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The Future White Women of Azania: The Trial, a performance art work by Athi-Patra Ruga. : Photo: Giovanna Zen -
Installation view of the exhibition, with Faces and Phases by Zanele Muholi on the left, and a series of busts by Wim Botha on the right. : Photo: Mario Todeschini -
Curator Brenton Maart : Photo: Natalie Payne -
The Future White Women of Azania: The Trial, a performance art work by Athi-Patra Ruga. : Photo: Giovanna Zen -
The Future White Women of Azania: The Trial, a performance art work by Athi-Patra Ruga. : Photo: Giovanna Zen -
Study for the Epic Mundane, sculpture made of books by Wim Botha : Photo: Mario Todeschini
WORDS Nadine Botha
South Africa has triumphantly returned to the most acclaimed art show in the world, the Venice Biennale. Entitled Imaginary Fact and featuring 17 artists, the exhibition is snugly installed in an old army building. Inside though, it’s all contemporary Mzansi, explains curator Brenton Maart. VISI has five boxed catalogues to give away.
How have you put together this exhibition?
The exhibition is SA’s reintroduction into the Venice Biennale because we had an almost 20-year absence (with the exception of 2011’s controversial debacle). What we wanted to do is map what has been happening in contemporary SA art, which is why we decided on a big group show.
Who is “we”?
The Grahamstown National Arts Festival, of which I am the head of the visual arts committee. Government released an open tender and the festival submitted a proposal that was successful. We only had three months to put the exhibition together!
What is the guiding concept?
Up until the early 1990s, SA’s contemporary fine art was very focused on struggle art. After 1994 we had a kind of euphoria, with explorations of identity in terms of gender, race and sexuality. Now what is happening, which is what we are showing here, is a renewed focus on the records of the past and how to use those records to comment on the present. Artists are using things like audio records, photographs, newspaper articles, government archives and books to make contemporary work. In South Africa it is a very defined movement, which we will see when we look back at the present in 100 years time. The movement is also seen in Asian and South American countries that have gone through some type of radical colonial or political violence, followed by a period of independence and now post-independence.
What are the highlights?
The highlight is the whole exhibition and how each piece responds to the curatorial concept and the other works on show. The feedback we have received about the curatorial concept has been phenomenal. I am loath to single anyone out, however, from a personal and art lover’s perspective, there are two key highlights for me. The first is the entire collection of Zanele Muholi’s Faces and Phases. All 200 works are just pinned up on the wall to give a rough feeling of the archive, which is her life’s project. The other highlight is, of course, Wim Botha who has made his first figurative work in 15 years – his last being the life-size sculpture of Christ carved out of Bibles.
What happens to the exhibition after the Biennale?
We have had fantastic feedback and a number of invitations from museums, internationally. Of course, it would be great to show the exhibition in South Africa, too.
Imaginary Fact shows in Venice until 24 November, imaginaryfact.co.za
Get the new VISI 67 and enter to win one of five boxed copies of the Imaginary Fact catalogue.
