Review: An Exhibition With Reason
Cape Town is gloomy and cold. And so is the creative arts scene really. The weather is seasonal; I’m not sure about the scene though. Good and pure critique graphic exhibition of social standards and status quo through and historic and anthropologic manner is definitely something that is far and in between in contemporary exhibitions. Add lyrical hip hop sound that has fundamentally set the tone and bar for SA Hip-Hop and remained timeless in the last decade, you have a well-cooked winter bowl of avant-garde soup. Maybe that’s what needed to deal with all cold fronts this season.
Greatmore Studios recently hosted Buntu Fihla and Amani Abeid through a three month residency programme that saw them produce Izizathu and Side B, an exhibition by these two artists. Fihlas’ Life Forces contemporaries from the hip hop crew Izithunywa Zohlanga were an added bonus to the exhibition, as they displayed their vernacular hip hop sound, known as Umculo Buciko. Their lyrical readings from their unprecedented album IIngqondi Zenckubeko ( 2006) are something that I still regard as guideline kit for lyrical essayist in the trade. Not for measure, but direction. Their connection with Fihla and the Life Forces crew is somewhat a novelty in SA music culture really, not just hip Hop. Hard beats, real rhymes, sick graphics and sound philosophy.
I missed the whole exhibition from day one. My non-diarised schedule is impeccable. But maybe that’s the beauty of it. I have been in conversation with Fihla from conception phase of this particular project. I had the privilege to read his transcripts of the work. It’s fascinating insight on the old Republic and its Bantustans. I also had time to interact with the hip-hop duo prior to opening night. They are calmer, but more alert than they were when I first met them. I made good by making my way to the gallery the day after closing night. It was interesting to engage with people who had seen the exhibition prior to this. “He is old school, that old school discipline is rare in the arts. I really respect that”, a fellow Greatmore patron testified.
What is extremely attractive about this exhibition is the socio political innuendo at play from primarily both Fihla and Abeid. That and the precisely articulate painting and sketching skills of the artists. The colours Fihla uses are inviting and warm. The texture of Abeids’ paintings makes the imagery somewhat alive. Izizathu stems from J.J.R Jolobes’ Ukwenziwa Komkhonzi poem. Fihla uses the poems’ metaphors to bring to life 'isizathu esihle singafihla ububi', loosely translated means good intentions can hide bad intentions. The old apartheid Bantustans were definitely disastrous. But at the bottom of their foundation was a staunch sense of Bantu excellence within national independence, if there was ever such. In this particular case this came in the form of the Ciskei Special Airborne Group[1].
‘Is it okay to celebrate the availability of jobs if it came with bad intentions? Is this the reason why some black people from that generation regularly call-out in nostalgia to past agents of the apartheid regime like Sebe, as charismatic leaders who at the least provided? ‘- Fihla
One of Fihlas’ works that critiques the Airborne Group is derived from ancient Egyptian sarcophagus’ Horus falcon wings engravings, the rank badge’. It symbolises the might of the Ciskei Special Airborne Group. The irony here is that Horus represents the rising sun yet Bantustanism was a modern ‘dark ages’ of sorts for South Africa.
Similarly, Abeid uses coffee as a painting tool. The irony here is that he uses a crop harvested under subjugation by former colonial slaves,that has now become a device to highlight the current human condition. Verily Izithunywa Zohlanga use their gracefully constructed lyrical essays filled with the call and answer rhetoric which is embedded in the Xhosa language, to highlight and suggest solutions to the deteriorating human condition in the shanty towns and metropolis’ of Africa.
Cape Town might be cold, but this exhibition has issued out warnings of hot and exciting conditions in the visual art scene. It’s time for all idiosyncrasies to be engaged with the appropriate cultural expression. Lest we not forget, the Side B.
Sibusiso Mnyanda
27 June 2016 ,
Cape Town, Muizenburg
[1]Ciskei Special Airborne Group: Apartheid RSA poised initiatives such as “jobs” in bolstering state security at a time when the homelands were in the fore of the liberation’s armed movement, young men everywhere who needed to make a living had few better options. They joined an almost suicidal mission.Their particular rank badge was one of the “Parachute Qualification Wings” from the Ciskei propaganda book that explains the inclusion of the group. The tremendous task of laborious army conditioning that includes parachute and free-fall training, pitted against most other employment options at the time seemed worth it for many young inexperienced men, even if it sometimes meant being ostracised or receive death threats from the black community.
