Synergy at The Old Townhouse
by Linda Stupart
The premise of 'Synergy' is that 11 well known, mostly white, South African artists design works that are then brought into fruition by groups of female Xhosa beaders. Idealistically it's a productive fusion of cultures and ideas, as suggested in the show's cheesy 90s title, a seamless concord of traditional and contemporary South African art practices and concerns. In reality however, the artists involved seem to have complete conceptual and creative autonomy while the beaders, or craftswomen, do all the hard labour.
In their press release, Qalo, who along with The Mogalakwena Craft Art Foundation run by Elbe Coetsee, were largely responsible for this exhibition, state: 'Qalo, by collaborating with our foremost contemporary artists and producing exquisite artworks using glass seed beads, is bringing together the Eurocentric tradition of high art and our African tradition of beading, continuing the story of beads into the new millennium.' Firstly, this assumption of a concrete and insoluble line between the 'Eurocentric tradition of high art' and traditional African craft is dangerous at best, and highly patronising at worst. The art vs. craft debate is one that certainly cannot be settled in this text, if ever, but it is an argument that certainly does not end in such a clear distinction. Nor will it be resolved in the suggestion that the only way the African tradition of beading can become a part of contemporary cultural production is through its appropriation by the Eurocentric.
That said, commissions such as these do create otherwise scarce job opportunities for the talented women beaders, and this exhibition is a good showcase for their undeniable skill and infinite patience. The works themselves are generally as exquisite as promised, with a few really clever and exciting pieces.
Probably the most critical and well considered work on the show is Nicolas Hlobo's Umgubo Negxowa Enya or Meal of the Same Grain which shows beaded versions of the screens apparently crafted by Xhosa women to keep flies off of food. This piece not only begins to discuss the artist vs. craftswoman issue, but could also suggest a not entirely savoury comparison between the artists who have here appropriated the craftswoman's labour for their own particular ends, and the swarming insects.
Rosemarie Shakinovsky's Speculum Veritas: after Duchamp could be a clever jibe on the readymade vs. the made-for-you-by-someone-else's-many-hours-of-hard-work concept while simultaneously appropriating one of the most iconic pieces of the 'high art' canon and converting its symbols into icons of useful objects (from artwork to bicycle wheel and back again). Either that or it is just a particularly obvious and tired way to question the high vs. low art binary with an unnecessarily explanatory and pretentious title.
Doreen Southwood's Untitled (Swinging Girl) is typical of the artist's singular iconic figurative works. This piece, however, recaptures the transience and ghostliness of her earlier sculptural pieces. Through the use of transparent beads and repetitive beading motions, Southwood regains qualities that have been lost in her more recent endeavours such as the clumsily painted Universe of Me shown at Michael Stevenson in 2005.
Paul Edmunds' Ledge is also very distinctive of the artist, whose meticulous, obsessive working method translates well into the beaded medium. Edmunds and the women with whom he collaborated must be commended on their arresting three dimensional illusion of an undulating bead cliff.
Liza Grobler's temptingly sordid bonsai people and Karel Nel's cosmic Red Shift are also visually successful, as indeed is most of the work on the show. The pieces on this exhibition are on the whole beautiful and unusual, and the problematics of the artist vs. beader relationship can also become positives when viewed with a more practical and less cynical eye. The show is definitely worth seeing, as long as one remains aware that these issues do definitely exist.
Opens: December 1
Closes: March 31
Iziko The Old Town House
Greenmarket Square, Cape Town
Tel: (021) 481 3935
Fax: (021) 460 8238
Email: cquerido@iziko.org.za
www.museums.org.za/iziko
Hours: Mon - Fri 10am - 5pm, Sat 10am - 4pm
