14th Feb, 2020 20:00
Aspire X PIASA | Modern & Contemporary African Art
112
Bronwyn Katz (South Africa 1993-)
Grond Herinnering
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(1)
Notes:
In a yellow smock, perched on a metal basin filled with earth, Katz paints her calves and feet with red earth, with such concentration and abandon you’d be forgiven for revelling in the pleasurable potential of the activities at hand; the glee as she spins with Dervish precision hands clasped to chest, the mastery and focus as she skittishly darts and builds up the bricks in gestures that mimic the game of ushumpu, and finally the schizophrenic affect as the same gestures are wound backward.Ushumpu is a traditional game for children that involves complaex psychomotor and cognitive and social skills. It is central to the action as the artist narrates in Afrikaans, her native tongue, over the three scenes enacting moments from childhood play. She reads a letter from her grandmother, from the narration we are led to believe the artist receives this letter after she has left home and is homesick in Cape Town… later on the narration shifts and we hear the artist remembering the conversations, childish musing really, between herself and her grandmother, to which the grandmother provides encoded and emotively cryptic responses. These are words that may not have been easily understood as a child but finally lay out their true meaning in this future moment of emotional and intellectual unpacking. Katz voice weaves and holds together her present time, with that of her grandmother and her ouma-grootjie.While on the surface the work is playful and childlike, it is on a deeper level precise and deliberate in its enactment of the symbolic power of play and indigenous games as a decolonised approach to early education. Katz received a merit award for this work at the Sasol New Signatures 2015.
Nkule Mabaso
Sources:
Nxumalo, S. A.,Mncube D. W. 2019. Using indigenous games and knowledge to decolonise the school curriculum: Ubuntu perspectives. In Perspectives in Education. Durban: University of Kwa-Zulu Natal. pp. 103-118. Available: DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.18820/2519593X/pie
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Auction: Aspire X PIASA | Modern & Contemporary African Art, 14th Feb, 2020
Aspire Art Auctions partnered with Paris-based house Piasa, to introduce an Africa-focused auction presenting some of the best examples of modern and contemporary art produced on this continent. This was the first time an African and European auction house partnered to present a sale of African art, in Africa, for a global audience.
The sale included 139 artists representing 27 countries from Africa and the diaspora and spotlighted key collecting segments from 20th century modernism to contemporary production and photography. The lead-lot, Marlene Dumas’ Oktober 1973 achieved a stellar R7,055,600 well above its high estimate of R3-5 million. Also on offer were some of the most in-demand African artists including Chéri Samba, Aboudia Abdoulaye Diarrassouba, Gareth Nyandoro, Mustafa Maluka and William Kentridge.
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