So fresh but so stale. History painting for democratic South Africa
by Robyn Sassen
Manfred Zylla is not a willy-nilly conformist. His retrospective exhibition, 'Unauthorised' makes this clear _ through flawless execution and sincere conviction, it's obvious that this not a case bandwagonning on politics of the 1980s. But does the work make universal statements about humanity?
Born in the late 1930s, Zylla has been around and articulate in the visual arts for some time. Based partly in Germany and partly here, he remains a significant artist, articulating issues endemic to South Africa with a freshness of vision, handling and perspective, like a gust of new air, reeking of blood and cordite though it may.
But it's still not clear whether Zylla's personal and social history make him unique. Way back in the 1980s, he was a hot activist, and enjoyed the heady socio-political give-and-take with his contemporaries, which was taboo, butde rigueur. Isolate the bloke in a retrospective 20 years later, and what do we find?
'Unauthorised' is a valuable addition to the litany of shows and extravaganzas celebrating ten years of democracy, because it adds another voice to the clamour that being a ten-year-old democracy provokes. Comprising paintings on unstretched hessian, coloured etchings, drawings in pencil crayon and graphite, aquatints and other media, the works stem from the early 1980s and refer to the violent couple of decades which sounded the death knoll for apartheid, but also for many of its opponents.
These are not pretty pictures. They're history paintings in the manner of Brueghel or Beckmann, and, relationship to German Expressionism and Renaissance folklorish magic aside, these works offer South Africans a universal picture of our violences, be they sexual, murderous or political. Zylla offers us damaged babies as protagonists and victims of violence, as he offers lascivious and Germanic representations of sex in the big-bosomed women, lewd in their nakedness, in works like Buffel(1986).
Inescapably and rather obviously, the argument that the works are dated in their shock appeal, the specificity of the political incidents they reflect upon and the serious sense of political astuteness they convey, cannot be denied. Indeed, the works are unashamedly modernist in their solemn self-indulgence. Given the nature of the show, the gallery, and the times upon which it reflects, it is incumbent upon the viewer to look deeper.
And a deeper perusal reflects on the incredible freshness of technique that enable these works to speak universally of political strife. Thus the unfolding process of looking, seeing and understanding is complex. Is it political art, devoid, as Albie Sachs so well expressed it in 1989, of humour or soul? Or is it modernist, offering too much soul and no real relevance. I cannot help but see the work as straddling the two.
The almost twee Bad Boi that is represented on the invitation is precious in its handling and clichéd in its overtures for sympathy, but the historically focused polyptych in the gallery's front space, drawing together European medieval references with South African political ones, is gutsy and raw with its diverse drawing techniques, collage and boldness in theme and approach.
All in all, 'Unauthorised' is no longer as taboo as it might have been a couple of years ago, but the works themselves are powerful testaments to a bygone era.
June 10 - July 5
