Art of the Ball

The present focus on football has given the Durban Art Gallery the perfect opportunity to draw in an audience which historically may not have considered art as an indispensable part of their lives. The fact that football occupies such an important role in national and indeed international life points to the underlying significance of sport in a country’s expression of identity: this expression has economic, political, and spiritual dimensions – just like art.

The Durban Art Gallery is in the fortunate position of owning a wide range of work which represents South Africa’s path from colonial outpost to a post-Apartheid society. The many phases of this development which are depicted in our collection include: Empire; the construction of the institutions of the Apartheid Republic and resistance thereto; armed struggle vs. total strategy, and capitulation and transformation – a process which is ongoing and self-generating. Each of the above chapters includes the traditional rubrics: history, landscape, nude and still life as well as the more contemporary thematic approach. But it’s the portraits we are using for this exhibition – our focus is the people ... the players.

The pitch

Art of the Ball is a dynamic representation of the reciprocal relationship of spectator and participant in a forum where our history is contemporized and all options are to be played out in the presence of its combined authors. It is an enticing fantasy to be able to gather in one sitting all of the contributors to Mzanzi. Certainly it’s uncomfortable given our past that oppressor and victim should sit together; that capital and labour, traditionalists and the avant-garde should share seats on the terraces, but ultimately we must – there is no other way forward.

But there is further coercion: The lines laid down on the gallery floor contain the action and define the pitch; they also by definition contain the viewer, inside the action – there is no other way to view the portraits but by being on the pitch. The viewer forms part of the pitch composition momentarily and is an element of a completely unique artwork. A different viewer will adopt a slightly different position and a fresh work will be born until another person joins him/her and in collaboration they become a still more complex work. And there is a deal of business going on on the pitch: two sets of male and female mannequins are laid out in a formal configuration; several couples drawn from opposing sets assume various complex dance poses, vinyl footprints guiding them. These placements which the viewer has to navigate are laid out precisely, each having a sense of orderly relation to the others – almost like a constellation. Close to the dancers stands Untitled (Dress) by Jose Ferreira, a massive construction in the shape of a dress that suggests a matriarchal vessel – a crease in the middle creating a prow of sorts. The sculptures are imposing, and define their immediate areas.

It’s not a comfortable arena: a mangy lion surveys the action, a wildebeest stands stoic and inscrutable neither acknowledging nor denying the predator’s presence. They are tied together by an evolutionary contract, as much part of the mechanisms of action as the mannered pairs dancing. To reinforce the notion of control and justice a cartoon referee dominates the centre of the throng: an imposing figure he attempts to regulate the action but as the viewer shifts position it becomes clear that the figure is a cutout – insubstantial and impotent. Occupying the centre spot is a dangerous object – a massive hand grenade. It is the focus of the pitch, the subject of an eternal competition for power. It is an enigma: rounded and perfectly regular in its faceted surface it speaks of discipline, thoughtful design, with a view to its durability and longevity. Contained within it a high explosive is ready to explode with ferocious power: in an instant the carefully machined casing would disintegrate, expanding chaotically as the fragments divide again and again into the trademark deadly shard known as shrapnel.

At the one end of the pitch stands a set of goalposts occupied by Wilma Cruise’s Three Shades (The Bully Boys), a trio of man/animal thugs who guard the portal. Like bouncers everywhere they exude primitive aggression, sticking doggedly to the entrance criteria handed down by their masters.   

In a far corner and well away from the heat of the engagement is a work by Stavros Georgiades titled Sarcophagus – it is the final resting place of those who have fallen or possibly the place of exile for those disgraced in action and sent to Coventry.

Also on the outer fringes, a half body lurks, legs reversed and without a torso – the male figure as its title suggests is Going slowly nowhere fast. Unable to join the action, the figure keeps to the sidelines.

Another reference to authority is portrayed as being without influence or real power in this matter: two tiny policemen, toy-like, watch over a chained and muzzled dog. Far too ineffectual to exert real command over the beast, they rely on the ironmongery to restrain him.

The over one hundred works are placed in a clustered arrangement on the wall to effect an almost stadium-like mass of the personalities so that the viewer also feels that they are the ‘observed’. As in real matches the crowd is divided; not in the conventional way of strict divisions corresponding to team loyalty or ticket prices but rather along thematic fault lines.

Spectators

Acting as a conceptual bridge the first terrace of work features spectators within the artwork. Smart Gumede’s Fortune Seekers shows a sangoma or shaman throwing the bones to determine a client’s future and echoes George Pemba’s Dice Players, a gambling scene glowing with the hope of the moment. In a more contextualised setting Xakaza Nomandla’s Wedding Celebration speaks of the internal dynamics within a community. In sharp contrast is Ludwig Dettmann’s impressionist style: The Dilettantes speaks of voyeuristic privilege as two young women observe a pastoral scene.

Patriarchy and power

These are themes played out around the goalposts. The works reflect a wide range of techniques and media and employ varied artistic approaches and fashions, some conventional and others peculiar to expand on a particular ‘stereotype’. The style of Sidney Carter’s Leo Francois and Edward Roworth’s Sir Charles G Smith are good examples of colonial style: with no cues in the background to detract from the subject’s presence – he owns his universe.  The face itself is placed high in the frame allowing the subject to look down at the viewer whichever way the picture is hung. Personal fortification by way of crossed arms is used to amplify the sense of power in these subjects. In contrast, the work of Zwelethu Mthethwa’s Sugarcane Series Untitled B also features crossed protective elements across the body, in this case a machete and hoe. However, in his work Mthethwa places his subject in the world, ready to do battle with it if necessary. In The Whaling Gunner by Alex Wagner the gunner crouched down over the harpoon gun dominates the picture, the distortion of the perspective relating to the gun and the figure indicates that the man is many times the height of the gun, imbuing him as the hunter with superhuman power. The face, reduced to simple planes, is angry, resolute, and implacable.

Similarly Robert Hodgins’ Love of Four Generals also comments on State violence – of the absurd rigidity of institutional structures and the breakdown of self: the generals’ collars (often a military marker of rank) are so high it seems as if their heads are squeezed, misshapen, about to explode.
   
The depiction of Dick King galloping into a futuristic City of Durban speaks of both of colonization but also claiming the City as his own: Roome’s Local Hero - a Vision indicates how this colonial icon had an idea of what the City of Durban would grow into – The original, a public sculpture has moved through time from 1915 to 1991. His back to the viewer suggests turning his back on his past – the repressive exploitative face of colonialism.

Changing Male Identity

The monumental changes in South African politics during the demise of Apartheid have also impacted on gender identity, particularly male identity. This is due to the overcoming of the patriarchal State and its subsequent dismantling. We must remember that the Apartheid construct had at its base foundation elements that instilled gender hierarchy in citizens from an early age. Church creationist dogma informed the educational system which divided boys and girls from an early age, making them exotic and unapproachable to one another. Career and homemaking roles were rigidly prescribed and tertiary education was tailored accordingly. But it was the creation of the large State institutions that led to the most uncompromising division of gender roles and a consequent identity crisis, particularly for men. The military is the most patent example of identity processing as, over a period of thirty years, more than 600 000 white men were conscripted to defend Apartheid. Taught a masculinity of survival these men became dysfunctional to varied degrees. It is only now that complex depictions of men are becoming more acceptable in the mainstream; hitherto any deviation from the laid down image of the stoic provider was seen as a perversion of man’s ordained role. Such depictions were limited to the world of Art, to be passed off as creative. With little diffusion to the world of popular media these changing roles of men remained fantasy, isolated and almost ghettoized. Thus the existing works pointing to the emancipation of men must be viewed in this context.

The work by Pieter Hugo Good Enough Mabaso, Orlando Pirates Supporter, Coca-Cola Cup Semi-final, Rustenburg, 2005 is a good example of the above: a football supporter takes on a woman’s apparel – acceptable in the context of the spectacle of the game. David Koloane’s Workers shows a different kind of shift in identity. The work shows black workers in transit. Wearing suits it is probable that the men are travelling from the city into the country – migrant workers returning home. This work catches the process of transition as the men are caught in a transformation of social status as they return to a domestic gender-based hierarchy as well as a social structure dominated by traditional leadership. Prodigal Son 3 by Gunter Herbst also focuses on returning migrant workers but in this case the work has a different quality: set behind glass and against drapes as a background, the figure is almost a shop window model.

Portraits by Chris Diedericks and Andrew Verster speak of a more fundamental evolution of male identity that is not limited to South Africa’s recent changes: expression of gay identity is really the locomotive that shifts male identity in general because it explores and makes safe areas of maleness that are frightening to many men. It is generally only in sport that men are allowed to connect.

Woman  

The portraits of women are spatially segregated in the gallery – bounded by an entrance they form a grouping of their own. Over the centuries, notions of feminine beauty have pursued different aesthetic ideals. Up until the 19th century, portraits of women were generally staged in idealised and mythologised situations marginalising their characters, giving them a mono-dimensional personality: the Venus; the nymph, were romantic conventions of beauty and these roles translated as refinement, delicacy and grace among other aspirational characteristics.

Stereotypes such as the femme fatale or femme fragile were also popular approaches in portraits of women and many of the sitters were anonymous when the works were exhibited publicly. Changes in society such as the Reformation and later the industrial revolution brought about a more complex imaging of woman in roles such as governess and administrator and later still, woman as independent entity.

It is evident that the conventions, the culture and customs of a community strongly influence depictions of women. Through the selection of portraits of women from this collection a variety of personalities have emerged that look at historical imaging and how contemporary views of women have changed radically.

Berni Searle, a woman of mixed racial heritage interrogates the term ‘coloured’. In her Colour Me series she uses domestic ingredients, coloured spices encrusted on her face to examine her racial and female identity. She challenges the viewer with her penetrating stare to debate and question identity politics. In a similar dynamic Lance Slabbert’s Mr Good Intent shows a group of girls on a beach looking down at a photographer – the girls own the moment, mocking his voyeurism. Jules Octave Triquet’s Winter also uses the contradiction of content and title to deliver an ironic commentary: a nude confronts the viewer against the background of a fecund, lush setting.

Michael Croeser’s enigmatic Birth Control versus Infinity features a levitating Barbie doll. Unclothed, the pink figure floats above the real world. Uncontextualised by accessories and not anchored in society, the icon is desexualised and almost beatified.

In respect of the exhibition as a whole the voyeur/subject relationship that exists between the spectators and the pitch is strongly echoed in the content of the “Women’s Terrace”.

Families

Considering the group occupying “family seating” on the terraces makes one think of the drive-in cinema – the family contained within a frame, or a car, arriving to watch an event. Along with them they bring their collective attitude, internal tensions and contradictions – padkos and prejudice. The large political groupings are obvious families but it is the smaller unlikely groups that are more interesting. In this theme the conventional maternal portrait, the Western understanding of the iconic ‘Christian’ family – the Madonna and Child - Our Lady of Mercy by Pientia Selhorst sits above Val Adamson’s The Sterling-Courts, a family showing parents of the same sex and children of a different race group.

Alongside, in a prophetic work made 50 years before Archbishop Tutu coined the term Rainbow Nation, Walter Battiss comments on the ‘African’ family in Untitled dated 1940-1945 where a rainbow-coloured nation inhabits the continent of Africa. A family united by shared spiritual beliefs can also be seen in Dominic Cele’s Umhlangano which describes a ritual in the Shembe church where the believers, on annual pilgrimage, congregate on a mountain outside Durban. The Shembe faith is described as an Africanized Christianity founded by Isaiah Shembe whose followers believe is a direct manifestation of God.

More restrained is John Downman’s 18thC Portrait of a Man and Two Girls. The mother is absent, the father holds a fob watch as he poses, exerting an empirical hold over the proceedings. A Dutch painter C.J. Maks working at the turn of the century gives us another family, this time comprising two woman. Given the era in which it was painted, the intimacy is quite daring. Working along more traditional lines Joseph Manana’s Fatherly Love and Motherly Love separates the family into male and female elements; it is implied that family activities may be segmented along gender lines.

Finally a couple both wearing HIV Positive T shirts Blood 2 Young by Peter Bendheim constitutes another family – the artist has cropped the picture to exclude the faces, presumably to protect the subjects and this acts as an intensifier for the viewer: more than ever we see them as a family unit, indeed because they are anonymous they stand for the greater family of all HIV positive people.

On the bench

Joseph Beuys by Neville Dubow epitomises the reserve or substitute. The photograph sets the subject alone and waiting, deep in thought – an almost ran. This section is home to a familiar genre – those who wait in the wings, sometimes for their whole lives.
 
Isolation

Within the hurly burly crowded space we inhabit, it seems impossible that people are alone, that they feel alone, deserted.  Riana Meissenheimer’s Plot te koop speaks of societal isolation: the farmer temporarily secure behind his dog and a fence confronts the viewer accusingly and the sign on the gate elaborates. Many white farmers have abandoned the pioneer life that has defined them for generations. Fearing attacks the farming community is shrinking as many sell up and head for the towns and cities.

In Wolf Kibel’s Boy in Green Waistcoat the subject, a young boy, has dark voided eyes as if to see may be too painful. A large head balances on a skinny column of neck as if stuck there; the boy’s features are pulled across his face, distorted, his brow furrowed.

Hugh Glazerbrook’s Portrait of Miss Margaret Fairlie Muir is also a picture of a child, in this instance from a wealthy society. The young girl dressed in a smart party frock is obviously uncomfortable at being in the limelight; she grips the arms of the chair tightly for security and doesn’t engage with the viewer – a poor little rich girl?

The habit of Pientia Selhorst’s Self Portrait employs the uniform of a Catholic nun and indicates vocation, but the habit also marks retreat from the pressures of modern western social structures.

Jenny Gordon’s photographic portrait of the Ascenzo couple in their lounge Troyville shows a partnership spatially separated and where it appears that perhaps time has caused disinterest.

Portrait of The Artist’s Son by Harold Strachen is an evocative sad work showing a young man outside a house; through the window we see a warm domestic setting but it appears he cannot enter. He doesn’t look in but keeps his eyes on the floor. The shirt he wears could be a prison uniform. One wonders whether this group looking down on the pitch from the safety of the terraces would want to join the action.

Whether one experiences the action on the pitch as football or a dance is immaterial. The outcome of the action or struggle, as some may also term it, is owned communally. In one sense it represents the art of politics as a choreographed set piece, or so it sets out. Unforeseen elements disrupt and corrupt the form refusing to allow the orthodox moves to proceed. The viewer is overwhelmed by the calls on his/her focus: looking up, different constituencies compete for his/her attention whilst on the pitch the viewer is squeezed between players/performers seemingly insisting on her collaboration. The tension between the individual and the collective is intense. Moving away from the goalposts however, the hanging pattern of the themes changes as does the congestion on the pitch – diffused like a gas the exhibition becomes more dispersed towards the opposing wall until it has disappeared, the far wall is empty save for one work. No lines define a pitch; only light, brighter than in any other area dominates.

Source: Jenny Stretton, 29 May 2010

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