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A Vigil of Departure: Louis Khehla Maqhubela, a retrospective 1960-20.
'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."
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Halakasha
‘Halakasha!’, a flagship exhibition celebrating the historic first FIFA World Cup™ in Africa, showcases a range of artworks dealing with the global phenomenon of soccer and the passion it evokes in Africa in particular. The exhibition’s title, ‘Halakasha!’ is drawn from the traditional South African celebratory cry on a goal being scored.
Designed to showcase the full spectrum of cultural manifestations of the love of soccer, the exhibition includes makarapas, vuvuzelas and commercially produced soccer merchandise.
Other highlights include popular street art in the form of painted barber signs by Ghanaian and Congolese artists; a selection of posters from the official FIFA poster collection of commissioned prints by world renowned artists (© FIFA 2010, brands united, Berlin (licensee) / David Krut Publishing, JHB (distributor); and images from Drum magazine relating to football during the apartheid years.
Adding to the richness of the exhibition are documents and handmade badges by political prisoners on Robben Island, where soccer was played. Costumes, drums and masks from Angola, Cameroon and Ghana that are echoed in some of the images on show are also included, as well as photographic essays, such as a feature by Nigerian filmmaker and photographer, Andrew Dosunmu. His work depicting fans in a range of guises, such as religious prophets, drummers and musicians, magicians, cross dressers, chiefs and military personnel, is featured. Images depicting the rivalries between supporters of local teams Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates – both of which are sponsored by Standard Bank − are captured by the Kenyan photojournalist Antony Kaminju.
Another element of the exhibition relates to isangoma and inyanga, diviners and healers who use traditional medicine and ritual practices to ensure a winning performance from their favoured team. The exhibition includes examples of items associated with divination practices.
The exhibition, curated by Fiona Rankin-Smith of the Wits Art Museum, also includes a series of documentaries and films on the theme of football. These will run throughout the show, which is accompanied by an extensive catalogue.
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Pieter Hugo
Pieter Hugo was born in Johannesburg in 1976 and is a self-taught photographer and
filmmaker. He started taking pictures at the age of twelve, when his father bought
him his first camera. He documents social issues globally but has a special interest
in Africa and developing countries.
On winning the 2007 Standard Bank Young Artist for Visual Art award, Hugo says:
‘It means that photography is being recognised as an artistic medium in South Africa
and this gives me great pleasure… It is refreshing that there is now the space where
we can appreciate photographic images beyond the urgency of photojournalism.’
Hugo was included in ReGeneration: 50 Photographers of Tomorrow, 2005-2025, an exhibition identifying 50 young photographers who will be considered great by 2025. In 2006 he won first prize in the portraits section of World Press Photo 2006 for a work from his Hyena Men portfolio. His most recent achievement was winning the KLM Paul Huf Award 2008, an annual prize for a young international talent below 35 years old. Hugo held his first solo exhibition in 2004 at Michael Stevenson in Cape Town.
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Skin-to-Skin
Jane Makhubele
Jane Makhubele is a full-time artist who grew up in Limpopo, where she was taught by her mother to make traditional Tsonga minceka. She married Billy Makhubele, who is now a well-known designer of new versions of this old art form. Billy is also respected as a collector of rare Ndebele and Shangaan
beaded artworks and clothing. Their collaborative work, and that of others in the Makhubele family, has been honoured on the Dungamanzi/Stirring Waters exhibition that is touring the country in
2007-8. The artist still lives in Limpopo.
Karin Lijnes
Karin Lijnes studied for an MA in Fine Arts at the University of South Africa. Her fibre artwork explores the impact of consumer culture on society and the individual, often looking at contradictions
and contrasts in South African life. For example, the mass-produced versus
the handmade; or the disposable versus the durable. Since 2000 Lijnes has exhibited her fibre art works, both in this country and abroad. She lives in Noordhoek in the Western Cape.
Leora Farber
Johannesburg artist Leora Farber received an MA in Fine Arts at the University of Johannesburg in 1992, having already finished a BA Fine Arts at the University of the Witwatersrand. Farber’s feminist works deal with ways the female body has been represented in contemporary western culture. Since 2004 she has exhibited in numerous South African cities, and has participated in numerous overseas group exhibitions. Farber currently directs research in art at the University of Johannesburg.
Walter Oltmann
Walter Oltmann grew up in Nongoma in KwaZulu-Natal, where he watched rural wireworkers making staffs and snuff containers decorated with wirework. He studied at the University of Natal, then completed an MA in Fine Art at the University of the Witwatersrand. Oltmann’s student research into traditional wirework in southern Africa has influenced his sculpture, and he has been making wire sculptures since he was a student. These are stranded constructions in copper, brass, aluminium wire and other industrial metal products, many of which are on display in public and corporate buildings. Oltmann lives in Johannesburg, teaches at the University of the Witwatersrand and exhibits widely.
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Cecil Skotnes
Of Norwegian-Canadian descent, Cecil Skotnes was born in 1926 in East London in a poor neighbourhood. He fought in World War II against fascism in Italy with South African troops, after which he stayed on to study painting in Florence. On returning to South Africa, Skotnes studied art at the University of the Witwatersrand from 1947 to 1950. He lived in Johannesburg from 1946, relocating to Cape Town in 1978.
In 1963 Skotnes helped to establish the Amadlozi group. This group, which included Guiseppe Cattaneo, Cecily Sash, Sydney Kumalo and Edoardo Villa, sought to work at the intersection of African and European art. Skotnes first exhibited his prints on his first solo show at the Pretoria Art Centre in 1957, and some were chosen to represent South Africa at the Sao Paolo and Venice Biennales of 1957 and 1958.
A former President of the now defunct South African Council of Artists, Skotnes is the recipient of many awards in recognition of his contribution to cultural development in South Africa: the Chamber of Mines Gold Medal in 1965, and the South African Breweries Gold Medal in 1968. He has been given honorary doctorates: from the Universities of Rhodes and Witwatersrand; and the Order of Ikhamanga in Gold (2003), for ‘exceptional achievement in, and the deracialisation of, the arts, and for outstanding contribution to the development of black artists.’
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Nicholas Hlobo: Umtshotsho
In 2009 the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Visual Art was bestowed on Nicholas
Hlobo. Since 1981, the award has been made annually to those who have demonstrated
exceptional ability in their field, and Hlobo was the 28th visual artist to be acclaimed
through the award. On winning the award, he said, ‘I am truly honoured to
have been chosen and hope to give audiences something new and innovative’.
A key element of the award is that winning artists are granted a national touring
exhibition, with legs in all the major centres in South Africa. Hlobo’s show, ‘Umtshotsho’,
a sculptural installation, began its year-long tour at the National Arts Festival,
Grahamstown in July 2009. His exhibition in Johannesburg at the Standard Bank Gallery
is supplemented by new works by the artist which have not yet been exhibited. This
is the penultimate leg of the tour before the show ends its run in Cape Town in
August 2010.
Drawing on his Xhosa culture and heritage, and his life as a black person in post-apartheid
South Africa, Hlobo is concerned with gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity,
and, according to him, ‘anything that people find embarrassing in society’. He is
particularly concerned with prejudice against homosexuality in black society, as
well as sex education, AIDS and blurring the division between the masculine and
feminine. Renowned for his sculptures made of found objects and disparate materials,
such as the inner tubes of car tyres, ribbon, leather and wire, Hlobo also makes
drawings and is a performance artist of note. His works are usually entitled in
his native tongue, Xhosa, and he is interested in the language, with its proverbs
and idioms. His work is symbolic: rubber tubes refer to condoms and some of his
forms allude to phalluses, sperm, orifices and umbilical cords.
While Hlobo’s previous shows have explored ideas surrounding birth and sex, the theme in ‘Umtshotsho’ is the rituals that accompany the transition from youth to adulthood. As Hlobo explains, the term umtshotsho refers to a traditional party for young people. ‘The focus is on that time when children are beginning to think and act like adults; the desire to explore life, dating, going out at night and all the consequences of wanting to do things older people do. Umtshotsho rarely takes place in its old form anymore and young people have found alternatives, such as going to bars and clubs. The works are not trying to tell a story about an old way of partying for teenagers but look at the new conventions and draw similarities between different times.’
‘Umtshotsho’ is accompanied by Hlobo’s first monograph, which traces his life and work from 2005 to 2009.
Running concurrently in the downstairs gallery is ‘City and Suburban’ by Johannesburg-based Karin Preller. Her images are carefully extracted from personal pictorial archives, in this instance, stills from home movies filmed in the 1960s. Says Preller, ‘The paintings chronicle ordinary lived moments of individuals, paused and rewound; interrupted narratives and lost stories.’
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