Nandipha Mntambo

!tandard "ank #oung $rtist $ward %&'' (exts by )uth !imbao & *avid +lliott

CONTENTS 9

$ !ense of ,auseRuth Simbao interviews Nandipha Mntambo

25

(he !ilence -at .o /ne (alks $boutDavid Elliott

33

Works !""#-!"$$

113

Biography

117

!tandard "ank #oung $rtist $ward Touring exhibition & previous winners

120

Credits & acknowledgments

(o the unspoken between you and I

sense of pause was not what I expected from Nandipha Mntambo. Yet, despite the forceful drive of both her personality and the external

interest in her work, what struck me about my conversation with her in Johannesburg in April !"$$ was her re%ection on quiet, private moments – moments of personal and professional perplexity; moments of acknowledging discomforts that many of us feel but seldom declare. When I asked her how it felt to perform as a bull and a bull&ghter, merging animal and human qualities in the video Ukungenisa (!""'), her response was, “It was nerve-wracking … psyching myself up before doing it was really di(cult.” Re%ecting further, she disclosed: “Performing as an animal has been an eye-opener. )ere are elements of myself that I don’t really understand, don’t necessarily like, don’t know how to handle at the moment, so being able to draw from that experience was interesting.”

A SENSE OF PAUSE

)uth !imbao interviews .andipha 0ntambo

Such honest self-re%ection has enabled Mntambo to reveal the underbelly of various spectacles: the spectacle of bull&ghting, the spectacle of ‘Africanicity’, and the spectacle of the art world. In his book Rite, Drama, Festival, Spectacle, John MacAloon writes the following about spectacle: “In its every aspect – from the etymology of the word, to the metamessage of the frame, to the sensory and symbolic codes it activates, to the behaviours it prescribes – the spectacle is about seeing, sight and oversight.”1 While we easily acknowledge the visual element of spectacle, which derives from the Latin specere, ‘to look’, how o*en do we consider oversight – the omission of subtleties or realities (whether deliberate or not) that would rob spectacle of its grandeur or hype? In order for the seeing of spectacle to exist, certain things need to remain unseen.

Performance theorist Peggy Phelan asserts that the visible is, in fact, de&ned by the invisible, for “sight … is both imagistic and discursive”, and “the gaze guarantees the failure of seeing”.2 What, then, are our oversights in relation to the typical characteristics of spectacle, which are an emphasis on seeing, an emphasis on large size, a clear-cut distinction between actors and audience, and a dynamic where actors act and audiences get excited?3 What is it that we fail to see? What are the silences?

A careful reading of the breathers in Mntambo’s work reveals insight into the quiet,

Ap78

$ John J MacAloon, ‘Olympic Games and the )eory of Spectacle in Modern Societies’, in Rite, Drama, Festival, Spectacle: Rehearsals Toward a 1eory of Cultural Performance, edited by MacAloon (Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, $'+#), !,".

! Peggy Phelan, Unmarked: 1e Politics of Performance (London: Routledge, $''-), $#-$.- MacAloon,‘Olympic Games and the )eory of Spectacle in Modern Societies’, !#-

9

forgotten moments of spectacle – the things overlooked. In her works that explore the art of bull&ghting, particularly Ukungenisa and Praça de Touros I-IV (!""+), loneliness is exposed despite the %ashy exhibitionism of this %amboyant sport, and rather than keeping a distance between actor and audience, Mntambo merges actor, acted-upon and observer in an extraordinary way. It is the private moment of fear, experienced by both the bull and the bull&ghter, that Mntambo draws from.

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THE UNDERBELLY OF SPECTACLE I: BULLFIGHTING

Ukungenisa and Praça de Touros I-IV were shot in a deserted bull&ghting arena in Mozambique, which was a Portuguese colony. )e once-impressive concrete structure is now dilapidated, and grandstands are devoid of noise and excitement. In these works, the bull&ghter, or matador, meditatively enters what Mntambo calls a solemn ritual of dressing before the &ght. )e matador’s uniform – traje de luces, or suit of lights – is usually worn by men, for very few female bull&ghters exist worldwide. Mntambo, however, merges male and female qualities in these and other works.

In the dance performed in Mntambo’s video Paso Doble (!"$$), which is linked to the bull&ghting spectacle, traditionally the male dancer represents the matador, while his female partner represents, through her dance, either the matador’s shadow, his cape, or the bull itself. )e term ‘paso doble’ also refers to music – the music that usually accompanies the matador into the stadium and the performance of his &nal passes (faena). )rough Mntambo’s concentrated focus on the shadows of the dancers in the Paso Doble

In watching a lot of bullfighting movies and reading a lot about bullfighting, and how fighters prepare for a fight, I have realised it’s very private … and then they have to be prepared for the spectacle. That was interesting to me – this very private act that then becomes an overtly public spectacle.

Nandipha Mntambo (%&'')

10RUTH SIMBAO

video, the artist converges the two dancers (who are both female), recalling her earlier fusion of the characteristics of the matador, the bull and the audience in Ukungenisa. In Ukungenisa, the &gure paws the ground, like an agitated bull raising dust, and stares sternly ahead, concentrating on both killing, which is the role of the matador, and trying not to be killed, re%ecting the instinct of the bull. In the photographs Praça de Touros II and III, the lonely &gure in the middle of the hollow stadium waves a red cape, casting solid shadows on the ground. While both the cape and the shadow are performed by a single dancer in Paso Doble, which literally means ‘double step’, Mntambo plays with multiple forms of doubling where male folds into female, and bull, matador and observers dance together.

RUTH SIMBAO When I look at the video Ukungenisa and the photographs Praça de Touros I-IV, what strikes me as very powerful is the concept of space. Particularly in the triptych Praça de Touros IV, the emptiness of the architectural space is very distinct. A lonely 2gure stands out starkly against the vacant architecture – epitomised by the crowdless arena grandstands – in a very powerful way. Can you say something about your experience of working in that space, especially considering the fact that this space, a bull2ghting ring, was a space of spectacle for a large crowd? Now you stand all alone in this deserted space.

NANDIPHA MNTAMBO What I found amazing

about that building is that it is such a loud

yet quiet space. It’s very public but, in my

experience of it, very private as well. It’s become

something that’s not really used by anyone

anymore. It’s abandoned. It’s this building that

was part of so much of Mozambican life at one

stage, and now it just isn’t anymore. In some

ways it is a kind of by-product. When I make my

work, people don’t get to see the process, so

this space was sort of the after-effect as well.

It’s something I didn’t experience in its heyday.

I am only experiencing the remnants or the

crumbs of [the space].

When you were in Portugal, what sort of research did you do speci2cally in relation to the bull2ghting costume? Did you make any changes considering the fact that you are a woman wearing a costume designed for men?

Everything that I do is an adaptation; it’s

something that I mould to fit what I want. So

the bullfighter’s costume is based on the typical

male costume, and I try to work with cowhide so

it becomes more like a fabric … building in folds,

making layers, trying to reflect the sequins

and adornment and everything that is on a

bullfighter’s outfit … I use cowhide to reference

those elements that aren’t there. In watching

a lot of bullfighting movies and reading a lot

about bullfighting, and how fighters prepare

for a fight, it’s very private … and then they

have to be prepared for the spectacle. That was

interesting to me – this very private act that

then becomes an overtly public spectacle.

1ere is an interesting contrast that one sees in these works. In the way you perform you create a sense of a crowd – the excitement and the energy – but in the still photographs especially, the 2gure looks very lonely. It’s very private and quiet. 1is contrasts sharply to the concept of spectacle.

11 A SENSE OF PAUSE

I was in Portugal last June during the World Cup, and in Lisbon they screened the soccer inside a bull2ghting stadium. It is interesting to compare the spectacle of bull2ghting to the spectacle of the World Cup, to compare the bull2ghting arena to the soccer stadium. When the soccer was screened in the bull2ghting ring, there was one crowd watching the spectacle of another crowd. Televised spectacle, of course, is mediated for the watching of television o3en takes place in a private space, but in this case it occurred in an architectural space of spectacle.

When you perform in this video, you appear as the bull2ghter, the bull and the audience. Can you talk more about this collapse and particularly about being the audience?

When I was in the space, and trying to

understand how to occupy different characters

in the work, I started imagining watching myself.

So it was about being in more than one place

at the same time. It’s a lot about being alone

and trying to negotiate a very private but public

situation.

1ere also seems to be the notion of confronting yourself, or even 2ghting yourself, which is a very private moment.

Yes, it’s private and at times it becomes public

too. We all experience moments when we are

at war with ourselves – I think we show it in

different ways.

What was it like working with the choreographer Mpho Masila for Ukungenisa and how does that experience take your work into the realm of dance – a dance with yourself and a dance with

the bull? How did your choreographer get you into the role of being a bull, an animal?

I made him watch the bullfights I recorded

when I was in Portugal and we watched

the Spanish movie Talk to Her a lot. It’s a

movie about a female bullfighter. I was really

interested in how this woman became almost

androgynous in her demeanour and in her way

of dealing with the bull. That was the starting

point for me. It was interesting working with

Mpho as I had not previously put my artistic

process in anyone else’s hands, and to find

people who are on the same page as you and

understand what you do is very difficult. So

I spent a lot of time with him. It was difficult

for me to have this moving image of me in

someone else’s hands. It was hard, but fun.

Did people get injured in the bull2ghting you watched? Did the bulls get hurt?

Yes, they did. I really thought that I would feel

sorry for the animal and for the fighter, but

watching bullfighting is the most strangely

addictive thing that I have ever experienced.

The bull is sedated and it stays alone the night

before the fight … I was lucky to visit a lot of bull

breeders as well, and bulls that are destined for

12RUTH SIMBAO

fighting are treated like the best thing on earth

from birth. A particular mother and father are

chosen for them – the bull-breeding business

is amazingly regulated; it’s a serious business.

They are fed the best food. They have huge

pastures to run around in, and the day before

the fight, their lives change. They experience a

strange, quiet, solitude …

So this private quietness of the bull parallels the private ritual of the bull2ghter dressing up for the 2ght.

Yes. The bull is sedated just before the fight,

then just before it goes into the arena it is given

this jolt. It’s out there in this aggression, but it’s

a survival situation; it’s scared, I’m sure. So it’s

this combination, and I’m sure the bullfighters

get scared too. I think what I find interesting

is the fighter, the bull and the audience share

feelings of being afraid, of needing to perform,

of an expectation of some kind – of a spectacle.

1ere seems to be a mutual fear and anxiety, as well as a mutual thrill and excitement.

You conducted research in both Portugal and Mozambique, so in terms of these two places there is a dialogue between the coloniser’s space

and the colonised space. However, it is much more complex and subtle than that because there is a disjuncture between what Portugal was centuries ago in relation to Africa (very powerful and domineering) and what it is now – an economically weak country. When I was in Portugal giving a talk about art in Africa I was told that people there are quite embarrassed about their colonial history and their relationship to Africa. I think in a lot of your work you re4ect such complexities. You deal with dichotomies, but you deal with the ambiguities of dichotomies that go beyond the obvious such as coloniser/colonised, or dominating/dominated. Can you talk a bit about how you work with merging and blending dichotomies, opposites and contradictions?

I guess because of how I grew up my life was

always filled with those opposites that I had to

figure out somehow. My defence mechanism

was trying to find the in-between space and

trying to understand the complexities that

we don’t have the words to articulate. I think I

have always been interested in things that are

under the surface. I also don’t think that life is a

straight line. I don’t think that things are always

what they seem. And so because I think about

those complicated, in-between things all the

time, it’s what interests me.

While in-between spaces are hard, do you think they have the potential of also being productive spaces ... at least some of the time?

Yes, I enjoy in-between spaces, and I think

I would be very boring otherwise! The in-

between spaces are what have helped me

create my work.

13 A SENSE OF PAUSE

THE UNDERBELLY OF SPECTACLE II: ‘AFRICANICITY’ AND THE ART WORLD

Just as the spectacle of bull&ghting hides the private, vulnerable moment of the matador strapping his suit to his body in the belly of the arena beneath the grandstand, the art world is built on deliberate oversights. Becoming an arena of spectacle, there’s an element of arti&ce: sequined trappings, staged personas and cheering crowds.

)en there’s the showdown.

While it is not always clear who is the bull, who is the matador, or who is the cape being used for the lure, o*en the annunciations of who’s who come from the outside – outside of the self. Underlying much of Mntambo’s work is a desire to slip between and beyond; to evade the grasp of categorisation; to create the space to self-identify and to speak on her own behalf.

In ‘Maps of Emergency: Fault Lines and Tectonic Plates’, Stuart Hall argues that artists from the African continent are in the process of freeing themselves from the “burden of representation”, for they are o*en expected to annunciate some kind of ‘Africanicity’.4

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However, as he argues, “)ere is no one ‘Africa’ here to be positively a(rmed”, and he suggests that ‘Africa’ can too easily become a lazy signi&er. While the increase of international exposure of artists from Africa in recent years is largely valued, the perpetuation of group shows framed simply around the loose signi&er ‘Africa’, rather than being meaningfully themed shows, continues to be problematic. In the sculpture titled 1e Jester (!""+), Mntambo explores the resulting dis-ease she experiences as an artist who is too o*en pushed into the dark corners of ‘Africanicity’, and of whom it is o*en expected that her reference to cows will tell a tale of rural Africa, deep tradition and monolithic culture.

Mntambo’s space-making is not simply about making room for de&nitive self-declarations that would limit understandings of her work, but it is about allowing passage – for herself, for nuance and for new readings. When asked

I was thinking about the court jester and how it was a person who was employed to provide some kind of entertainment or spectacle. So the work [The Jester] reveals the fact that I was also playing at the time in the sense of trying to figure out what was going on with the material, and how I wanted to function within the art world, and how I wanted to be represented.


# Stuart Hall, ‘Maps of Emergency: Fault Lines and Tectonic Plates’, in Fault Lines: Contemporary African Art and Shi3ing Landscapes, edited by Gilane Tawadros and Sarah Campbell (London: Institute of International Visual Arts with the Forum for African Arts and the Prince Claus Fund, !""-), -!.

14RUTH SIMBAO

to explain the title Ukungenisa she said, “)is means to allow passage, to allow something to happen, to allow space. Not in the way that you just let the thing happen on its own; you are guiding it, you are allowing the passage for it to happen.” While Ukungenisa is the title for one speci&c piece, the concept has broader relevance to her body of work. Much of Mntambo’s pause, her grappling with her work – its meaning and its reception – is about allowing passage; allowing space for something to happen.

In conversation she’s very open about this process:

While some writers attempt to interpret your reference to cows as a direct illustration of certain African traditions and rituals, in your work and in conversations about your work you seem to distance yourself from that. Can you say something about your work in terms of this ambivalence, particularly as someone who grew up in Johannesburg, as someone who is a di5erent generation from your mother who might see the symbol of the cow in a much more cultural context? How does your work speak to you as an urban, cosmopolitan person of a young generation?

In my opinion, the issue is that cowhide is a

material. I could be a painter, or I could be

someone who draws – cowhide is the material

that I have chosen as a means of expression.

It is a product of my artistic thinking. I wanted

to be a forensic pathologist and I really love

chemicals and understanding the chemical

process … I don’t know if that’s the only reason,

but my beginning of using cowhide was a very

private, strangely spiritual experience of having

a dream that I can’t really remember. But I do

remember there were cows in the dream. This

is why I chose the material. I enjoy exploring

how a chemical process can give me a certain

amount of control over this organic material.

How long ago was that dream?

That was seven years ago now. Then I

connected the content of this dream to a very

superficial liking of chemicals and a desire to

understand the material and how it works;

how to manipulate it. And so I think for me it’s

never going to be about a particular culture.

I just happen to be black. I could be Chinese

or Indian. I think that some writers find it the

easiest option to speak about black women and

lobola and whatever, but it’s never going to be

about that; it never was about that. It’s about

an interest in dead material and chemicals, and

the connection that every civilisation in the

world has to the cow. We all have an experience

of the animal – it’s one of the many things that

connect us.

I have not seen much written on the work )e Jester. Tell me about it.

It was made for a show curated by David Brodie,

a group show called Trickster. At the time I

was thinking that I am a bit of a trickster in a

way … taking something that isn’t traditionally

an art material and making it into that. And I

was thinking about the court jester and how

it was a person who was employed to provide

some kind of entertainment or spectacle. So

the work reveals the fact that I was also playing

at the time in the sense of trying to figure out

15 A SENSE OF PAUSE

what was going on with the material, and how I

wanted to function within the art world, and how

I wanted to be represented. I think that was the

time I decided I was going to limit the ‘African’

group shows that my work was going to be on. I

was playing at the time – trying to figure it out.

Yes, I guess one has to be a kind of trickster in order to self-identify as an artist, because in the art world one can too easily be told that you are this or that; your art means this or that. You have to trick people in the art world in a sense, to let it be what you want it to be, and to be yourself.

I think one has to find a combination of

strategies. Yes, one has to perform a bit of

trickery but one also has to have the language

to articulate what one wants viewers to

experience within an artwork. A viewer needs

to be bewildered by and guided through the

understanding of an artwork.

While many of your suspended hide 2gures, like )e Jester, are vertical, Sondzela (%&&6) is very di5erent in its distinct horizontality. Can you say something about this work, particularly its horizontal form and the glass beads that cascade down from the 2gure? 1e glass is almost invisible, so there is a lovely sense of 4oating in the work.

Sondzela means ‘come closer’, so I was literally

asking the viewer to come closer and take a

look. I think that the horizontal stance, in a way,

seems less aggressive and less confrontational,

and so it’s about wanting a person to be drawn

in to take a closer look. In terms of the glass

beads, at the time I was really interested in

culture. I don’t know … I was possibly a bit

confused. Because of how my work began [with

a dream], a lot of people were thinking about

very spiritual connotations of my work, and

because I’m black and I dreamt about cows, the

interpretations were often that it must mean

there is some sangoma situation happening.

[Laughs].

Yeah, that dream is a dangerous thing to bring up as it can be interpreted in such a simplistic way!

I think I was just trying to find connections,

so I started reading up on dreaming and how

it works, and then something led me to the

Maasai. I was dealing with the female body, and

was interested in culture and adornment and

how people view the body, and I started to get

very interested in jewellery. I then realised that

Maasai women create their own necklaces and

these necklaces show your status as a woman;

it indicates whether you are married or single,

your age and status within the community. So

on the one hand this thing, the necklace, tells

so much about you culturally … but at the same

time it doesn’t really say anything.

Although there might be a tendency to interpret your work in relation to the concept of ‘African culture’ – whatever that is – it is interesting to think about the various ways your art resonates with the works of artists from elsewhere in the world. I was recently working on a proposal that considers your work in relation to the art of the contemporary Chinese artist Zhang Huan who also uses cowhide in works such as Cowskin Buddha Face No $ (%&&7), Cowskin Buddha Face No ! (%&&6), or the cowhide giants he produced in %&&6.

p55

16RUTH SIMBAO

Oh, I love him so much!

Have you met him?

No, I wanted to meet him. I went to China last

year and I emailed his studio in Shanghai, but I

did not get to meet him.

It is interesting to think that his use of cowhide, ash and incense might be interpreted as relating to tradition and spirituality. Apparently in the Giant series the skins come from Henan Province where he grew up and for him animal motifs are o3en linked to rural life.5 However, his earlier performance work in China and the USA was anything but traditional, leading him to “reject the notion of a homogenous cultural identity in favour of a subject that changes over time and is constantly rede2ning itself ”.6 1is freedom to self-identify is so important. What interests you about his work?

For me it’s the scale of his work, as well as the

attractive and yet repulsive element. His work is

very overpowering, but in a way also draws you

in, which I absolutely love. He makes you look

again. He makes you look closer.

And some of his later work is also very quiet.

Yes, I really enjoy that about his work. I

actually saw one of the giant cowhide people,

a figure with a baby, in New York. It was quietly

overpowering but drew one in at the same time.

Like something out of a fantasy, maybe even a

nightmare – it’s difficult to tell. It was huge, like

four stories high. I was blown away!

When I saw your work at the Sydney Biennale

last year I was struck by the proximity of your work to that of Louise Bourgeois and by the way bodies and clothing completely merged in your works and hers. How do you feel about meanings that can open up when your work is displayed with that of other artists in group shows?

Yeah, I was quite excited about being close to

Louise Bourgeois’ work! I really enjoy being

put in relationship to artists that I respect,

and whose work I understand. Having work

out there means that you should allow for

connections or parallels or conversations with

other people’s work. I really enjoy it, as long as I

am on the same page.

Do people ever try to connect your work with Nicholas Hlobo’s? Visually there are connections with your work and his, especially with the ideas of clothing and materials, and the folds …

I love Nicholas’ work, in terms of how he

thinks, his use of material. But people curating

shows or writing about our work haven’t really

picked up on the connections between us. As I

mentioned before, I think it’s been the easiest

option for critics and writers to ‘group’ my

work with that of other black women artists – it

seems that it would be too complex to have a

more dynamic conversation about materiality…

and that is the connection I think Nicholas and I

share within our art-making process. I guess it’s

never really crossed anyone’s mind before.

. Dziewior, Yilmaz, ‘Self-Made Man’, in Zhuang Huan, edited by Dziewior, Roselee Goldberg and Robert Storr (New York: Phaidon, !""'), #".

/ Dziewior, Yilmaz, ‘Self-Made Man’, -+.

17 A SENSE OF PAUSE

THE FAILURE OF ART’S GAZE

If spectacle is about oversight as much as it is about sight, what could this mean for the gaze? Is the gaze about seeing, or about what we fail to see? Does the non-gaze see more than the gaze? What makes us look a little closer?

In the bronze bust Zeus (%&&8), what I 2nd to be powerful is the way the body moves forward – including the eyes and horns. Everything seems to move in a particular direction; there’s quite a lot of dynamism to it. Can you say something about that portrait in relation to art historical traditions of busts … how this image debunks certain ideas about portraiture and the bust? And in contrast to Sengi&kile (%&&8), the other bust in which the eyes are lowered and the body is more upright … can you compare the two busts?

Zeus came first, and I was really wanting

something based on me but very masculine,

domineering; a confronting image. At the

time I was researching bronze and portraiture

and how people used their own image in a

way where they immortalised themselves

in that particular moment. So I was thinking

of the idea of immortalising oneself, making

oneself seem more important than one might

be. I guess I was interested in destabilising

ideas around the human image and how we

understand it. So when I started making that

work, it was really interesting that as the

features developed I saw more of my mother

than myself in Zeus. Not that she looks like

a man, but it was really interesting to be

confronted with an image of her that I was

not expecting to come up. And I had used

her body in my work before. Then it was a

very intentional thing, but here it just came

up unexpectedly. So I have been trying to

understand whether, in a strange way, Zeus is a

reflection of how I see my mother, or if it’s just

totally about me.

I initially made Sengifikile because my best

friend’s father wanted an artwork from me and

I was working on Zeus and really loving bronze

at the time …. Although it is more me in terms

of the features, I really love that work more

than Zeus because it’s that same thing as in

The Rape of Europa (2009) – the recognition

of the power that one holds within a particular

moment. The eyes are facing down but I think

there is a very real and clear recognition and

realisation of the gaze. So it’s a work that –

unlike Zeus which is very confronting – draws

[T]he gaze guarantees the failure of seeing.Peggy Phelan ('889)7

It’s about the power of the non-gaze …Nandipha Mntambo (%&'')

, Peggy Phelan, Unmarked, $.

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18RUTH SIMBAO

you in and as such I really enjoy the power that

the work has to make you look a little bit closer.

It’s interesting that in Zeus you start o5 making something more masculine and it ends up like your mother, and in the other one you start making it with a man in mind and it ends up being more feminine. It’s like a subconscious reversing or merging of gender.

Can you say something about the strong gaze in the photograph Europa (%&&6), particularly the fact that it was on the front cover of Art South Africa in %&&6? It’s almost as if it’s an easier image compared to the lowered gaze that you say is more powerful in the bust Sengi&kile. In some ways the direct gaze in Europa makes it easier for people to latch onto as a powerful image.

When I made Europa I was beginning to explore

the whole idea of the animal-human and how

people really do forget that we are animals as

well. And I woke up one day and thought that

I want to try and make myself into a bull. I was

reading a lot on the Minotaur and I was trying

to understand how I would look as that kind of

character, and I think that work is very direct,

but strangely seductive in a way.

Do you think that comes through in the gaze?

I think it’s about the gaze, it’s about the smile on

the face, it’s about how we understand the black

body, it’s about how we understand the female

body, and it’s about how we understand what’s

attractive and repulsive. For me, all those things

are strangely problematised in that image and

no one ever talks about it in that way, which

I find problematic. Everyone says “oh, great

image … powerful”, but no one speaks about

the female body, the animal-human; how we

understand sexuality, how we understand the

border between the male and the female … and

that, for me, is what the work is about.

In terms of seduction, the body is leaning forward, but then you have these horns that would block someone from being close to your body, so there is a pull and push e5ect.

What about the title of the bronze bust, Sengi&kile?

It means ‘now I have arrived’. It’s about

the power of the non-gaze. This work is

confrontational in a quieter, more subverted way.

1e eyes are not shut, right?

Yes, they are not shut.

1at’s interesting as it is a kind of subversion of the normal art historical idea that if as a woman you gaze back boldly you are reclaiming power and if you do not – if you lower your gaze – people can look at you in a debasing way.

Yeah. I think it is the other way around. There

is so much power in not returning the gaze – a

viewer is forced to come closer. The viewer is

forced to take action in order to fully engage or

be part of the experience of the work.

In a sense, the work Zeus is more aggressive, but in the way you discuss these two works it is not necessarily the most powerful piece. I think your work deals with those subtleties of in-between spaces well. For example, in the photograph

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19 A SENSE OF PAUSE

)e Rape of Europa (%&&8), one 2gure appears to be dominating and the other appears to be passive, but it is much more complex than that, as it is the same 2gure.

Yes, it appears to be passive, but at the same

time it’s also not, because there is recognition

of the other. There is a clear recognition of

the potential threat. Looking one’s possible

aggressor in the eye … The figure who is

allowing the other one to overpower it or her is

doing it with a certain kind of power as well. I am

not saying that victims don’t exist, but there is a

certain power that we all have in situations and

you may not necessarily recognise it at the time.

And this tension comes out in the fact that in this image you are both of those things – you are both of the 2gures.

REFUGE FROM SPECTACLE

1ere are two pieces that I have struggled to understand, partly because most writing focuses on culture and tradition even though I don’t think that is necessarily what you are talking about. 1ese are uMcedo (%&&8) and Refuge (%&&8). Can you help me understand them?

With Refuge …. I had started making the army

Emabutfo (2009) and was thinking around the

idea of a fight. Because of how people choose

to understand my work I have had to try and

become more articulate about how I don’t want

people to interpret my work. I found myself

in a situation where I was having this very

private fight with myself and trying to figure

out what was going on, what I wanted to say. A

lot of the time, as artists we depend on critics

and writers to help us find the language of

what our artwork is about, and I felt frustrated

because the language that was being offered

at the time was not at all helpful in describing

what I was thinking about or what I wanted my

work to be about. So I was having this strange

struggle with myself having to figure out how

to use language that accurately expressed

my thoughts and process. With Refuge I was

thinking about this idea of being very visible,

but also being able to hide. So in the kneeling

… some people would see it as a prayer, some

people would see it as a submissive position,

some people would see it as a very sexual

I was thinking about this idea of being very visible, but also being able to hide…


p67 & 69

p71

20RUTH SIMBAO

position and some people would see it in

other ways. I was playing with this idea of an

ambiguous space and the relationship between

being there and also being concealed.

In uMcedo I was thinking of a similar idea –

being able to hide, but being very visible at the

same time. I was thinking about a space where

one could enter and only exit when you are

ready. It was really amazing that although the

work smells really bad, lots of people went in

there. It was really interesting to have exactly

what I wanted to happen.

What does the title uMcedo mean?

The object uMcedo was for Zulu men … the

object is made out of reeds; it looks like a little

hut, and it is worn as a pendant on a necklace.

And uMcedo means ‘the final thing’, or the thing

that puts your outfit together, so it would be

the last thing that men wear as part of their

outfit, and it’s meant to be something that helps

protect you. I was thinking about completion. It

completes your outfit and it protects you.

PAUSE: ‘WORKS THAT MAKE ME CRY’

Nandikeshvara is a strange work, because it

made me cry for a while. How it started: my

best friend worked in India for two years and

she called me and said, “Nandi, you won’t

believe it, but there is a cow called Nandi. It’s a

bull and they worship it here in India”, and I just

kind of dismissed the conversation. When I was

preparing the show Encounter (2007), I created

the army first, and was drawn to white cowhide.

I had no idea why because I had worked in

black cowhide mainly before. As I was working,

I don’t know what it was that happened, but I

rethought of this Nandi and started researching

about it and realised that it was a white bull.

And I was really intrigued by the fact that all of

a sudden I had been drawn to this white hide,

as I had no idea why I was drawn to it. And then

this story comes up again, and we have the

same name … and so it was just really strange to

me. I guess I started thinking around the idea of

immortalisation again, and creating something

that was very powerful, but also very quiet.

As for the gestures, I think it was in relationship

particularly to the army and being a leader,

but at the same time, Nandi became so full of

himself that Shiva had to teach him a lesson

in humility, and so he crippled him. Then he

became the guardian of his temples. I think that

quiet power, and having to learn the lesson of

humility, was what I was thinking about.

There are actually three works of mine right now that give me that feeling of crying.


21 A SENSE OF PAUSE

Yes, being very powerful but quiet could be viewed as an apparent incongruence but it is not necessarily a contradiction at all. In As I Am (%&&8) there is another seeming contradiction between something almost grotesque and something very elegant, and yet these two elements come together quite naturally. 1e hooves become like these enormous hands, which are grotesque in terms of scale, but then the way the material hangs down, it is quite elegant.

Actually, that is the other work that makes me

cry a lot. I started realising that, because of how I

grew up, and because of how my mother is, there

is a very specific way that I allow the world to

see me. I will go to the studio looking a particular

way, change and do my thing, change again and

leave looking just like I did when I arrived there

in the morning. And that is how my mom exists

– she is very particular about how the world is

allowed to see her. That is a part of her residue

in my life. At the same time I am a lot taller than

a lot of girls, I am bigger than a lot of girls, and I

have been mistaken for a man at times, and have

had to understand the in-between space of it. I

have enjoyed being an artist, being able to travel

around the world and observing how artists

or people from Africa continue to be viewed.

I guess people’s understanding of me while I

have been travelling becomes a little more spicy

because I happen to be a black female artist,

and I happen to live in Africa, so in the opinion of

some people who have not travelled to Africa or

have only been to specific parts of the continent,

I must live in a shack with no electricity and

very little concept of the current world. All these

interesting but problematic issues that used to

be more prevalent 10 years ago still happen.

Realising that, ultimately it makes me sad at

times. So yeah, I guess that work is about feeling

immobile. Feeling a bit immobile, but having to

have a particular pretence at the same time.

1e hands in As I Am are so large. What can one do with such large hands? 1ere is a clumsiness to them; an awkwardness and a distortion. What could one do with such hands that are made from hooves?

I started playing with hooves a little while before

and really enjoyed the fact that they are the

things at the end of the animal and the things

that help it move, but because they are not on

the animal anymore they become useless, they

are not used for the same purpose anymore.

So, for example, with the cloud of hooves in

Nandikeshvara (2009) – the sculpture is never

going to be able to walk anywhere. So I really

enjoyed the reference to becoming crippled and

having these things that are meant to help one

move around.

And the third one that makes you cry?

[Laughs]. It’s kind of funny because it is a work

that no one wants to buy! It’s the strangest

thing. It’s Iqaba Lami – an old work where I

started working with cow faces and I came

across the Herero women in Namibia and I was

so fascinated with these bustles and bustles and

bustles that they wear, so I created a work that

was about that, and using cow faces as these

bustles. And I just cried, and cried and cried.

And no one wants to buy the work.

Do you know why you cried?

No. Not yet.

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22RUTH SIMBAO

RUTH SIMBAO IS AN ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR IN THE FINE ART DEPARTMENT AT RHODES UNIVERSITY, AND THE PROJECT LEADER FOR THE MELLON FOCUS AREA, 'VISUAL AND PERFORMING ARTS OF AFRICA'. HER CURRENT RESEARCH INTERESTS INCLUDE CHINA-AFRICA RELATIONS, THE GLOBAL SOUTH, INTRA-CONTINENTAL AND CONTRA-FLOW DIASPORAS, SITE-SPECIFICITY AND COSMOLOCALISM IN CONTEMPORARY ART.

23 A SENSE OF PAUSE

Kingdom of Swaziland, but also to move away from these to confront larger and more pressing concerns.

What exactly these concerns are, however, still remains to be fully played out. Even for the artist they appear to be cause for dispute. )e fact that total resolution of self is both impossible and undesirable appears to be the main point. It seems as though ambiguity alone allows us to be human. In 1e Fighters (!""/), casts from her body taken from two di0erent hides, the &gures aggressively face up against each other, yet they could just as easily be dancing or embracing as &ghting. From the evidence of her most recent work, the moulded skin and fur of a cow have been points of departure that have enabled her, now through other media, to approach fundamental psychological, emotional – even social – schisms of orientation and attitude. )ese are not con&ned to her background in South Africa but may be found in the lives of us all.

But cowhide was a good starting point. Symbolically charged, it carries in its wake the overpowering perfume of death. In parts of southern Africa, the slaughtering of a bull connotes an auspicious ritual; in Swaziland the corpse of a king is wrapped in it to be buried. )e ox and its skin refer to a complex psycho-sexual network of bovine mythology which stretches across vast parts of the world.

THE SILENCE THAT NO ONE TALKS ABOUT

*avid +lliott

nitially, it’s the iconoclastic way the female body collides with the di(cult, lumpy material of cowhide that is the most memorable part of Nandipha Mntambo’s work. Yet soon this fades as

more disorientating impressions take hold in a world that appears to be seriously out of kilter. )e artist has described her relationship with the skin of cattle as pre&gured in a dream1 and has produced “… hair-covered but arguably beautiful female &gures” to disrupt conventional “perceptions of attraction and repulsion”.2 )ese long-suppressed memories of our animal past inevitably call into question those categories of desire which condition us all and, building out of this, she then began to consider the ways in which personality is formed through an interrogation of self, even to the point of fragmentation. To express this complexity in her work, she has carefully constructed a framework of ironic circumspection that has allowed her not only to acknowledge her origins in the small pastoral

p43

$ ‘“I dreamt I saw a large herd of cattle”: Nandipha Mntambo talks to Anthea Buys’, in Positions: Contemporary Artists in South Africa, edited by Peter Anders and Matthew Krouse (Johannesburg: Jacana, !"$"), $$".

! Nandipha Mntambo, statement about her exhibition Ingabisa (Cape Town: Michael Stevenson, !"",).

I

25

Yama, the Buddhist god of death, lord of the underworld and restorer of harmony, has the head of a bull and virile body of a man and is o*en depicted ecstatically in yab-yum3 with his consort. )e feminine cow, the creature beloved of Krishna and his pert milkmaids that still runs riot through contemporary India, is sacred to the Hindus. Ox-like, horned deities dominated large parts of ancient Iberia and the Middle East. Crete has its myth of the terrifying all-devouring Minotaur – half man, half bull; Mntambo has depicted herself as a female version but she is closer in character to Picasso’s perplexed vision of this beast, attracted by the candle of a little girl, than to its violent, ancient archetype.

)roughout time horned, ox-like creatures, male and female, with their own discrete symbologies, have expressed fundamental unities between ostensible opposites: sun/moon, heaven/earth, alpha/omega, boy/girl, life/death. … 1e grave’s a 2ne and private place, But none, I think, do there embrace.4… When an animal is skinned it has no gender. Male and female almost look the same.

When I think about the roots of Mntambo’s work, the impression is more of life than death. Although the unprepared hides smell bad and are laborious to prepare, her images are full of vitality. At some time in her Cape Town student days, she must have taken a challenge from Gavin Younge (b $'#,), one of her professors, who since the early $''"s had been using goat vellum and cowhide in his work.

By choosing vellum – almost translucent leather bere* of its fur – Younge had distanced

himself from associations of ritual usage by turning it into a kind of palimpsest that could contain within its body reference to both the oppression of apartheid and the atrocities of the Holocaust. His early works excavated submerged events in the history of South Africa and Angola; more recently his Quagga Project ($'',-!"$"), as its name suggests, has been more concerned with a poetic recuperation of that which has been lost.5

But although the material is similar, the fundamental di0erence between Mntambo’s work and that of Younge is one of generation, which in turn has been in%uenced by experience and outlook. Mntambo distanced herself from the indigenous and pastoral roots of cowhide, as well as from any stereotypical identity that could be easily thrust upon her, by invoking unsettling, incongruous and sometimes humorous associations from both the history of Western and Asian art and everyday life. Most importantly, by using the female body, usually her own, to mould her &gures she has created a sense of self-con&dence and empowerment within a context where many women still su0er sexual discrimination and abuse. )e forms cast from her body are o*en le* open at the back so that one can almost imagine entering them and standing in the artist’s strong yet vulnerable space.

A similar distaste for the hierarchical identities of race and gender, acute legacies from South

- Sexual union.# Andrew Marvell ($/!$-$/,+) from To His Coy Mistress.. )e quagga is an extinct subspecies of the plains zebra.

26DAVID ELLIOTT

Africa’s colonial and apartheid past, can also be found in the work of Berni Searle (b $'/#) who, in series such as Color Me ($''+-!""") and Discolored ($'''-!"""), deconstructed the social position cast upon her by family lineage to create a “micro-history of the personal … [that] reveals the radical insu(ciencies of all identity”, and to put in its place a multitude of di0erent identities both fantastic and real.6 In more recent works, such as the triple-screen video installation Interlaced (!"$$), she has constructed a mysterious, exotic persona, seductive and immeasurable in its power, place and colour.

Within this younger generation of artists, concerns about the identity and power of women are not con&ned to South Africa. In Windswept Women (!""'), a series of &ve four-metre-high photographic panels exhibited at the 53rd Venice Biennale, Japanese artist Miwa Yanagi (b $'/,) presented, within a loose framework of Buddhist iconography, a shocking collision of old age and youth. In grainy black and white, isolated on a mountain plateau, these ecstatic dominating goddesses with their swirling hair, %ailing, sagging breasts, and wrinkled, &rm %esh have broken dharma – the wheel and law of life – because it had no place within it to protect them.7

An important precursor of such positions has been the French/American artist Louise Bourgeois ($'$$-!"$"). Balanced on a tightrope between Freud and Proust, from the $'#"s to the present she created a series of imaginary, intensely personal worlds fuelled by a multiplicity of associations between memory and desire. )e body, o*en female

but not exclusively, always &gured large. In early paintings and prints it was shown as a house – an ironic domestic fortress; later it became fragmented, in latex, marble, fabric or wool, as breasts, phalluses and vaginas, as mothers and children, or as copulating couples. From the early $''"s it was constructed as an ever-growing series of enclosed ‘Cells’, shrines to traumatic memory – conscious and unconscious – mitigated by desire, hope and enactment through art. Although for the larger part of her career she was regarded as a marginal &gure by the art world, one of the reasons her work speaks so strongly to us now is that it captures a subversive and timely realisation that conventional hierarchies and divisions of gender are not as normal as they seem to be: sometimes they cloak their opposites, at other times they conceal harsh realities of oppression and control.

Within this embattled world Bourgeois began to realise that the most signi&cant struggle in art and life was that which acknowledged that the greatest limitation and terror lay inside oneself: “what interests me is the conquering of fear, the hiding, the running away from it, exorcising it, being ashamed of it, and &nally of being afraid of being afraid …”8

Mntambo’s engagement with archetypical mythology has been prompted by her respect

/ Berni Searle quoted in Barbara )ompson, ‘Decolonizing Black Bodies: Personal Journeys in the Contemporary Voice’, in Black Womanhood: Images, Icons and Ideologies of the African Body, edited by )ompson (Hanover, NH: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, !""+), !'+.

, www.yanagimiwa.net.+ Louise Bourgeois cited in Marie-Laure Bernadac and Hans-Ulrich Obrist (eds), Louise

Bourgeois. Destruction of the Father/Reconstruction of the Father: Writings and Interviews $'!-–$'', (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, $''+).

27 THE SILENCE THAT NO ONE TALKS ABOUT

for the power of fear as well as for the multiple signi&cances of silence. She has recently written that “I am at war with myself ” and it is possible to regard the whole development of her work in this light.9 In her &rst exhibition, Ingabisa, a Swazi word referring to ‘coming of age’, she documented the rite of passage by which she was able to stand alone as an artist. Silent Embrace (!"",), $$ life-size digital prints of hide casts based on her mother’s body, shows the individual elements of the large installation Beginning of the Empire. In this latter work, $$ di0erently textured, dense, shield-like hides, inspired by a photograph of mineworkers taken in $'/+ by Peter Magubane, are mounted together on a wall. Here Mntambo, for once, directly refers to the history of apartheid, her title suggesting that the miners may be soldiers in a new world order, yet subversively she renders their black bodies female. In the related photographs each body is cut out against a white background, yet, in spite of its title, there appear to be no arms to embrace the viewer. Is the embrace mute because the arms have been amputated?

)e bittersweet idea of silence is further ampli&ed in Silence and Dreams (!""+), an installation of eight hide casts ranged in a circle facing outwards, equally taken from the artist and her mother. In an interview with her mother, Mntambo has described this work as about silence and communication: “… about our linkages as well as the separation between us … )ere is also, I hope, a silence in the work that exists between us, a silence that no one talks about.”10 It is not clear whether she means that this silence is empathetic, aggressive or protective – or all of them at the same time.

p34

p46

p36

p69

p52

p41

p49

p45

Yet her work is rarely without humour. Deity (!""#), one of Mntambo’s earliest works, seems to ironise both mythology and ethnicity. )e god is cast in black hide in the form of a human on all fours, a ‘primitive’ necklace of bone and bronze slung around a head and neck that appear to have been exploded. Idle, made in the same year, strikes a completely di0erent tone: three pairs of disembodied, hairy, cowhide legs sit crossed, emerging out of the white plastic of contemporary ‘designer’ chairs. In Refuge (!""'), this almost comic idea of emergence is tragically reversed when the bodies of three gown-clad &gures on all fours appear to be desperately trying to escape by disappearing into a wall.11

Lelive Lami (‘)is world is mine’, !"",), marks a di0erent typology in her work, although the underlying theme of the human body emerging out of an animal matrix is pushed further: a black cowhide cast of the artist’s body rises out of vast train of di0erent coloured cows’ tails. It almost seems as if the artist is trying to free herself from the tyranny of history and culture. Indlovukati (‘Mother of the King’, !"",) builds on this by combining two ideas: the carapace of a goddess-like &gure %oating in space and the %owing lines of a Victorian-period long dress, a style that was incorporated into some traditional African women’s clothing. )e relationship of drapery to &gure, even in such an intractable material, also suggests Hellenistic sculpture while

' Email to the author, !' April !"$$.$" ‘Nandipha Mntambo in conversation with her mother, Sphiwe Mntambo’,

in Summer !""+/': Projects (Cape Town: Michael Stevenson, !""+), .'.$$ )is idea was repeated in the same year using one &gure in My Departure and Waiting.

28DAVID ELLIOTT

the speci&city of the fashion perhaps casts a sidelong glance at the fascination of Nigerian- British artist Yinka Shonibare, MBE (b $'/!) with European couture of the $+th and $'th centuries.12

Nandikeshvara (!""') features a cast in hide of the artist’s body ‘%oating’ in thin air on a ‘cloud’ of cows’ hooves. Its title, meaning ‘a mind dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva’, also contains a play on her own &rst name as well as that of Nandi, the god’s famous white bull and war steed. )e &gure in the work however evokes completely di0erent traditions: the assertive female form with outspread arms or wings suggests the Nike of Samothrace, the second-century BCE classical Greek Goddess of Victory now in the Louvre, while the ‘cloud’ which supports her is reminiscent of the chubby curves of the fog of putti who carry the Virgin heavenwards in an Immaculate Conception by a Spanish $,th-century master such as Bartolomé Esteban Murillo.

Ukungenisa (‘Giving space for something to happen’, !""+), Mntambo’s &rst video work, also conveys a taste for the pleats and folds of the Baroque that have continued into her most recent work. Set in the silent void of the derelict Praça de Touros in Maputo, the capital of former Portuguese-occupied Mozambique, the artist plays the role of killer, bull and audience. Dressed in the resplendent &nery of a matador, with a waistcoat and train made out of cowhide and ears, she personi&es both the bull and its nemesis, tensely swirling self-destructive passes with her red muleta. Building on the ambivalence of her earlier work 1e Fighters, but now clearly a trespasser in male territory,

p73

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she becomes an embodiment of the creative machismo and fear which artist, matador and bull all experience: “I realised that the feelings experienced by the crowd, the &ghter and the bull,” she wrote, “are very similar – the animal is scared, confused and is &ghting to survive; the &ghter needs to prove himself but he is also scared of the bull; the crowd is also scared, terri&ed of what could possibly happen … but they need the spectacle …”13 In the two-panel photographic work Mlwa ne Nkunzi (‘Bull &ghter’, !""+), she emblematically ‘plays’ the roles of both bull and matador dressed only in cowhide.

)e large photographic work 1e Rape of Europa (!""') heralds further compression of the violence. Artist and bull are no longer separate. In the myth on which this story is based, Zeus, head of the Greek pantheon, transformed himself into a white bull to abduct Europa, a beautiful Phoenician princess and

$! Iqaba Lami (!"",) and Meditations on Solitude (!""') also contain &gures with the same kind of ‘Victorian’ dress.

$- Nandipha Mntambo interviewed by Joost Bosland in Disguise: 1e Art of Attracting and De4ecting Attention (Cape Town: Michael Stevenson, !""+), !$.


descendent of Io, the mythical nymph whom Zeus had previously seduced and then turned into a heifer to escape the wrath of Hera, his wife. Here, with horned head and hairy body, the artist ravishes Europa, also represented by herself, within a lush tropical paradise. )e same idea and connection with Greek mythology is continued in Narcissus (!""') in which, in bull-headed form, she gazes in adoration at her own re%ection.

It is hard to say whether the solipsism of these images expresses power or weakness as they seem to embody not only the artist’s own war with herself but also the failure of dialectical thought to capture a truthful expression of either emotion or reality. In this sense the works are a critique of rational thought, its historical lineage and its results.

Europa (!""+), a single image of her horned self, has been further ampli&ed in the bronze busts Zeus and Sengi2kile (‘I have arrived’), cast in !""'. With the move into a three-dimensional, ‘noble’ material we leave the virtual world of the photograph to approach a narcissistic historicism not unlike the work of Je0 Koons (b $'..) who, in the series of large photographs and sculptures Made in Heaven ($'+'-'$), chronicled in detail his sexual relationship with La Cicciolina, an Italian porn star, politician and, for a short time, his wife. Yet, although Koons’ works depict countless attempts at procreation, their impression is one of overwhelming sterility. In Mntambo’s case, although the underlying theme of these and related works is essentially masturbatory, they are not infected by Koons’ pseudo-heroic hubris. )e impression they $# ‘Nandipha Mntambo in conversation with her mother, Sphiwe Mntambo’, .'.

give is one of irresolution, of con%ict, of uncertainty, even of sadness.

Re%ecting on this, it may not be too fanciful to suggest that we are the guests at an extended chronicle of coming of age. Taken together, Mntambo’s works may be read like an African Bildungsroman, a romantic exposition of the self pioneered in the late $+th and early $'th century by male European writers, now stripped down and transformed into a mythic a(rmation of humanity for its own sake – devoid of identity, singularity of gender or other limitations.

)e path her work has taken is characterised by the persistent desire to dig deep beyond the surface in order to circumvent established theories, causes or styles. )rough the prism of a subjective aesthetic she has bypassed what we describe as politics by fusing desire, imagination, memory and material in images and objects that refuse to &t into any conventional framework. In this sense her work subverts desire by thwarting expectation.

Most recently, building on the same bank of images and myths, this journey has taken her towards painting and drawing. Ultimately, as now, the territory that she will occupy is that which is far beyond the controlling skin of perception or language. It will be, rather, a place where she can pump up the volume of “a silence that no one talks about”14 so that she can excavate, ventilate and celebrate the ambiguities within both our natures and her own.

p61 & 60

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30DAVID ELLIOTT

DAVID ELLIOTT IS AN INDEPENDENT CURATOR AND WRITER BASED IN BERLIN. HE WAS ARTISTIC DIRECTOR OF THE 17TH SYDNEY BIENNALE IN 2010, AND IS A FORMER DIRECTOR OF ISTANBUL MODERN, THE MORI ART MUSEUM IN TOKYO, THE MODERNA MUSEET IN STOCKHOLM AND THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, OXFORD.


WORKS 2004-2011

33

Idle!""#Cowhide, resin, polyester mesh, steel, plastic- &gures, approx '" x #, x .'cm eachC122345617 18 593 A:56;5

Balandzeli!""#Cowhide, resin, waxed cord$-, x -/" x ,"cmJ19<773;=>:? A:5 G<223:@ C122345617

34NANDIPHA MNTAMBO

Deity!""#Cowhide, resin, waxed cord, bone, bronze/" x $$# x ,#cmC122345617 18 593 A:56;5

Purge and Stepping into Self!"".Cowhide, resin, polyester mesh, waxed cord, bones, glass beadsPurge $.# x $$/ x '#cm; Stepping into Self ,# x $$. x '!cmIA6B1 S1>59 A8:64<7 N<5617<2 G<223:@ C122345617, C<C3 T1D7

36NANDIPHA MNTAMBO

Uhambo!""/Cows’ faces, resin, polyester mesh, &berglass, waxed cord--" x -'" x $."cmC122345617 18 593 A:56;5

Iqaba Lami!"",Cowhide, cows’ faces, resin, polyester mesh, waxed cord$." x $$. x ,.cmC122345617 18 593 A:56;5

38NANDIPHA MNTAMBO

Untitled!"",Cows' ears, resin, waxed cordDimensions variableC122345617 18 593 A:56;5

Indlovukati!"",Cowhide, resin, polyester mesh, waxed cord$.- x +' x ,"cmP:6E<53 C122345617, J19<773;=>:?

40NANDIPHA MNTAMBO

1e Fighters!""/Cowhide, resin, polyester mesh, waxed cordHeight $!/cm; installation dimensions variableN32;17 M<7F32< M35:1C1265<7 A:5 M>;3>G C122345617, P1:5 E26A<=359

42NANDIPHA MNTAMBO

Beginning of the Empire!"",Cowhide, resin, polyester mesh, waxed cord$"" x $""" x /"cmC122345617 18 593 A:56;5

44NANDIPHA MNTAMBO

Silent Embrace!"",$$ digital prints on cotton rag paper$,- x '$cm eachEdition of . + !APPhotographer: Tony MeintjesSABC C122345617, J19<773;=>:?; S<;12 C122345617, J19<773;=>:?; S67F6B< D1B121 C122345617, L><7F<; P:6E<53 C122345617;

46NANDIPHA MNTAMBO

Silence and Dreams!""+Cowhide, cows’ tails, resin, polyester mesh, waxed cord+ &gures, installation approx !#. x /." x -""cmG1:F17 S49<49<5 C122345617, J19<773;=>:?

48NANDIPHA MNTAMBO

Study ' (uMcedo)!""'Ink on cotton paper.".. x /.cmP:6E<53 C122345617, J19<773;=>:?

Study % (Babel)!""'Ink on cotton paper/. x ."..cmP:6E<53 C122345617, J19<773;=>:?

50NANDIPHA MNTAMBO

Lelive Lami!"",Cowhide, cows’ tails, resin, polyester mesh$+" x !'" x !""cmU76E3:;65@ 18 S1>59 A8:64< (U76;<) C122345617, P:351:6<

Babel!""'Cows’ tails, woodInstallation dimensions variableJ14937 Z365A C122345617

52NANDIPHA MNTAMBO

Sondzela!""+Cowhide, resin, polyester mesh, glass beads, waxed cord$," x $/. x $""cmJ>26< S51;493B C122345617, DH;;32F1:8

As I Am!""'Cowhide, cows’ hooves, resin, polyester mesh.+ x ,$ x ##cmP:6E<53 C122345617, M<>:656>;

54NANDIPHA MNTAMBO

1e Jester!""+Cowhide, resin, polyester mesh, waxed cord$,. x /" x +"cmS<;12 C122345617, J19<773;=>:?

Intsandvokati!""+Cowhide, cows’ ears, resin, polyester mesh$,. x $"" x $#"cmJ>26< S51;493B C122345617, DH;;32F1:8

56NANDIPHA MNTAMBO

Mlwa ne Nkunzi!""+Archival pigment ink on cotton rag paperDiptych, $$! x +#..cm eachEdition of . + !APPhotographer: LambroM>::<@ I R1=3:5; C122345617, J19<773;=>:?; SC32G<7 C1223?3 C122345617, A52<75<; P:6E<53 C122345617;

So It Begins ' & %!"$"Intaglio on paper ,. x ./cm eachWorking proofsC122345617 18 593 A:56;5

58NANDIPHA MNTAMBO

Sengi2kile!""'Bronze,'.. x .- x !...cmEdition of . + !APJ14937 Z365A C122345617; P:6E<53 C122345617;

Zeus!""'Bronze++ x +# x .+cmEdition of . + !APJ14937 Z365A C122345617; P:6E<53 C122345617;

60NANDIPHA MNTAMBO

Europa!""+Archival pigment ink on cotton rag paper$$! x $$!cmEdition of . + !APPhotographic composite: Tony MeintjesG1:F17 S49<49<5 C122345617, J19<773;=>:?; IA6B1 S1>59 A8:64<7 N<5617<2 G<223:@ C122345617, C<C3 T1D7; P:6E<53 C122345617;

C/#Narcissus!""'Archival pigment ink on cotton rag paper$$! x $$!cmEdition of . + !APPhotographic composite: Tony MeintjesJ14937 Z365A C122345617; P:6E<53 C122345617;

C/.1e Rape of Europa!""'Archival pigment ink on cotton rag paper$$! x $$!cmEdition of . + !APPhotographic composite: Tony MeintjesJ3<7 P6?1AA6 C122345617; J14937 Z365A C122345617; P:6E<53 C122345617;

62NANDIPHA MNTAMBO

64NANDIPHA MNTAMBO

Drawing '!""'Ink on cotton paper.".. x /.cmP:6E<53 C122345617, M<>:656>;

uMcedo!""'Cows’ tails, wood-!" x --. x $."cmJ14937 Z365A C122345617

66NANDIPHA MNTAMBO

Refuge!""'Cowhide, resin, polyester mesh- &gures, each approx .! x /" x .'cm; installation approx .! x $'" x .'cmP:6E<53 C122345617, J19<773;=>:?

68NANDIPHA MNTAMBO

Emabutfo!""'Cowhide, resin, polyester mesh, waxed cord!# &gures, each approx $!" x /" x !"cm; installation approx $!" x !-" x ##"cmJ14937 Z365A C122345617

70NANDIPHA MNTAMBO

Nandikeshvara!""'Cowhide, cows’ hooves, resin, polyester mesh, waxed cord$+- x $$" x !/cmP:6E<53 C122345617, M<>:656>;

Emabutfo and NandikeshvaraInstallation view

72NANDIPHA MNTAMBO

Praça de Touros I!""+Archival pigment ink on cotton rag paper$$$ x $//cmEdition of . + !APPhotographer: Jac de VilliersJ14937 Z365A C122345617; P:6E<53 C122345617;

74NANDIPHA MNTAMBO

Praça de Touros II!""+Archival pigment ink on cotton rag paper$$$ x $//cmEdition of . + !APPhotographer: Jac de VilliersJ14937 Z365A C122345617; P:6E<53 C122345617;

Praça de Touros III!""+Archival pigment ink on cotton rag paper$$$ x $//cmEdition of . + !APPhotographer: Jac de VilliersG1:F17 S49<49<5 C122345617, J19<773;=>:?; J14937 Z365A C122345617; J19<773;=>:? A:5 G<223:@ C122345617; P:6E<53 C122345617;

76NANDIPHA MNTAMBO

Praça de Touros IV!""+Archival pigment ink on cotton rag paperTriptych, $$$ x ,,cm eachEdition of . + !APPhotographer: Jac de VilliersJ14937 Z365A C122345617; S5<7F<:F B<7B C122345617, J19<773;=>:?; P:6E<53 C122345617;

77

Ukungenisa!""#Single-channel video shot on HD, colour, soundDuration ! min $" secEdition of % + !APG!"#!$ S%&'%&'( C!))*%(+!$, J!&'$$*,-."/; H.+, M'",*+))* C!))*%(+!$, A0,(*"#'0; J*'$ P+/!11+ C!))*%(+!$; J!%&*$ Z*+(1 C!))*%(+!$; P"+2'(* C!))*%(+!$, M'."+(+.,

N3ombi Mfana!"",Cowhide coat, cows’ ears, faces and tails, resin, polyester meshHeight $/.cmP:6E<53 C122345617, C<C3 T1D7

Inkunzi Emnyama!""'Diptych, archival ink on cotton rag paper$$! x +.cm eachEdition of . + !APPhotographer: Tony MeintjesJ14937 Z365A C122345617

82NANDIPHA MNTAMBO

Phuma Langa Sikotse!"$"Cowhide, resin, polyester mesh, waxed cord $#+ x $.+ x $$/cmG1:F17 S49<49<5 C122345617, J19<773;=>:?

84NANDIPHA MNTAMBO

Unongayindoda!""'Cows’ tails, wood Approx $$" x !/" x $$"cmC122345617 18 593 A:56;5

Drawing :!""'Archival ink on cotton paper." x -"..cmP:6E<53 C122345617

86NANDIPHA MNTAMBO

Penis Vagina – One-Man Capsule!""'Cowhide, cows’ tails, resin, polyester mesh!-. x $+" x $+"cmC122345617 18 593 A:56;5

87

My Departure!""'Cowhide, resin, polyester mesh, waxed cord/. x $," x '"cm J14937 Z365A C122345617

88NANDIPHA MNTAMBO

Waiting!""'Cowhide, cow tails, resin, polyester mesh/" x $#" x $#"cmP:6E<53 C122345617, USA

89

Contact!"$"Cowhide, cows’ hooves, resin, polyester mesh$'" x $'. x ,"cmN<5617<2 M>;3>G 18 A8:64<7 A:5 C122345617, SG659;176<7 I7;565>5617, W<;967?517, DC

90NANDIPHA MNTAMBO

1e Spaces In-Between!"$"Cowhide, resin, polyester mesh$." x $/" x ."cmP:6E<53 C122345617, J19<773;=>:?

Meditations on Solitude!""'Cowhide, resin, polyester mesh, waxed cord$./ x $!" x /"cmG1:F17 S49<49<5 C122345617, J19<773;=>:?

92NANDIPHA MNTAMBO

Actos de fé que estão entre mãe e ;!"$$Cow hair, charcoal and ink on paper$!$ x $.$cmJ14937 Z365A C122345617

94NANDIPHA MNTAMBO

Vela Sikubhekile !"$$Cowhide, resin, polyester mesh, waxed cord, horn$-, x $./ x '.cmJ14937 Z365A C122345617

96NANDIPHA MNTAMBO

Entrar!"$$Cowhide, resin, polyester mesh, waxed cord $,".. x $!- x ,.cmJ14937 Z365A C122345617

Actos de fé que estão entre mãe e %!"$$Cow hair on paper." x /.cmJ14937 Z365A C122345617

98NANDIPHA MNTAMBO

Retrato de um lutador !"$$Cowhide, resin, polyester mesh, waxed cord $,/ x $#/ x +"cmJ14937 Z365A C122345617

100NANDIPHA MNTAMBO

Actos de fé que estão entre mãe e '!"$$Cow hair on paper/. x ."cmJ14937 Z365A C122345617

Guqa Embi Kwami !"$$Cowhide, resin, polyester mesh, waxed cord '" x $.. x ,"cmJ14937 Z365A C122345617

102NANDIPHA MNTAMBO

Actos de fé que estão entre mãe e 9!"$$Cow hair, charcoal and ink on paper$.$ x //cmJ14937 Z365A C122345617

104NANDIPHA MNTAMBO

Muleta!"$$Cowhide, resin, polyester mesh, waxed cord $-$ x /" x !.cmJ14937 Z365A C122345617

105

Actos de fé que estão entre mãe e <!"$$Cow hair, charcoal and ink on paper$#. x $.$cmJ14937 Z365A C122345617

106NANDIPHA MNTAMBO

Paso Doble!"$$Single-channel digital video, colour, soundDuration ' min $$ secEdition of . + !APJ14937 Z365A C122345617

108NANDIPHA MNTAMBO

NANDIPHA MNTAMBO

"orn '86% in Swaziland. =ives and works in Johannesburg, South Africa.

EDUCATION

Master of Fine Art (MFA), Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape TownBachelor of Arts in Fine Art (BAFA), Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

Umphatsi Wemphi, Brodie/Stevenson, Johannesburg1e Encounter, Michael Stevenson, Cape TownIngabisa, Michael Stevenson, Cape TownLocating Me in Order to See You (Master’s degree exhibition), Michaelis Gallery, Cape Town

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

ARS '', Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, HelsinkiMine – A Selection of Films by SA Artists, Iwalewa-Haus, University of Bayreuth, GermanyPeekaboo – Current South Africa, Tennis Palace Art Museum, Helsinki Ampersand, Daimler Contemporary, Berlin1e Beauty of Distance: Songs of Survival in a Precarious Age, $,th Biennale of Sydney, Australia

SPace: Currencies in Contemporary African Art, Museum Africa, Newtown, Johannesburg Dak’Art, 'th Dakar Biennale, Senegal Life Less Ordinary: Performance and Display in South African Art, Ffotogallery, Cardi0, Wales1e Good Old Days, Aarhus Art Building, DenmarkHautnah: Hair in Art and Culture, Kunstverein Leonberg, GermanyToros!, Galerie Sophie Scheidecker, ParisShe Devil, Studio Stefania Miscetti, RomeLes Rencontres de Bamako biennial of African photography, Bamako, Mali Life Less Ordinary: Performance and Display in South African Art, Djanogly Gallery, Nottingham, UKLa modernité dans l’art africain d’aujourd’hui, Panafrican Cultural Festival of Algiers, AlgeriaUndercover: Performing and Transforming Black Female Identities, Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, Atlanta, Georgia, USAWorks from the %&&6 Dak’art Biennale, ifa gallery, Berlin and StuttgartNumber Two: Fragile, Julia Stoschek Collection, DüsseldorfSelf/Not-self, Brodie/Stevenson, JohannesburgWhy Not?, Kuckei + Kuckei, BerlinBeauty and Pleasure in South African Contemporary Art, )e Stenersen Museum, OsloBlack Womanhood: Images, Icons, and Ideologies of the African Body, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire; Davis Museum, Wellesley, Massachusetts; San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego, USASummer %&&6/8: Projects, Michael Stevenson, Cape TownDisturbance: Contemporary Art from Scandinavia and South Africa, Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg

2007

2005

2009

2007

2011

2010

2008

2009

113 BIOGRAPHY

Dak’Art, +th Dakar Biennale, Senegal Disguise: 1e Art of Attracting and De4ecting Attention, Michael Stevenson, Cape TownSkin-to-Skin: Challenging Textile Art, Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg .za: Young Art from South Africa, Palazzo delle Papesse, Siena, Italy1e Trickster, ArtExtra, JohannesburgSummer 2007/8, Michael Stevenson, Cape TownApartheid: 1e South African Mirror, Centre de Cultura Contemporania de Barcelona, SpainA3erlife, Michael Stevenson, Cape TownOlvida Quien Soy - Erase Me from Who I Am, Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno, Las Palmas, Gran CanariaMTN New Contemporaries %&&:, Johannesburg Art Gallery, JohannesburgSecond to None, Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape TownIn the Making: Materials and Process, Michael Stevenson, Cape Town

AWARDS & RESIDENCIES

Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Visual ArtSPACES World Artists Program residency, Cleveland, OhioPUMA.Creative Mobility AwardWits/BHP Billiton FellowshipCuratorial Fellowship, Brett Kebble Art AwardsMellon Meyers Fellowship

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Metsola, Satu, Pirkko Slitari and Jari-Pekka Vanhala, eds. ARS '' (exhibition catalogue). Helsinki: Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art

Sassen, Robyn. ‘An artist on the up and up’. Sunday Times, $, April, 'Van der Walt, Carina. ‘Nandipha Mntambo: Cowgirl’. ZAM (January): ##-.$Buys, Anthea. ‘I dreamt I saw a large herd of cattle’. In Positions: Contemporary Artists in South Africa, edited by Peter Anders and Matthew Krouse, $"/-$$,. Johannesburg: Jacana MediaGanzenberg, Christian, ed. Ampersand (exhibition catalogue). Berlin: Daimler ContemporaryMay, Jackie. ‘)e horns of a dilemma’. 1e Times, !/ March, !Pusa, Erja et al. Peekaboo – Current South Africa (exhibition catalogue). Helsinki: Helsinki Art MuseumWatermeyer, Natalie. ‘In search of the Minotaur’. ClassicFeel (December/ January): ,,-,+Enwezor, Okwui, and Chika Okeke-Agulu. Contemporary African Art since '86&. Bologna: DamianiJulia Stoschek Collection, ed. Number Two: Fragile. Ost&ldern: Hatje Cantz VerlagMalcomess, Bettina. ‘Review: Nandipha Mntambo’. Art South Africa +, No $ (Spring): '"Sampson, Lin. ‘Bull-Breaker’. Sunday Times, $. February, +-'To3oli, Hilary Prendini. ‘Encounters with cowhide’. 1e Weekender, !-- May, $-Vundla, Mfundi. ‘A compendium of desires’. In Nandipha Mntambo: 1e Encounter (catalogue #$). Cape Town: Michael StevensonWendt, Selene et al. Beauty and Pleasure in South African Contemporary Art (exhibition catalogue). Oslo: )e Stenersen MuseumWilliamson, Sue. South African Art Now. New York: HarperCollins

2007

2006

2005

2011

2010

2005

2003-4

2011

2010

2009

114NANDIPHA MNTAMBO

Bosland, Joost. ‘Nandipha Mntambo’. In Disguise: 1e Art of Attracting and De4ecting Attention (catalogue -.). Cape Town: Michael StevensonBuys, Anthea. ‘An Artist’s Life: Nandipha Mntambo’. Business Day Art (September): $$McIntosh, Tavish. ‘Artbio: Nandipha Mntambo’. Artthrob $-- (September). http://www.artthrob.co.za/"+sept/artbio.htmlGruben, Paula. ‘Cowgirl’. Live Out Loud (October): /,-,"Mntambo, Nandipha. ‘Nandipha Mntambo in conversation with her mother, Sphiwe Mntambo’. In Summer %&&6/8: Projects (catalogue -'). Cape Town: Michael StevensonO’Toole, Sean. ‘)e Big Picture’. Sunday Times, $" August, $.4ompson, Barbara, ed. Black Womanhood: Images, Icons, and Ideologies of the African Body. Hanover, New Hampshire: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth CollegeMalcomess, Bettina. ‘)e fragile persistence of memory.’ In Nandipha Mntambo (catalogue !'). Cape Town: Michael StevensonMcIntosh, Tavish. ‘Nandipha Mntambo at Michael Stevenson Gallery’. Artthrob $!$ (September). http://www.artthrob.co.za/",sept/reviews/ms.htmlPerryer, Sophie. ‘Nandipha Mntambo’. In A3erlife (catalogue !/). Cape Town: Michael StevensonSubiros, Pep. ‘To Look and Not To Look, To See and Not To See’ In Apartheid: 1e South African Mirror, $"'. Barcelona: Centre de Cultura ContemporaniaZaayman, Carine. ‘Meschac Gaba and Nandipha Mntambo.’ Art South Africa /, No $ (Summer): +-

Dyangani Ose, Elvira et al. Olvida Quien Soy – Erase Me from Who I Am (exhibition catalogue). Las Palmas: Centro Atlántico de Arte ModernoNgcobo, Gabi. ‘What Do We See When We Look At Us?’ Art South Africa #, No - (Autumn): #'-.-Perryer, Sophie, ed. In the Making: Materials and Process (catalogue $/). Cape Town: Michael StevensonGurney, Kim. ‘Hirsute Divas’. Art South Africa -, No - (Autumn): .$

2008

2007

2006

2005

115 BIOGRAPHY

TOURING EXHIBITION

NANDIPHA MNTAMBO FAENA

!tandard "ank #oung $rtist $ward %&''

LIST OF WORKS

Vela Sikubhekile, !"$$, cowhide, resin, polyester mesh, waxed cord, horn, $-, x $./ x '.cm

Retrato de um lutador, !"$$, cowhide, resin, polyester mesh, waxed cord , $,/ x $#/ x +"cm

Entrar, !"$$, cowhide, resin, polyester mesh, waxed cord, $,".. x $!- x ,.cm

Guqa Embi Kwami, !"$$, cowhide, resin, polyester mesh, waxed cord, '" x $.. x ,"cm

Muleta, !"$$, cowhide, resin, polyester mesh, waxed cord, $-$ x /" x !.cm

Actos de fé que estão entre mãe e ', !"$$, cow hair on paper, /. x ."cm

Actos de fé que estão entre mãe e %, !"$$, cow hair on paper, ." x /.cm

Actos de fé que estão entre mãe e 9, !"$$, cow hair, charcoal and ink on paper, $.$ x //cm

Actos de fé que estão entre mãe e ;, !"$$, cow hair, charcoal and ink on paper, $!$ x $.$cm

Actos de fé que estão entre mãe e <, !"$$, cow hair, charcoal and ink on paper, $#. x $.$cm

Paso Doble, !"$$, single-channel digital video, colour, sound, duration ' min $$ sec

Inkunzi Emnyama, !""', diptych, archival ink on cotton rag paper, $$! x +.cm each

A22 D1:B; J14937 Z365A C122345617

EXHIBITION SCHEDULE

-" June – $" July !"$$ National Arts Festival, Grahamstown !, July – # September !"$$Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Art Museum, Port Elizabeth

!# September – , November !"$$Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town !- November !"$$ – $. January !"$!Durban Art Gallery, Durban $/ February – ' April !"$!Oliewenhuis Art Museum, Bloemfontein ! May – ' June !"$!Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg

, August – $# September !"$!University of Potchefstroom Art Gallery, Potchefstroom

p97

p107

p109

p82

p101

p99

p103

p105

p102

p98

p104

p95

117

STANDARD BANK YOUNG ARTIST AWARDS

!"$" Michael MacGarry!""' Nicholas Hlobo!""+ Nontsikelelo Veleko!"", Pieter Hugo!""/ Churchill Madikida!"". Wim Botha!""# Kathryn Smith!""- Berni Searle!""! Brett Murray!""$ Walter Oltmann!""" Alan Alborough$''+ Nhlanhla Xaba$'', Lien Botha$''/ Trevor Makhoba$''. Jane Alexander$''# Sam Nhlengethwa$''- Pippa Skotnes$''! Tommy Motswai$''$ Andries Botha$''" Bonnie Ntshalintshali & Fee Halsted-Berning$'+' Helen Sebidi$'++ Margaret Vorster$'+, William Kentridge$'+/ Gavin Younge$'+. Marion Arnold$'+# Peter Schütz$'+- Malcolm Payne$'+! Neil Rodger$'+$ Jules van der Vijver

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Published by Stevenson in association with Standard Bank and the National Arts Festival

© 2011 Texts: the authors© 2011 For works by Nandipha Mntambo: the artist

ISBN 978-0-620-50664-9

Editor Sophie PerryerDesign Gabrielle GuyImage repro Mario TodeschiniPrinting Hansa Print, Cape TownBinding GraphiCraft, Cape Town

Endpapers (hardcover only) Untitled, 2010, oil on photo on canvas, 4 works, 183 x 183cm eachPage 2 Detail of Actos de fe que estao entre mae e 5, 2011, cow hair, charcoal and ink on paper, 145 x 151cmPages 8, 10, 12, 13, 20, 21, 23, 24, 29 Untitled drawings, 2009, ink on cotton paper, various dimensionsPage 32 Detail of Actos de fe que estao entre mae e 4, 2011, cow hair, charcoal and ink on paper, 121 x 151cmPage 112 Detail of Actos de fe que estao entre mae e 3, 2011, cow hair, charcoal and ink on paper, 151 x 66cmPage 116 Vela Sikubhekile and Retrato de um lutador at the artist's studio in Johannesburg, May 2011Page 118 Entrar photographed in progress at the artist's studio in Johannesburg, May 2011

Photo creditsPages 2, 32, 95, 97-99, 101-105, 107, 112 John Hodgkiss | 34, 35, 36 Kerry-Mae Joshua | 37 Kathy Skead | 39, 49, 54- 57, 60, 61, 67, 69, 71-73, 89, 91, 116, 118 Mario Todeschini | 38, 40, 41, 43, 45, 52 Vanessa Cowling | 46, 47, 63-65, 82, 83, 85 Tony Meintjes | 53 Lutz Bertram, courtesy of Kuckei + Kuckei, Berlin | 58, endpapers Jerry Mann, courtesy of Spaces Gallery, Cleveland | 59 Lambro | 75-77 Jac de Villiers | 88, 92 Sebastian Kriete, courtesy of the 17th Biennale of Sydney | 93 Courtesy of Daimler Contemporary, Berlin

ARTIST'S ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Stevenson gallery sta0Standard Bank and the National Arts FestivalTony MeintjesDada Masilo, Lulu Mlangeni and Alex HlabanganeClare LovedayMpho MasilelaTamsyn ReynoldsRuth Simbao and David ElliottJohannes KgobeLebo and KOP MatsekeMfundi VundlaBettina MalcomessMy family

[email protected]

CAPE TOWNBuchanan Building160 Sir Lowry RoadWoodstock 7925

PO Box 616Green Point 8051

T +27 (0)21 462 1500F +27 (0)21 462 1501

JOHANNESBURG62 Juta StreetBraamfontein 2001

Postnet Suite 281Private Bag x9Melville 2109

T +27 (0)11 326 0034/41F +27 (0)86 275 1918

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