Kay Hassan - Speaking sense of South African history to the world through visual arts

Art Exhibition Review

Artist: Kay Hassan

“I haven’t decided about the title of the body of work yet,” said Hassan, his arms folded. Hassan and I were talking about his latest, untitled body of work, currently on show at Nirox Projects at Art on Main. He smiled and asked me what I thought of his current project. This review is my answer.

 ‘It is because of money that we are in the city which used to be a mining camp. We are living in a capitalistic world you see, so the show is about mines and money” he added.

The exhibition is installed in two levels which are connected through stairs. In this exhibition three works from different periods are presented; a paper construction from 2006-2009 is juxtaposed to another one from this year (2011) along with the recent installation. In this constellation, Hassan traces the wealth of Johannesburg as a mining camp in presenting the material basis of this economy. On the one hand the capital which is transformed in money and on the other the bare means of production, the workforce and the tools the workers used.

At once comic and poignant, Hassan’s obsessive reincorporation of found and elaborately transformed objects testifies to his mistrust of the conventions of art. He tells stories through the objects he collects.  

In the series of Untitled Works, he celebrates workers of the world in general. His Untitled 2003-2009 piece, massive from floor to ceiling: a landscape collage depicts the workers in the field. There is something more dramatic in this landscape; there is a sense of a teamwork and unison that is often seen in the fields on a daily basis. Opposite this huge collage is the installation of old and used gloves nailed on the wall to imply efforts involved in hard labour. The patterns in which the gloves are arranged provide a feeling of crowdedness and full of activity. The gloves have the significant bearing of identity, uniqueness and character. The juxtaposition of this composition implies politics and power, now and then. The workers used gloves; this feeling of identity is bestowed upon them through years and years of hard toil.

  

      Untitled (2003-2006) Paper Construction | Exhibition View

As you walk around in the space downstairs your attention is caught by a pyramid-like structure which allows the viewer to give a closer scrutiny. In this installation Hassan intends to play hide and seek with his audience. The shredded bank notes make up the rested pyramid on the floor. “Money controls the world, whether you have it or not, you still want to see, listen and hear about it” he said. “Money affects us to sacrifice our time to the world without complaining about it” he added in a very relaxed tone. The continuation of the show upstairs invites questions with no answers to the viewer. Highest bank notes are used to form a pyramid in construction.

             Untitled (2011) Paper Construction | Exhibition View

The viewer asks questions as he sends the gaze onto to pieces of R100 and R200 bank notes in Untitled (2011). Hassan’s found objects convey a quite, thoughtful sense of human existence. The form he selects to make installation is connected to common experience and memory. He tried to classify human social, economical and political statuses. The first pyramid of R10 and R20 implies the lower class where everyone can fit himself in, the second pyramid of R20 and R50 implies the middle class depending on the salaries earned by workers. The third large pyramid of R100 and R200 constitutes the third class of labour that work less hard but still earn big salaries because of senior positions they have within their working environments. Colour also plays a critical role in these classifications. Bank note colour differs from each other. There is a dominance of colour in each pyramid. You can feel the essence of it calling out for you attention. In addressing the power of relations Hassan is using money as a simple subject. Not only that the banknotes were used by different people, there was a system of segregation of the people in place who used the same money. Blacks were given restricted access to space, separate benches to sit on and places to use.

In the economic dimension, apartheid is still in place in South Africa; today most black people use more R20 notes than white people who have more access to R100 or R200 notes. The use of banknotes in this constellation connotes the classes of social status and lifestyle of the South African people. This is a clear indication of the power and politics which still exist in a democratic society. Money can give restrictions and allow access in the history of a mankind.

 He uses steel cups, plates and bowels with blemished marks on them to signify unity. ‘The cups might represent children and bowls might represent a mother and a father, but that I leave it for my audience to relate’ he said. The metal cups and bowls are strong metaphors for the black population in South Africa, white employers gave these dishes to their black maids and workers and white prison warders gave these to black prisoners during the apartheid regime. They have a historical significance of the work in the mines, prisons and as well as in domestic spaces. The blemishes are similar to the gloves, they show that real people used them and Hassan opens up this level to the imagination of the viewer.   

       

Untitled (2011) metal cups, plates and bowls | Exhibition View

In all his works, Hassan introduces a sealed but yet suggestive sign system, a new language to express a visionary, ordered model of the world. Though these objects seem familiar and recognizable, their precise meaning remains elusive. The basis of Kay’s work, however without saying it openly, is the presence and the history of South Africa, the changes the society went through and then also the changes which did not happen although they were hoped for. He clearly uses politics of today in comparison with the past. He rather hints at this continuing injustice by the use of material, cups, bowls, gloves, which are all used and which are all traces of people who have been using them. He clearly asks: How come that these workers who used these dishes to eat, to sustain their workforce in order to work in the mines, factories, how come that the same miners created so much profit – in form of money – for white people but they still live in poverty?

Hassan engages people in his work to think through the transformation and civilization South Africa has experienced. Many people have this question in mind on a daily basis, but Kay doesn’t spell it out openly; rather he attempts to create awareness.

Review by: Khehla Chepape Makgato, Arts On Main, Jhb

Date: 04/03/2011

Tshepo Mosopa’s Artist Critique

Tshepo Mosopa’s philosophy veers him into the position of becoming a social artistic commentator. His creative fine art renders a vivid understanding into the contemporary lives of the Tswana nation, maps the cultural transformation and traces back to the beauty of this particular tribe in the democratic, South Africa. He uses the nation’s mythologies to communicate his ideas. There is a sense of mystery which lies beyond the visible in his canvases. His creative eye, does not deny him the freedom to tell stories from the lost and wounded African mythologies through the encompassment of social and political hierarchy. 

  

Kgala, Ink on a Stretched Canvas.

“The content of my work focuses on sociology (the study and classification of human society) where the placement of the human form is composed from real social observations and used to record and communicate society’s psychological response to modern challenges in South Africa” says Mosopa.  His artwork becomes a platform for a dialogue between the artist, the subject and the viewer, where the viewer becomes part of the artwork as an installation, an extension of the artwork, based on the social hierarchy, in relation to the viewer’s background, socially.

In the work titled ‘Kgala’ which loosely translates; Shyness for Tswana language, he depicts a very stylized figure seated on a chair with his back conveyed in elongated aspect and the head, mostly obscured. Beneath Mosopa’s unconscious simplicity of stylized figures there is an insistent visual frustration beyond that of mythological successes. It registers a failure of vision. The man’s depiction renders not only his introvert side of character but also the poverty narratives of his social status.

Speaking of Mosopa’s art, affirms that he doesn’t contemplate any figure from which to take the likeness, but considers in his mind a form of traditional and mythological beauty on which he concentrates, and to the likeness of which he directs his mind and hand into the narratives he wishes to reveal to his audience.

Dithini, Ink on Stretched Canvas

‘The way I work is completely unique from other artists; in that the medium I’m using is accessible to me and that this enables me to communicate freely with my figures on canvas on a large scale. I enjoy preparing my canvas and coating it with white paint before I can start inventing a story onto it’ says Mosopa.  His figurative scenes are activities which categorize the subject’s social ranking through themes such as; unemployment, crime, religion (beliefs and mythology), politics (tyranny and power), stereotyping ethnicity (race, culture, gender), etc.

In the entitled work ‘Dithini’ – Tins for Tswana language, he simply interrogates the unemployment issues confronting South Africa youths. He uses object, tin, as a metaphor to signify that the alternative options are to create jobs; Such as, collecting recyclable items for a living, which_is a difficult task for many young men and women these days. He offers a solution to this ongoing burden to both government and the public. His creative narrative eye is simply a window _ into seeing opportunities, not only the challenges of our everyday life.

Text by: Khehla Chepape Makgato

Date: November 2011, Bag Factory Artists Studios, Johannesburg.

Colin McCahon: A National Gallery of Australia Focus Exhibition

Colin McCahon: A National Gallery of Australia Focus Exhibition

Art Exhibition Review

Art Exhibition Review

Artist:  MAJA MALJEVIC

Bubble & Leak

David Krut Art Resource & Projects Space presents ‘Bubble & Leak’ exhibition by Maja Maljevic which will be up from the 10^th February to the 11^th March 2011 in 140 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parkwood.

 Maja, Yugoslavian born artist, is a symbol of how contemporary abstract art has shifted throughout its invention. She has brought into the South African visual art arena a vibrant and energetic surprise. Her works are intuitive and are slightly informed by the name of a popular British dish called ‘Bubble & Squeak’. However the dish is not a central subject matter to this body of work. She has an outstanding ability of creating art and has a unique way in which she composes her interpretation of the dish on the canvas. It is emotive that the audience she is trying to builds seems to be interested in collecting what she has produced.

It is not a surprise that a few of her works were sold even before the opening of the show. Her choice of colour, scale, patterns and medium is exuberant. Maljevic’s paintings and monotypes continue to fight their way to the audience with their unsophisticated character, humour and peaceful mood. Her abstract paintings create a background which forms a sharp contrast to language and friendliness which utterly pushes the viewer into studying the language she has invented. She works on a variety of scales which makes her art more appealing to different collectors.

Her artworks are decorative, both paintings and monoprints. The body of work reflects humour which she invites in her effectual process, freedom of creation, often encapsulating intentional mistakes and the pleasure of allowing messy marks such the dripping of paints to grace the canvas. This springs from her self-confident personality. Her abstracts are very simple and collectable as they can be easily related to.

Patterns, texts and choices of colour are the most important elements of her creative process. There is something very human about them, but they are composites: suggestions of people in the bottle-like figures and patterns built from layer after layer giving the artwork more life and movement. The text brings more information in an abstract formation, scattered like patches all over the surface of the canvas for the viewer to translate. Her choice of colour offers no distraction to the observer because of the obvious richness, freshness and subtleness. The colours are perplexed by the shifting reflection and suggestion of tone that marks them.

In this exhibition, conversation plays a significant role. In it, the viewer finds vigorous conversations which exist between Maja and the canvas. She then put it across to her audience for them to relate. It can be said that Maja is an abstract storyteller and shares the challenges and absurdity she experiences with her audience on the canvas.

Review by: Khehla Chepape Makgato

2011/02/10

Wayne Barker Art Exhibition review

Art Exhibition Review

Artist: Wayne Barker

Standard Bank Art Gallery presents the conceptualized art exhibition entitled: ‘SUPER BORING’ by Wayne Barker. The show will run from 02 February through to 09 April 2011. It is an opportunity for the public to view this controversial retrospective body of work which is part of creative project Barker embarked in 2009.

Barker started out his art career as an apprentice woodcarver before enrolling at Pretoria Technikon in 1986 to study Fine Art. He then started to build his career as a professional artist. After being into the art industry for more than two decades now he distinguished himself as an expressionist and deconstructionist. He had played a critical role in the transformation of South African contemporary art. He had questioned and commented extensively on different issues in our country such as political, social, cultural and historical context. He has pushed boundaries of art-making.

This conceptualized exhibition is where the viewer sees whatever he wants and that is exactly what the artist wanted it to be. The artist acknowledges that, with this continuation project of ‘Super Boring’ the burden is on the viewer more than it is on the art-creator to draw conclusions.

He continues to highlight his enthusiasm for colour, provocative, religious and rebellious persona in his work as an art maker who lives a life of a visual interpreter in the democratic South Africa. He views himself as an ordinary South African who is as equal as someone begging from the streets of Johannesburg. When you get into the entrance of the Gallery, you are greeted by a big notice board inscribed like as if someone is begging for foods at the traffic lights. In this notice he is asking for the cadaver, cow dung and other found objects which he indicated clearly that he will make a huge public sculptor from such public donations.

The exhibition is informed by variety of art mediums such as video and audio installations, sculptures, strung beats, paintings, and lots of found objects. When you enter into the gallery, on your left-hand side there is an installed exhibition of gloves, some empty and others filled with objects like plastic bottles, blood-like liquid, old clothes with a significant historical bearing and stencil photographic drawings made of distinctive mark makings, lines and texts.

‘Super Boring’ is the subject theme accompanied by other themes from Barker’s early works. It is a wholesome irony suggested to the viewer by the artist. Under the subject theme, Barker seems more adamant in bringing back the morale of his fellow South Africans, lost of heritage, identity and the richness of beauty in landscapes. He breaks the web of indignity which confronted our country from the time when apartheid was entrenched.

He projects visual questions to the viewer with very slightly suggested portraits of people whom have inspired him directly or indirectly onto a canvas. While the viewer is challenged by the unassuming painted portraits, he comes back to the viewer with an electronic text-like bulbs inserted in the painting with an intention to throw out clues.

The pay of tribute has distinguished Barker from other contemporary artists in that the approach he used has embraced different important historical and public figures such as Walter Sisulu, Steve Biko, Enoch Sontonga, Gerald Sekoto, Jackson Hlongwani, Miriam Makeba and JM Coetzee.

Beside such honorary tributes, speeches and works of such icons form part of the honour in this exhibition. It is a visual art feast which takes a viewer into a South African ride for historical and cultural discovery.

The show upstairs is taking the viewer into the reminiscence of how blanket of apartheid has shaped the democratic society which became a paradigm of a rainbow nation. It reflects ashes and sweats of blood which people of our country had to endure in those dark ages of apartheid.

The evidence is from the audio installation of the greatest living global figure Nelson Mandela’s speech during the Rivonia Trials. His powerful speech reminds the listener that the democratic society of South Africa did not happen overnight. Freedom and apartheid collide with each other as the visual retrospective of Wayne Barker unfolds.

 

Review by: Khehla Chepape Makgato

Date : 16/02/2011