I found myself attending a
documentary style photographic exhibition by three young photographers the
other night.
At first, seeing the exhibition
title “Twenty Journey”, to be honest, I was not intrigued.
It was only after I saw twenty
guests attending on my friendship list on Facebook that I started becoming
interested. However I was still sceptical.
To me artists like David
Goldblatt laid the foundation in terms of documentary style photography in the History
of South African Art, and younger artists such as Guy Tillim, Pieter Hugo and
Zwelethu Mthethwa challenged these aesthetic foundations. Rodger Ballen is
perhaps the artist who set the foundation for a stylised, posed, more
contemporary ‘studio-non studio’ type aesthetic.
To me it seemed near impossible
that these three young men, one white English, one white Afrikaans and one black,
could produce challenging photographs with titles and subject matter such as ‘Born
frees’, ‘Land’ and ‘Idiosyncrasies’. To me it seemed like these phenomena have
been used and reused, visited and revisited so often post-1994 that there was
little left to explore. I was even a bit taken aback by the poster displaying
all three of them in what looked like a ‘stereotyped’ characterised depiction.
It appeared to me like some kind of politically correct (almost satirical)
marketing stunt.
To my surprise, I was blown away
(and I have to admit very wrong).
Sean Metelerkamp, Sipho Mpongo
and Wikus de Wet challenged and changed my entire view on documentary
photography in current South Africa.
I obviously did not like all the
photos but overall I was very impressed. Influence from one or all the above
mentioned older artists was visible in the images these new guys produced. They
just did it in such an honest open and revolutionary way.
The strongest image of the
exhibition to me personally was this one by Sean Metelerkamp.
The other two images that really
stood out to me were these by Wikus de Wet:
These images struck me as the
best for personal reasons which I won’t go into detail about here.
I do need to explain Metelerkamp’s
image (the first one) though in order for my story to make sense.
I will do so
later on in this post.
To me de Wet had the strongest
body of work.
Upon arrival at the gallery I was
surprised at seeing de Wet in Khaki clothing. They were relating to their
poster, an attempt to create 3 diverse characters as part of a satirical
marketing stunt - almost Leon Schuster inspired!!!!
I met de Wet after the show, and
I have to admit (again) that I was wrong.
This man is as true to his work
as one would ever find
.
He really wears two tone Khaki
shirts, and he does so with pride.
A humble, insightful, pro-active,
sensitive and most importantly true artist if I have ever seen one.
Anyway, back to the story …
After the exhibition I went out
with some friends who had contributed to putting the show together with these
artists. The artists would join us later at the bar, when I would realise my wrongful
prejudice ;)
At the exhibition, I could not
pinpoint exactly what it was about Metelerkamp’s image with the Likkewaan that
intrigued me so much. It was only at the bar when a friend held out his bank
card, asking me if ‘’I would like to break it’’ (the bank card) in a tone that
made it sound like it was a pleasurable, satisfactory thing to get rid of
something in a destructive way.
This immediately made me think of
an occurrence that happened a while back, when keys to a locked bedroom door at
my house were lost, and I mentioned this to another friend at the time. His
reply was almost exactly the same. In the same excited-by-the-opportunity-to-destruct
tone as my bank card friend, this friend asked if he could: ‘’Please kick the
door down?!…”
Needless to say, I let my friend
kick the door down (back then) and I did snap the bank card (at this bar).
As soon as I snapped the card it occurred
to me…
The reason I relate to this image
of Metelerkamp so much was exactly this:
With a dad farming cattle in the
Limpopo province, and me growing up in a culture where animals, domestic and
wild, was and is still today often seen as only ‘for profit’, I have witnessed
a fair share of animals being mistreated (often in a playful almost sadistic
way).
What comes to mind is an instance
(I must have been 22 or 23) when me and my boyfriend at the time visited some
friends of his in Bloemfontein.
His friends stole a smallish
crocodile from a nearby crocodile farm.
The animal was already stolen and
in a bathtub with tape around his jaws when we arrived.
The guys showed off the crocodile
to us (almost as if it was some kind of achievement).
I remember peering into the
bathtub and seeing the reptile looking so scared.
I will never forget how this made
me feel.
I felt sick, very guilty- I am
not sure why - because of my humanity perhaps, or because I was helpless.
I wanted to leave, phone the SPCA
or get the crocodile some help. Nevertheless, with pressure from my boyfriend
and his one friend, I failed to do so in time. Maybe that is why I still feel
so guilty.
He was killed the next day
without my knowledge. I will rather spare the details of how they killed the
poor animal.
I have witnessed (maybe not to
such an extent as the example above) animals being killed.
Once my cousin killed a huge
black mamba the dog was aggravating on my dad’s farm.
I remember crying whilst witnessing
his shrieks of joy as he repeatedly yelled out with pleasure every time he
struck the snake.
I will never forget the snake
swinging what was left of his body around with such fight.
It broke my spirit.
It made me ashamed to be human.
It has only ever been in
environments like these (farms, farmers and around often drunk ‘Afrikaner’ men)
that I have seen humans getting such pleasure from hurting and/or killing a
defenceless animal.
Please note: I am not saying all
men are like that, nor am I saying all Afrikaans men or all farmers or
Afrikaans farmers are like that. That would definitely not be true. Nor am I
restricting it to only Afrikaans men. I am purely referring to my experience
and how it relates to my interpretation of this image of Metelerkamp.
My father is one of the biggest
lovers of nature and animals I have ever known.
He is both Afrikaans and a
farmer.
The boys in Bloemfontein with the
crocodile were farmers, but not all of them Afrikaans.
I think what I am trying to say has
nothing to do with this particular image of Metelerkamp’s even.
I am trying to say that sometimes
one event (snapping the card) can remind you of other events (such as the
locked door) which in turn is all shaped and interpreted by personal
experience.
What makes one image (artwork)
better than another, one artwork more ‘valuable’ to one viewer and not another is
a result of personal experience.
For the above reason I believe
the only way an artwork can be strong and good is if an artist creates art from
a very personal place.
In this case titles such as –‘Born
frees’, ‘Land’ and ‘Idiosyncrasies’ relate to a generation or generations of many
races and diversely different people.
The style is documentary and
universal, yet all three artists had three different bodies of work,
interpreted by hundreds of fellow South Africans in hundreds of different ways.
Metelerkamp, de Wet and Mpongo in
my opinion succeeded to put together a powerful show, depicting an issue, or
issues us South Africans relate to in so many different ways. At the same time
you cannot see their story, their journey, their experience without confronting
your own interpretation of their images.
A very powerful exhibition
indeed!
You guys have proven to me once
again that art that comes from within is the real deal.
Well done guys!
XXXX
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