validate them, looking at what course of presentations, experi- fully illustrating six decades of sculpture
for transformation and healing. needs to be righted/rited, whilst ences and site visits to give them Infecting the City ‘Human Rite’ and graphic work in the context of his life story.
Infecting the City asks ‘How can celebrating our fundamental hu- a deep sense of the issues at play 13-20 February 2010
the arts today use ritual to effect man right to express who we are.” beneath the skin of Cape Town Cape Town CBD Available from leading bookstores @ R395. Distributed by Blue Weaver.
social change and cohesion? What through the magnifying lens of the 021 422 0468 T: 021 701 4477 E: info@blueweaver.co.za
are the wounds in our society The Festival is made up of col- Festival theme. www.infectingthecity.com
and our city that need attention? laborative performance works, Facebook Group : Infecting the
Can we make art works that are art installations, choreographed The artists will be divided into City Festival
themselves rituals to heal these pieces and public interventions. creative teams at the end of the

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Supplement to The South African Art Times as part of the Geat South African Masters Series

Andrew Verster
Born Johannesburg 1937
Researched and written by Peter Machen

Work from the Bodyworks series

“My history is only useful if it helps me find where I’m going. And unless painting is something more than making pictures, I’ve missed the point”

Andrew Verster was born in Johannesburg in 1937 and even as a small child had an overwhelming desire to paint and make art; it was, from a very
young age, the one thing that was sure to keep the young Andrew quietly occupied. For Verster, there was no other option other than being a painter,
and after he finished school, he left for London to study fine art. Although he wanted to get in to Slade because he thought it was the “best art school
in the world”, he ended up studying at Camberwell, an institution that was more grounded in technique and less in radicalism of concept. Having
completed his National Diploma in Art and Design he spent two more years in England, receiving a teaching diploma from the University of Redding
and hanging around London for a year before returning to Johannesburg, where he taught at Johannesburg Art School. After a brief stint teaching at
Michaelis in Cape Town, he moved to Durban, where he taught art at Salisbury Island for seven years and established a lifelong network of friends and
colleagues. He would, in time, become the city’s most celebrated artist, producing at a prodigious rate through a diversity of media.

Verster’s first solo show was in 1967 in Johannesburg. Championed by Harold Jeppe, and subsequently by Linda Goodman, he was an immediate success, both critically and
in terms of sales. Nine years later, at the age of 39, he stopped teaching in order to become a full-time painter. Since then, he has worked all day, nearly every day, in the stu-
dio at the back of his house, a space he used to share with Aidan Walsh, an acclaimed painter and Verster’s life partner for nearly five decades. Walsh died in July 2009 and
Verster continues to devote the bulk of his time to his work. Prolific from the outset, more than forty years after his debut exhibition he remains one of the city’s most frequently
exhibited artists, producing work with a remarkable range of form and content.

As well as a vast body of paintings and drawings, Verster has also been involved in a host of projects and works outside what is traditionally considered fine art. He has col-
laborated with weavers on tapestries, he has designed the sets and costumes for a range of operatic and theatrical production; he designed the doors for the constitutional
door. He even won a BBC prize for a play he wrote, and has just finished his first novel. Additionally, he is a quiet sort of cultural activist and has been on numerous cultural
boards including duties at the Film and Publication Board.
Andrew Verster with Traviata costumes
Alter Ego, ink, acrylic, watercolour, crayon on Fabriano 75 x 55 2009

The Artist’s Style

Although Verster professes painting to be his true love and drawings and paintings constitute the bulk of his someone. His fascination with the secret life of objects and symbols reaches its apotheosis in his recent paint-
work, his oeuvre spans a vast array of media and techniques, from the imposing doors of the constitutional court ings of the male body, which has become a canvas for an infinity of objects, symbols, history and meanings.
to massive canvases overflowing with colour to the tiniest black and white ink drawing. What links the output of
his life is a defining approach to line and form in which the representational flow is interrupted by both the man- These heavily signified bodies exist both on a continuum to Verster’s earlier, seminal works - which raised the
ner in which the subject is painted, and in its recontextualisation within Verster’s overflowing world. male body to a level of pop significance which would only enter the cultural mainstream at the very end of the
1980s – and in contradistinction to those images. The beautiful young men that were the subject of Verster’s ‘60s
An object painted by Verster is never just an object or even an echo of its platonic form. It is always an object work had the blankness of possibility about them. Four decades later, the male body is tattooed to the hilt with
in the world that is rich with associations, associations which are framed by the artist’s fluid but precise drawing symbols and objects which, at times, feel like the full product of human experience and history. These figures are
style. Verster says that he has never had any interest in still lifes; for him the objects he paints always belong to not weighed down but filled. To use a phrase from American poet Walt Whitman, they “contain multitudes”.

Red Deity, Oil on Canvas

The Boys on the Beach – art and homosexuality Influences

It is hard to imagine in the 21st century, but when Verster was a young man – and in fact for most of his life, “If I had to be somebody,” says Verster, “I would have been Hockney
until 1994 – homosexuality was illegal in South Africa, one of the many ways in which the apartheid government – simply because I loved his naïve way of drawing and everything else.”
tried, with a fair degree of success, to create a highly conformist society in which all difference was seen as Verster ascribes his love for the pop painter David Hockney as being one
dissidence. of the reasons why he loves to work in pen and ink. “There was no way
I wanted to be Hockney. But if I had to anybody it would be Hockney.” He
Verster is certainly not the first artist to express his illicit desire in painted form – history is full of such examples continues talking about his approach to making art, saying “It’s more a
– but set against the cultural oppression and sexual conservatism of 1960s South Africa, the images were question of your inadequacy rather than what you really can do. You avoid
fundamentally, if surreptitiously, transgressive. Verster says that while the images may have been transgressive doing the things you can’t do – or think you can’t do.”
– he acknowledges that the male nude was not really a subject for fine art at the time – he didn’t think of it in Talking about the forces that shaped his art, Verster sees little external
those terms. “I was very naïve about everything,” he says. influence in terms of other artists. Instead, his work is shaped and inspired
by the city of Durban, its multiplicity and particularly the fact that it is
As Verster came to grips with his adult self, he continued along this path of apparent naivety, ignoring the home to such a large Indian population. But more than anything Verster
restrictive mores and laws of apartheid society, and went about the business of being Andrew Verster. Which, just follows his artistic nose, wherever it leads him, paying scant attention
as a young man, meant discovering his sexuality. And while he was doing that – in fact even before he was con- for the most part to the ever shifting concerns of the contemporary art
sciously doing that – he was drawing and painting pictures of beautiful men on the beaches of Durban that he world.
loved so much at the time. “In those days I didn’t know I was gay”, he says, “I mean, I suspected. I got engaged Durban is home to one of the largest Indian communities outside of India,
Joiner’ Photo portrait by David and the Indian influence on Verster’s work is substantial. He painted what
and did all those silly things that one does to prove that you are totally normal. But there was an inkling that all
Hockney of John Kasmin (1980) are considered his Indian paintings before he went to India. And when he
was not well.”
took those paintings to India for the first time, in an exhibition in Mumbai
Although his sexuality informs his work and his self, Verster doesn’t see it as a defining characteristic. When at the South African Consulate, he looked at his paintings and said to
asked why it comes up so little in his interviews, he replied “because it’s really not that important”. Nonetheless, them, “you look at home and I feel at home”. “It seemed logical that I
his highly expressive portraits of young men, which were to become some of his most famous and recognisable should have made those paintings after I’d been to India,” he says. “But
works, are undoubtedly inseparable from his sexual desires as a young man. once I got to India, I realised that I’d already experienced it in Durban, but
on a junior level.”
GALLERY

Works from the Bodyworks series Foot: Oil on canvas 50 x 100 2008

Arm from Notes on a Crucifiction Series 2008

Bejewelled oil on canvas 1.8 square 2008

WING from Poems for Angels Series


90 x 120 carylic painted cardboard
on canvas 90 x 120 2010
Faust in Africa

From History series From History series Bejewelled, Oil on canvas 1.8 square 2008
A year in the life of the artist
1994 was a critical year in the life of South Africa and an important one for
Verster, for it was the year that in his words, he “became legal”. As well as
the year that South Africa had its first non-racial election, it was also the
year that homosexuality was effectively decriminalised (although in actual
case, many prejudicial legal precedents and pieces of legislation still had
to be overturned or rewritten). For Verster, his sexuality was a signifier of
difference that was echoed by a whole range of other people, from the
handicapped to single mothers. The remarkable embrace of diversity and
equality that occurred in the first years of the new South Africa remain a
defining element of the country’s political – if not economic – landscape,
despite a range of challenges and crises.

1994 in the World


January 1 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is instituted
January 17 6.6 Earthquake hits Los Angeles killing 60
January 21 Lorena Bobbitt found temporarily insane after chopping off spouse’s penis
February 3 President Bill Clinton lifts U.S. trade embargo against Vietnam
February 9 Israeli minister Shimon Perez signs accord with Paslestine’s Yassar Arafat
February 12 Edvard Munch’s painting “The Scream” is stolen in Oslo
March 9 IRA launch mortar attack on London’s Heathrow Airport
March 28 Italy’s right-wing alliance under Silvio Berlusconi wins election
April 8 Japans premier Morihiro Hosokawa resigns
April 18 Lebanon drops relations with Iran
April 19 Rodney King award $3,800,000 in compensation for police beating
April 22 7 000 Tutsis slaughtered in stadium in Rwanda
April 27 First non-racial election in South Africa
May 6 Chunnel linking England and France officially opens
May 7 “The Scream” recovered 3 months after stolen
May 18 Israel withdraws from the Gaza Strip
June 2 Indonesian censors ban Steven Spielberg’s “Schindler’s List”
June 20 OJ Simpson arraigned on the murder of Nicole Simpson & Ronald Goldman
July 1 Yassar Arafat returns to Gaza strip
July 29 India army kills 27 Moslem militants
August 17 Lesotho king Letsie II fires premier Ntsu Mokhehle
August 28 First Japanese gay pride parade takes place
Sept 8 MTV awards feature newlyweds Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley
October 3 Fernando Henrique Cardoso elected president of Brazil
October 7 China performs nuclear test
Nov 2 Benzine explosion in Dronka Egypt; more than 400 killed
Nov 9 Chandrika Kumaratunga chosen 1st female president of Sri Lanka
Dec 2 Achille Lauro sinks off the coast of Somalia
Dec 10 Nobel prize awarded to Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat
Dec 31 Anti Apartheid Group of Netherlands (AABN) disbands

1994 in South Africa


Primary Landscape: Oil on Canvas
Jan 16 The Pan Africanist Congress suspends its armed struggle
Feb 28 Walvis Bay was handed over to Namibia
often constitutes the artwork. More specifically, these symbols and motif
Censorship and the police state. are traditionally used to invoke the divine, which is something that much
March 7 ANC president Nelson Mandela rejects demand by white right-wingers
for separate homeland in South Africa. President Lucas Mangope of
of Verster’s recent work does. Bophuthatswana announces that the homeland won’t be registering for the
When asked about how he dealt with living under the apartheid state, April elections. Unrest breaks out and the Bophuthatswana Defence Force
Verster characteristically says that he ignored it - “which I think was the Colour is called in.
only way of dealing with it”. His rich web of friends and professional March 9 The Nokia 2110 is launched in South Africa at a cost of R4,199
associates across a diverse spectrum of Durban society are testament to March 15 South Africa’s new national flag is unveiled
this “ignorance”. But Verster could not ignore the apartheid state entirely. Verster often makes remarkable use of colour, although he is just at March 18 Goldstone committee reveals existence of secret police
March 20 Zulu-king Goodwill Zwelithini founds realm in South Africa
He had an exhibition (together with Patrick O’Connor) removed from the home with the relative simplicity of black and white. In some of his recent
March 22 South African Government/ANC take power in Ciskei homeland
Durban Art Gallery in the ‘60s, not by the police but by the director of the works he uses supersaturated hues, seemingly at the edge of the visible April 18 Photographer Ken Oosterbroek is killed in the crossfire during pre-election
gallery, who had decided that they were pornographic. And one evening in spectrum; the colours are almost luminous, and because of their tonality fighting in Thokoza
the ‘80s, just before Christmas, while he was having dinner with his friend, relative to each other, Verster creates a remarkable sense of depth, April 19 Inkatha Freedom Party ends its boycott of the country’s fisrt non-racial
the activist Fatima Meer who was a banned person at the time, the police tapping into the way that colour and colour relationships affect the visual election
raided his house. Despite his friendships with Meer and other activist plane of our perceptions. But the artist says that the colours he uses are April 26 First non-racial election in South Africa begins. Dr. Nomaza Paintin is the
figures in Durban, his work has never moved into the realm of the overtly simply the colours he likes. For Verster, each painting is a process of first black South African to vote
political, partly because Verster never works didactically. discovery. He says that he never has a clear vision of the finished work, April 28 Election ends
May 3 South Africa resumes full membership of the World Health Organisation
and his work is rendered entirely intuitively. “There’s always the dialogue
May 25 The United Nations lifts its arms embargo against South Africa
between what you’re making and what you’re thinking about”, he says. May 6 Nelson Mandela and the ANC confirmed winners in election
Decorative Art and India “And the two modify each other all the time”. May 10 Nelson Mandela sworn in as South Africa’s first black president
May 11 Six white racists sentenced to death in South Africa
Much of Verster’s recent work has involved intense use of decorative ele- Contemporaries June 23 South Africa reclaims its seat in the United Nations.
ments, and this contemporary inclusion is in some ways as transgressive 22 August South Africa and India sign a trade agreement
as his portraits of sexy young men were in the ‘60s. The contemporary October 1 President Nelson Mandela visits US
world remains suspicious of art that can be described as decorative or Among Verster’s contemporaries are Bronwen Findlay, who was a student October 6 Ben Mokoena becomes the first black mayor of South Africa in Middelburg
Dec 17 The African National Congress hold their 49th National Conference in
which contains decorative elements. .Even as the international art scene of his (but whom he says he could teach nothing), Patrick O’Connor, with
Bloemfontein
has embraced craft, photography and archive with glee and come to the whom we taught at Salisbury Island and, most significantly, Aidan Walsh,
collective conclusion that virtually anything can constitute art in the twenty the hyperrealist painter who was Verster’s life partner for nearly fifty
first century, decorative art remains suspect. Verster’s work in the past years. As well as other artists, Verster also had strong relationships with
few years has attacked the stigma of decorative art, revealing the spiritual those in other sectors of the creative industry and, as a result, his career Next up on the Great South African Masters Series
elements in it, elements that are as ancient as representation itself. Indian has included much collaborative work. His relationship with activist soci-
art – and many other indigenous art forms – make great use of recur- ologist Fatima Meer remains an important element in his life’s narrative.
rence, both in pattern and motif, while in Islamic art specifically, the use of
representational elements is generally disallowed and pattern and script

Dorothy Kay
(Portrait, Figurative Artist, Illustrator) (1886-1964)
Written by Jeanne Wright

Dorothy Kay is regarded as a conventional painter in the sense that she produced work
which was unpretentiously realistic and easily understood by the viewer. She is best
known for her portraits of civil dignitaries, social personalities and for her genre studies
of ethnic African subjects. Throughout her life she also produced self-deprecating and in-
sightful self-portraits of herself wearing a library of different headgear. She was not afraid
of appearing ridiculous and saw herself in a way which was devoid of flattery. “Her late
Andrew Verster’s partner Aidan Walsh, an acclaimed painter and Verster’s life partner for nearly five decades. Walsh died in July 2009 self-portraits are suffused with a wonderful honesty”. (Arnold 1996: 126). - Above Image:
William Pagel Esq with Caesar, Rajah, Suzie and Rita. Oil. 1940 NMMAM
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Tel: 021 947 3359 / 083 457 2699
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Jackson Jekiseni Hlungwane
Acclaimed woodcarver and Charismatic spiritual leader passed away on 20 January 2010 at his home in Mbhokota, near Elim, Limpopo Province.

By Kathy Coates South Africa, and travelled from Johannesburg to Germany. The second tive works of God, the Angels, Adam and Eva, Cain and Abel have distinc-
exhibition, The Neglected Tradition, curated by Stephen Sack, set a tive features, caricature-like with jutting chins, bulging eyes and prominent
To celebrate Jackson Hlungwane’s life as an artist and to mark his pass- similar trend, incorporating rural and urban artists into the mix, the so noses. Symbols of the egg, usually bulging on the legs and enlarged feet,
ing is a mammoth task, and when reflecting on his spiritual beliefs, he is called ‘self-taught’ artists included Jackson Hlungwane, Paul Tavhana, link to fertility and the fragility of creation and the grounded connection to
still with us, represented in another dimension, since he saw all forms and Avhashoni Mainganye, Johannes Maswanganye and many others. Other the ancestral world, and possibly allude to Hlungwane’s self-affliction.
human life as part of the same world: ‘ Up Down and Under-Down’ as he exhibitions followed, Hlungwane sometimes travelled with exhibitions, Hlungwane’s emblematic fish sculptures, usually perched on a carved
often described our parallel existence. though not in recent years. Hlungwane’s work was aquired by collectors base drew on the symbol of St. Peter as ‘fisher of men’ popularised as a
globally and nationally and is represented in major collections. It was a Christian motif, though the Shangaan women had also incorporated this
Born in 1923, at Mbhokota, his father had carved bowls and spoons, euphoric heyday for Hlungwane lasting for about a decade, though the symbol into the beaded and embroidered ‘nceka’ worn on special occa-
passing on these skills to Jackson. Hlungwane, like so many of his largely urban art market shifted its gaze to new arenas, and the inter- sions, along with water and cosmic imagery linking them to the ancestors
generation spent some time working in Pietersburg (Polokwane) at an national market was hard to reach. Hlungwane exhibited with the Cote and also their trading heritage during their time in Mocambique prior to
asbestos mine and Johannesburg (at a tea and coffee merchant), though D’Ivoire exhibit, at the First Johannesburg Biennale; Africus ’95, though migration.
returned home after losing a finger in an accident. did not himself attend.
In the early nineties, a massive tree emerged from the Letaba River, and
He describes a moment in his life which changed everything: he had He considered our time as a new age for women when men would be- was brought to Mbhokota for Jackson to carve. Hlungwane’s God was
dreamt that he was possessed with demons manifested in his right leg come obsolete except to ‘make babies’ since all they have caused is war. carved lying down on the ground with the intention of one day raising
and was instructed in a vision to immerse his leg in a fire, which he did. He urged all women to have at least twelve children. it upright as a massive totem to God. This never happened and much
Hlungwane was afflicted throughout his life from the resultant frequently of this monumental work has been hacked away for firewood, eaten by
ulcerated wounds, though displayed the scars with pride. A father of twelve himself, he also elevated his wife Magdalena to be termites or destroyed by the extreme climate. It was one work too large to
sitting with him next to Christ in heaven. An inspirational teacher, Jackson be removed from the site, which used to be an open-air gallery abundant
From this point on Hlungwane became a preacher, starting his own sect always had a posse of dedicated students around him, having passed on with works. The God figure showed the typical gesture of ‘Thumbs Up’
in the Zionist tradition named ‘Yesu Geleliya One Apostle in SayoniAlt and the woodcarving tradition to his son Gazland and many grandchildren. a gesture adopted by Hlungwane almost as a trademark, together with
Omega’ preaching in two separate outdoor ‘churches’ Cana for women, Attempts to open an art school for Hlungwane to teach youth in Soweto his greeting: ‘Halleluyah’ and when leaving ‘See You Again, Never say
and New Jerusalem for men. in the early 90’s by a well-meaning arts practitioner were very soon Goodbye’.
His work, which he executed with unparalleled skill, was to him the work squashed, when Hlungwane refused to stay in Johannesburg, returning
of God, whom he claimed to work through him. Very little remains of to his spiritual base at Mbhokota. Other remains of Hlungwane’s life’s work at his home, are a few small
New Jerusalem, a stone structure built by Hlungwane in the 1980’s on carvings.
a nearby hilltop, to house the Altar to God, Cain and Abel, Archangel Conversations with students usually involved a diverse array of books as One has to question the many years of neglect from the commercial
Gabriel, and a host of other works, now installed at the Johannesburg Art teaching aids, mostly gifts to Jackson, and in his teachings, all images, art world, and government departments of Arts and Culture who have
Gallery with some of the original stones. The Arial to God still remains. regardless whether from a National Geographic, a book on Androgyny allowed one of our national treasures to pass in such poverty. Funds are
in Art or a Pizza Menu from Japan (following on from his visit there with still being sought by his family to pay for his funeral.
Hlungwane’s rise to international acclaim as an artist, followed in the Rayda Becker) were consistently referred to as ‘Gods work’ ‘Gods food’
wake of two major exhibitions. The first was the Tributaries exhibition ‘Gods nature’ emphasising the omnipresence of God. Most of the comments from Jackson are from memories of conversations
(1985) curated by Ricky Burnett for BMW which exhibited an unprec- Humour comes into play in many works, such as Christ Playing Football over several years, during my stay in the Limpopo and subsequent visits
edented collection of diverse South African artists from every corner of [1983] which one visiting pastor found disrespectful. Hlungwanes figura- January 1991 until December 2009
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