A Vigil of Departure: Louis Khehla Maqhubela, a retrospective 1960-20.
Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg, 3 August to 18 September 2010
'A Vigil of Departure', a retrospective of Louis Maqhubela, runs at the Standard Bank Gallery from 3 August to 18 September 2010. The thrust behind the exhibition and catalogue is to assess Louis Maqhubela's (1939- ) place in, and contribution to, the history of South African art. The intention is to remind the public of a great artist, to return Maqhubela from obscurity and to re-inscribe him into the history of art of this country.
Maqhubela's name is strongly associated with the Polly Street Art Centre, where he studied from 1957-59. At a time of increasing apartheid restrictions, Polly Street, the first large-scale urban art centre in South Africa, emerged as a place where black artists could learn their craft.
A trip to Europe early in his career, and encounters with great European artists and abstract painting, offered him a means decisively to break out of the conventions and stylistic mannerisms of a genre that had been labelled "Township Art".
Maqhubela's new direction meant the end of figurative expressionism and the beginning of a personal engagement with modernist abstraction. His work now became less about recording views of his environment and more about using line, form, shape and colour as expressive means in and of themselves.
After settling in London with his family in 1976, Maqhubela's work became increasingly abstract, while trips to South Africa since 1994 have stimulated renewed interest in the colours, rituals and places of the country of his birth.
Maqhubela's spiritual journey and search for a higher plane through form and colour may explain why he has no immediate successors in the stylistic sense: his art is too personal, too enigmatic for followers to emulate.
In the catalogue to Maqhubela's exhibition, Marilyn Martin, the show's curator writes, "In spite of trials and challenges he faced during his life, Maqhubela's art is characterised by a profound humanism, inner joy and affirmation of life; [his works] spring from a deep spiritual and metaphysical well."
Standard Bank Gallery
Corner Simmonds and Frederick Street, Johannesburg
Tel: 011 631-1889
Gallery hours: Mon-Fri, 08:00-16:30; Saturday, 09:00-13:00
The gallery is closed on Sundays and public holidays.
Admission free