Joburg Contemporary Art Foundation (JCAF)
In December of 2023, the Joburg Contemporary Art Foundation (JCAF) launched its inaugural journal; JCAF Journal: Interdisciplinary Knowledge from the South. The journal is the culmination of three years of research, with the first edition’s theme focusing on Female Identities in the Global South (JCAF’s first research theme which resulted in an exhibition by the same name). The journal reflects on JCAF’s curatorial programme, which, so far, has centred around exhibiting women artists, thus ‘amplifying the voices of those historically underrepresented in museum collections and exhibitions across the globe.’ Contributing authors – a collection of writers, architects, photographers, and artists from the Global South – responded to JCAF’s first three exhibitions, creating an invaluable knowledge bank which examines the nature of women’s shifting realities in the Global South. As part of the journal’s launch, Robin Rhode’s multidisciplinary work Pictures Reframed was screened, accompanied by Qden Blaauw’s live rendition of Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky’s classical piano suite, ‘Pictures at an Exhibition.’
Pictures Reframed was initially conceived in 2009 when pianist Leif Ove Andsnes invited Rhode to create a video artwork in response to ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’, which Mussorgsky composed as a ten-movement piece in 1874 after seeing the famous paintings of architect and painter Viktor Hartmann at an exhibition at the Imperial Academy of Arts. The suite opens with a Promenade in B-flat major, which becomes a recurring musical motif. Both Andsnes and Rhode were inspired by the music and its original context. Together, they endeavoured to create a multidisciplinary performance which recontextualises ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’ within a contemporary reality.
JCAF is itself a generator of knowledge within the Johannesburg contemporary art space and continues to forge new methods of research. The JCAF Journal is open access, which exemplifies their commitment to facilitating conversation, and opening spaces and platforms for community engagement. ‘Considering how costly some academic sources are and how limited access can be, for us it is critical to make all of our content available for free. This is also a way of reaching audiences who haven’t visited us in person yet and it aligns with our institutional mission,’ says Bárbara Rousseaux, managing editor of the JCAF Journal.
Using exhibitions as a research tool is central to the JCAF’s methodology. It therefore seemed fitting to launch the first edition with a multifaceted, exploratory work. Rousseaux says, ‘Together with the JCAF team, we thought the journal launch would be a suitable framework to host the performance for the first time in South Africa – especially because of how different disciplines and generations unfold and come together in this revisited version of the performance, something that speaks back to our idea of interdisciplinary knowledge.’
The artwork consists of video sequences, stills, and stop-motion animations, taking the viewer on an unknown path through different visual worlds created by Rhode. The characters are shown wrestling with their own strange realities, moving to the chilling soundtrack of Mussorgsky’s composition. In one part of the Promenade, an otherwise blank wall has shapes drawn on it in chalk, resembling blocks or stones. In front of the wall, Rhode’s character balances his weight on his shoulders, feet skyward. The three-dimensional character is pictured ‘moving’ the chalk blocks with his feet. This interplay of real and imagined, material and immaterial, serves as the narrative and visual grounding of Pictures Reframed. Characters engaged in similar interactions with two-dimensional worlds reappear throughout the artwork, interspersed with scenes of derelict railway lines and electrical wiring – a nod to the failing infrastructure that forms the backbone of many cities, particularly those in the Global South. As a native of the eastern suburbs, I find myself analysing the work through a Johannesburg-centred lens. In this city, there is a pronounced degradation of the patchworked geometry – a degradation many of us have learned to accept. We struggle against the tide of industry, against the invisible poisons of the capitalist manifesto.
Rhode intended the work to be critical of the socio-political fabric of society at the time when it was first created. In an interview for Dazed Magazine in 2009, Rhode stated: ‘I want [this project] to be relational, and I want to touch on ideas about economy and identity. I want this to be political because when I create my artworks outside of this project there is a political consciousness – I’m not making political art, I’m making art political.’ He also described the ‘inherent rhythm and tempo of the drawing process,’ which became even more apparent to him as he worked in tandem with the music, saying that ‘the process of drawing evokes a kind of musicality that I wasn’t really conscious of in the past.’
In the section of the artwork called Ballad to Ballet, half-circles drawn in charcoal litter the surface of a white table and begin to overlap as the music progresses, the figure in the video continuing their frantic exercise in geometry. In another section, a character is depicted ‘playing’ a piano made by lining up pieces of chalk against a black table surface. As the scene continues, pieces of chalk get knocked out of line and white semi-circles appear on the table’s surface. There’s something unnerving about the layers of curved lines drawn over and over, crowded on top of one another, to an ever-changing soundtrack.
All the while, the music returns to the same melodic refrain, and the video artwork returns to scenes of the same figure in different versions of the Promenade, interacting with objects chalked on a wall. The return to familiarity affords the viewer a sense of comfort. In the chaos of the performance, a few of the elements slowly become recognisable. The music crescendos in the last movement, The Bogatyr Gate (in the Capital of Kiev), as a grand piano is filmed slowly becoming engulfed by flooding water. Darker musical tones swell as the water rushes around the feet of the piano. All the viewer can do is wait until it becomes fully submerged. Rhode has said that he has always dreamed of ‘killing a piano’ and that Pictures Reframed presented the perfect opportunity. The last image of a drowned piano stayed with me long after the performance ended. It can be read in many ways – as a metaphor for wasted dreams, a demonstration of how infrastructure tends to fail, or even as a meditation on climate change – but I always find myself returning to grief and the solemn inevitability of loss.
The multi-layered performance has a melancholic atmosphere, and it seems to be commenting on the state of the world, and the state of human existence. While the music and the accompanying video artwork were created at different times, they both endure. The scenes of industry provide commentary on the state of cities then, and offer viewers a chance to compare these images with the cities that society now occupies. The versatility of Pictures Reframed to engage the viewer in confronting present reality makes the artwork remain starkly relevant, fourteen years after its making. The decision to include this work as part of the JCAF Journal’s launch demonstrates a commitment to championing art-centred knowledge systems. The journal and the methodology behind it have the potential to change the fabric of our existing knowledge production systems, particularly those in academia, which remain largely closed off from public access.