Archive: Issue No. 63, November 2002

In his professional career, conceptual artist Malcolm Payne has worked in virtually every medium, from drawings, paintings and prints to wallpieces and sculptures notable in one series for their rich, almost dazzling, colouring and highly detailed and textured layers, in another, for the pristine smoothness of the ceramic finish. In recent years, however, Payne has worked exclusively in video, making this his medium of choice. But in one sense, the medium is unimportant - each work is the vehicle through which Payne comments on some aspect of society, whether this be racism, the exploitation of labour, the oddness and lingering potency of old monuments, the greed of international pharmaceutical companies who refuse to sell drugs at reasonable prices, the difficulties of reconstructing the "truth" of past events, or the folly of believing any particular doctrine. Deeply steeped in the theory of art and contemporary philosophy, Payne uses a wry wit and strong visual metaphors in his videos to present his ideas.

"First of all, I don't take art particularly seriously. I make the work because I enjoy making it. No more complicated reason than that. I like the seriousness of the game."

Faced with the recent task of presenting his inaugural lecture following his appointment some time ago as professor at the University of Cape Town, Payne surprised his audience by standing up and leaving the dais with the welcoming party of colleagues once the moment for him to speak arrived. Was Payne making a dash for the exit? Seconds later, his greatly enlarged image appeared on a video screen, and the lecture took the form of a video'd interview with himself entitled Seeing Things, Hearing Voices in which Payne played the role of interviewer, complete with coughs, repeated phrases and the odd sip of water - the kind of moments which normally end up on the cutting room floor. On the blue screen behind his head, images of old works appeared, from a never before seen child's swing with the side chains welded together at the moment when the swing was highest - so it looked as if the child had taken flight - to Payne's most recent work, Anthem. The point about the swing piece, a student work, was, Payne had asked various lecturers what they thought of the idea beforehand. Finally he was told somewhat impatiently by the legendary Walter Battiss just to get on with it. The incident gave him the future confidence to accept his own ideas and carry them out.

Earlier this year, Payne showed a new piece entitled Anthem on a show at Michaelis in Cape Town of South African artists represented on the World Wide Video Festival in Amsterdam. Choosing to use black and white in a split screen for the strong graphic qualities, Payne attacked the staid monuments of Cecil John Rhodes, Jan Smuts and the Old Slave Bell with a zooming unstable camera, which constantly lost focus. One became slightly seasick watching the video. Other images included a woman's feet in a basin of water, and a close up of Payne himself, upside down, glaring angrily from the screen, thus situating himself as part of the scenario represented by the monuments. At one point, water spills from his mouth and is re-ingested. "On an art historical level", says Payne, "there is a strong reference to Bruce Naumann's Portrait of the Artist as a Fountain." Anthem's music comes from Arnold Schoenberg's Prisoner from Warsaw, composed after World War 11. Tellingly, at the end, a voice concludes: "I can't remember anything. I must have been unconscious most of the time."

For Videobrasil in 2001, Payne presented 15 March 2001, yet to be seen in this country. Using the form of an info-mercial, it examines the debate over intellectual property rights in the context of huge global pharmaceutical companies control over access to affordable HIV/AIDS drugs, in a South African context. US policy is highlighted in the video in the form of streaming text. Split screen technology is used, and the inverted lips of children chatter at speed. The US national anthem forms the basis of the sound track. Appropriated footage from film using a ventriloquist dummy is used.

"Absolutely nothing. I'm doing some more work on my lecture piece, Seeing Things, Hearing Voices, and we'll see what happens after that."

Malcolm Payne is a professor at the Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town, the city in which he lives and works.
Selected solo exhibitions:
1995	Untitled (USA), Untitled (Holland), Untitled (UK)- 46th Venice Biennale
1984	Standard Bank Young Artist of the Year Award Show - Monument Theatre, Grahamstown
Selected group shows:
2002	South African artists on the Worldwide Video Festival in Amsterdam, Michaelis School of Fine Art, Cape Town
2001	New ideas � old tricks. hARTware projekte Dortmund Head North. Views from the SANG permanent collection. Bild Museet, Umeâ 13 Videobrasil. Festival Internacional de Arte Electronica, Sao Paolo Homeport. South African Maritime Museum, Cape Town
2000	18 World Wide Video Festival. Arti et Amicitiae, Amsterdam Channel too. AVA, Cape Town Kwere Kwere. Gertrude Posel Gallery, University of the Witwatersrand
1999	Global Conceptualism: Points of Origin 1950s-1980s. Queens Museum, New York, USA, Walker Art Center, Miami Art Museum, Vancouver Art Gallery
1998	16 World Wide Video Festival, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam Bilder für den himmel, Hall Victor Hugo, Luxemburg
1997	Arborescence sud-africaine: des artistes en fin de siécle. Nantes XANADU "No memory" - web art exhibition www.imaginet.fr/nomemory/data/xanadu.htm Image and Form: prints drawing and sculpture from Southern Africa and Nigeria. Brunei Gallery, School of Oriental and African Studies, London University. Also at the Edinburgh College of Art Alternating Currents, Electric Workshop, 2nd Johannesburg Biennale Thirty Minutes - Visitors' Block, Robben Island, Cape Town
1996	Faultlines - The Castle, Cape Town