AzaNYa
by Joost Bosland
Lots of stuff, and maybe even a paradigm shift
With snow storms abounding, February was a rough month for someone who has gotten used to the Cape climate. But it was a productive month nonetheless.
On the website of the National Black Fine Arts Show (NBFAS), an annual trade fair of galleries representing black artists, I noticed that one of the participating galleries would represent the Egazini Outreach Project.
I remembered seeing prints by Egazini, a Grahamstown-based printmaking initiative, in 'A Decade of Democracy' at SANG. While they were the initial reason for my trip to the NBFAS, I encountered much more worth pondering: works by Zwelethu Mthethwa, Garth Erasmus and Colbert Mashile, amongst other things. My thoughts can be found in my review of the show on these pages this month.
Turning to the museum listings page in the New York Times of Friday February 11, I could not help but smile. There, in the middle of a page of dry text, I recognised a still from another work that I remembered from 'Decade': the Robin Rhode video piece He Got Game.
The photograph was an illustration to the listing of 'Upon Further Review: Looking at Sports in Contemporary Art,' at the art gallery of Hunter College: the quirky gallery of what is perhaps the city's best public university.
'The Whole World Is Rotten: Free Radicals and the Gold Coast Slave Castles of Paa Joe' is probably the best commercial show I have ever seen. Works of art, ranging from a small Beuys piece, to new Zwelethu Mthethwa photographs, to the large coffin sculptures by Paa Joe, are set up to engage in a dialogue with Black Panther memorabilia.
Mthethwa's black and white photographs of a South African barbershop signal a new direction in his aesthetic. The atmosphere is more tentative, and they seem to search for questions rather than provide answers. I am looking forward to seeing more work of his in this vein.
Another show that includes a South African star is 'African Queen' at the Studio Museum of Harlem. Tracey Rose's Lucie's Fur Version 1:1:1 - the Messenger, the image from the Art South Africa Winter 2004 cover, hung alongside people like Malick Sibidé and Kara Walker.
'Black Girls Rule!' is the exhibition's unofficial motto, but it was in no way a monolithic approach to the subject. From drag queens to insecure teenage girls, the show complicates rather than celebrates the notion African Queen. In the words of one of its curators, Isolde Brielmaier, 'What emerges is not one uniform view of 'the black woman' but a collage of black female forms that are beautiful and hideous, powerful and broken, real and imagined.'
The show is fabulous. And it left me wondering when an SA institution will have the guts to tackle the theme in such an unapologetic manner.
Don't black girls rule in South Africa, too?
The Studio Museum currently also hosts Meschac Gaba's first American solo show. While mostly known for his Museum for Contemporary African Art project, Gaba's NYC show consists of sculptures of remarkable New York and Benin buildings, made out of braided artificial hair. The created skyline was mind-blowing.
A last word on the Studio Museum: Its visionary curator Thelma 'Post-Black' Golden has recently been named director, while former director Lowery Stokes was moved to the position of president. Golden has been the museum's ambassador and star since her appointment, and now finally has a title to match.
February is Black History Month in the US, and the Museum for African Art decided to celebrate this with free admissions for everybody. As I still have not received my ArtThrob press card, I was more than happy that I could see 'Glimpses from the South for free.
'Glimpses' is a delicate little show of classical southern African works from the JAG collection. Highlights include a late 19th century birthing couple from the Northern Province, and a Swazi/North Nguni vessel that stands 51 centimeters tall, from the same period.
Let me end with a slight speculation. On February 16, a review of 'A Saint in the City: Sufi Arts of Urban Senegal' by Holland Cotter appeared on the front page of the Arts section of the New York Times. The article included the following paragraph:
'Many of the forms regarded as cutting edge to the West in the past 40 years - installation art, performance art, body art, sound art have been integral to African and Islamic cultures for centuries. Yet Picasso's adaptation of African forms is viewed as evidence of his receptive vision, while an African artist riffing on Picasso's riffs on Africa is a copycat.'
Arguments like this, that have been made by thinkers in the field of contemporary African art for roughly two decades, can finally be seen infiltrating the mainstream media.
Add to that that both Yinka Shonibare and Thelma Golden were featured in the Times' full-colour fashion magazine this month, and I can't help but wonder.
Are we witnessing a paradigm shift? More AzaNYa next month.
