LERATO LODI

MORAPEDI, ONE WHO PRAYS NWU Main Gallery Curated by Amohelang Mohajane Online exhibition opening 10 April

Above: Lerato Lodi by Taola ya Badimo I & II. Opposite page Top left: Lerato Lodi, The Gathering II, 2021. Top Right: Lesela La Badimo, 2021. Opposite page bottom right: Lerato Lodi by A conversation between Thalita and Wihlemina (church service notes). Photos Zoë Rose Exposure

North-West University Gallery and Studio Nxumalo Contemporary are proud to present “Morapedi, One Who Prays”, a solo exhibition by Lerato Lodi, curated by Amohelang Mohajane. In her first solo exhibition, Lodi takes us along the start of a journey that investigates her curiosity of the intricacies of dual spiritual practices prevalent in “Sebaka sa Badimo” (a shrine or a sacred ritual site that is fundamental in traditional African spiritual practice), and the church as a space of worship an important setting for Christianity.

A spiritual companion to Lodi, Morapedi shows up and communicates in various forms but most notably as a memory of her late grandmother who was a community leader, an entrepreneur and a committed Methodist church member who embraced badimo le ho pahla. Morapedi converses with Lodi through song and the use of “Sesebediswa sa Badimo” (diphita, lesela, snuff / sacred materials) and other things that function as guides in the personal and spiritual journey that brings together this exhibition.

Lodi’s body of work functions as a quest of coming to terms with her own spiritual journey, one that is complicated by her generation’s criticism of the political history of Christianity in black people’s lives and the stigma that remains attached to African spiritual practices. Lodi witnessed her grandmother’s unshaken acceptance and the embodiment of both these spiritual formations, and through this body of work, she seeks to strengthen her connection and elevate the voice of One Who Prays, embodying Morapedi’s ways of praying and her ways of being.

PRINCE ALBERT OPEN STUDIOS

Alchemy and Art in the Heart of the Karoo

By Samantha Reinders www.princealbertopenstudios.co.za

Above: Music and Painting by Heleen de Haas (Photo, Samantha Reinders). Opposite page, top right: Erika van Zyl, plein air painting. Centre left: Artist Sue Hoppe in her studio. Centre right: Artist Deidre Maree (Photo, Samantha Reinders). Bottom left: Artist John O’Sullivan in his studio. Bottom right: By photographer Selwyn Maans

In the small Karoo town of Prince Albert the water snakes its way down the Swartberg Mountains and into the village’s ‘leiwater’ system, twisting and turning into an artery of spidery furrows through town, providing water and life. It’s as though someone or something has sprinkled some magic dust into that trickling water though… because it seems to produce an overflowing of creativity and ingenuity in the teeny little town.

More than 30 artists ply their trades in Prince Albert and the mix of mediums they work in is astonishing. Think ancient crafts like blacksmithing, knife making, woodcutting and calligraphy all the way to steam-punk lamps made from old Land Rover parts and funky kaleidoscopes that will most definitely put a different spin on the Karoo desert. There’s everything in-between of course too: paintings in oils, watercolours and acrylics, both traditional and contemporary, to sculpture and jewellery made from found objects (bones, bullets and bits and bobs), land art, ceramics, collage and photography. Art can, at times, be a bit of an exclusive sport. That’s not the case in Prince Albert though. The town’s gallery has an immense collection of work from almost all of the artists in town and its doors are always open. Owner Brent Phillips-White is there to talk you through who’s who. Most importantly, during Prince Albert Open Studios, the entire art community opens their studio doors to the public to showcase not only their work, but their process behind it. Prince Albert Open Studios is a four-day experience (the word “event” just doesn’t cut it…) that makes for a wonderful long weekend in the Karoo. Grab a map at the gallery and follow the blue boards and bunting fluttering in the breeze to studios big and small.

At Home, (soft pastel on Canson paper) by Anna Stone

Work Space, by Mary Anne Botha

Artist-Blacksmith, Kashief Booley of Striking Metal

The next Open Studios takes place from 1720 June 2021 and promises more alchemy and art in the foothills of the Swartberg. Studios are open daily from 10am to 5pm. Stroll, cruise or bike though town and get your creative fix at 29 stops.

You can try your hand too! Several of the artists have workshops in the two days (15 and 16 June) leading up to the Open Studio’s experience. Come early to learn from the pro’s and in June this year you can do courses on portrait photography (with Samantha Reinders), pottery (with ceramicist Sue Savage), etching (with Diane Johnson-Ackerman) and a workshop on mixed media, highlighting the encaustic technique (with Sue Hoppe). Also definitely don’t miss Heleen de Haas’s “The Dancing Brush”: Painting and Writing to Music on her farm, Aswater, just outside of town. She’ll change the way you think about the art of text. The artists and galleries that are opening their doors in June are Anna Marie Stone, Cobus van Bosch, Collette Hurt, Deidre Maree, Diane Johnson-Ackerman, Di Smith, Di van der Riet Steyn, Erika van Zyl, Heleen de Haas, John O’Sullivan, Karoo Looms Weavery, Kashief Booley/Striking Metal, Kevin de Klerk, Louis Botha, Mariana Botha, Mary Anne Botha, Pat Hyland, Prince Albert Community Trust (exhibiting: Elcado Blom, Selwyn Maans, Nathan Maans, and Jeffrey Armoed), Prince Albert Gallery, Rebecca Haysom, Renée Calitz, Samantha Reinders, Sonja Fourie, Sue Hoppe, Sue Savage, The Barn Artist Residency, Turid Bergstedt, and Watershed Gallery.

The next Prince Albert Open Studios: 17–20 June 2021, 10am-5pm daily Website: princealbertopenstudios.co.za Email: info@princealbertopenstudios.co.za

HERMANUS FYNARTS 2021

hermanusfynarts.co.za

Alyson Guy, Street in Paris, oil on tracing paper. Opposite Page: Alyson Guy, City Street

During this extended period of limited travel, FynArts brings the arts of the world home to you from 10 - 20 June 2021. Engage with the arts and culture of Russia (10/11), Japan (12/13), India (14/15) and, of course, South Africa (16 - 20) through a full programme that includes, apart from the two FynArts stalwarts, the Strauss&Co Series of talks and presentations and Bouchard Finlayson art award and exhibition, performances, workshops,demonstrations, book readings, films, food and drink and armchair travel.

Once again, the popular large, group ceramic exhibition will take place at the Windsor Hotel. This year the title is A Touch of Gold. Most art galleries in the town will present a special exhibition. A further announcement will be made about the exhibition to be held in the FynArts Gallery. Talks and presentations in the Strauss&Co Series include presentations on the art and culture of Russian, Japan, India – and South Africa. Topics will be as varied as the art in the undergrounds of Moscow and Faberge, to Japanese gardens and Indian temples.

This year, for the first time, FynArts will cross ‘live’ from the relevant venue to another country. Such a crossing will be to the UK. Niki Daly, prominent South African artist and author of children’s book, will chair two sessions and interview two well-known expat artists. In the first Niki will be in conversation with Paul Emsley, known for his portraits of the famous, including Nelson Mandela and the controversial painting of the Duchess of Cambridge. In the second Niki will talk with Theatre Designer, Norman Coates, about a unique collection of paintings and how he ‘parachuted into the thick of it.’

Arts-related workshops include sketching as well as painting with both oils and watercolour. Eco-printing workshops and the process of printing and dyeing fabrics and paper with the natural dye pigment found in leaves and flowers, will be offered as two full day events. On the one day participants will have the opportunity of printing a unique scarf of imported silk. On the second day, participants of all ages will create a magical forest-floor prints on watercolour paper using fresh leaves and flowers.

A number of ceramic workshops for adults are on the programme including two half-day workshops for children who will explore the versatility of clay in expressing textures and movement. This will be achieved through carving, stamps and texture moulds. The clay will be air-dried allowing the children to take home their creations and paint with acrylics once dry. In the first workshop will build a Fairy Wonderland by hand – leaf benches, tables, toadstools and fairy houses

Gerda Mohr, Plant printing and Dyeing on Imported Silk

that capture the wonder of their imagination. In the second workshop, children will make three pinch bowls with the character of animals such as rabbits, foxes and cats.

Art for the Soul, is a workshop with a difference - a sensory experience to inspire the art process. Creative Guiding centres on the creative process of making art rather than the finished product. The workshop will be presented by a Creative Guide and Well-Being Coach who will gently guide artmaking in a supportive environment.

The full programme of events will be regularly updated at hermanusfynarts. co.za. At the same time that events are uploaded, these tickets will be available on Webtickets and the FynArts website, as well as at Hermanus Tourism, at the FynArts Gallery, on admin@hermanusfynarts co.za or telephonically on 060 957 5371.

To keep updated about the 2021 multidisciplinary multi-national FynArts festival, sign up for the newsletter on www. hermanusfynarts.co.za.

All venues will adhere strictly to all Covid19 protocols therefore tickets will be very limited for all events. Waiting lists will be kept for all events that are fully booked, in case larger gatherings will be allowed.

Auction News STEPHAN WELZ & CO.

www.swelco.co.za

It is safe to say that since the start of Covid19 and the social changes that followed, the auction world has been turned on its head. While initially hesitant, Stephan Welz & Co. adapted to the changes in recent months and have seen some surprisingly positive outcomes. The art market seems to be even more fast-paced and fast-changing than usual, which has been an exciting challenge for our specialists in terms of predicting market interests and sales.

Stephan Welz & Co. have been particularly pleased to see a significant increase in international interest on our auctions, with buyers from across the world finding pieces of interest. The move towards a more digitally focused auction approach has made it easier for us to connect to an international clientele, allowing us to widen buying pools and offer a variety of continental and oriental works to collectors who may not be in South Africa. This represents a successful shift towards providing an increase in online bidding solutions from Stephan Welz & Co., with platforms covering markets in the United Kingdom, Asia and the United States. This also indicates a willingness from our collectors who may have previously been hesitant to make investment purchases via online platforms, to participate in the online buying process.

The sharp increase in international buyers is an encouraging indication that South African art and that of the larger African diaspora is starting to feature more prominently in international collector portfolios, and in turn we are seeing a more enthusiastic participation from international buyers on our auctions. While international buyers are increasingly exposed to art of African origin, we are seeing an equal increased interest in continental pieces within the South African market. The continental works featured on

Andy Warhol (American 1928 – 1987), Vesuvius screenprint on Arches; signed and numbered 126/250, Est: R400 000 – R600 000, Sold: R754 650

In the Style of Benjamin Marschall, Horse And Groom, Oil on canvas, Est: R6 000 – R9 000 Sold: R139 320

our recent sales have fared exceptionally well, with Horse and Groom selling for R139 300 on the Cape Town October 2020 auction and Portrait of a Man selling for R762 125 on the most recent Johannesburg sale. Our art specialists have also been fortunate enough to handle works by art world heavyweights such as A.R. Penck, Andy Warhol, Banksy and David Hockney. This has given our collector base the convenient and easy opportunity to invest in pieces on an international scale.

Our Johannesburg and Cape Town specialists are looking forward to handling more international and local investment pieces and look forward to presenting them to our loyal collectors and clients. If you would like an auction valuation on your pieces, advice on the art of collecting, or would simply like some more information about your works, our specialists are happy to share their expertise and assist. You can email our specialists at info@swelco.co.za, submit a consignment request through www.swelco.co.za or visit us at one of our upcoming valuation days. For up-to-date information regarding our upcoming sale dates and valuation days, follow our social media pages.

Auction News STRAUSS & CO: MATRIARCHS OF POWER

Strauss & Co’s May sale features outstanding portrayals of women

www.straussart.co.za

The autumn sale commences on Sunday 16 May with a session devoted to a single-owner collection of fine wines from Bordeaux, Burgundy, Alsace and Champagne. A dedicated contemporary art session on Monday 17 May features impressive lots by acclaimed living artists such as Deborah Bell, Helen Sebidi, Michael MacGarry, Athi-Patra Ruga and Penny Siopis. The sale concludes on Tuesday 18 May with a session containing works by leading South African and international artists, among them Bernard Buffet, Peter Clarke, Adolph Jentsch, Sydney Kumalo, Dylan Lewis and Anton van Wouw.

Strauss & Co executive director Susie Goodman says: “We have put together a solid catalogue of terrific works by important modern, post-war and contemporary artists. The sale includes outstanding oils by J.H. Pierneef, Alexis Preller and Penny Siopis, as well as significant bronzes by Lynn Chadwick, Sydney Kumalo and Edoardo Villa. During this period of restricted travel, especially across international borders, we have given careful attention to the format and presentation of this sale in order to best serve our global client base. The sale will feature an enhanced digital capacity that will enable remote buyers to dynamically engage with our superb offering.”

Alexis Preller’s two oils depicting traditional Mapogga (Ndebele) women both date from 1951. Starting in 1950 Preller fixated on depicting Mapogga women in a stylized manner. Grand Mapogga II (estimate R4.8 – 5 million) is typical of his symbolic and poetic transformations of Mapogga matriarchs into totemic presences. Mapogga Terrace (estimate R3.8 – 5 million) forms part of a small group of Ndebele village scenes executed in the early 1950s and presents its three subjects, all women, as scribes and custodians of traditional knowledge and values.

The catalogue for this sale includes fives pictures by Irma Sterm. Three African Women (estimate R4 – 5 million) is a tightly framed study of a trio of amaMfengu (or Fingo) women that the artist likely encountered during her little documented 1941 trip to the Eastern Cape, then known as Pondoland. Still Life with Lilies (estimate R6 – 8 million) dates from 1948, the golden age for works in this genre, and features a favourite flower displayed in a late-19th century Chinese storage jar thought to have been acquired in Zanzibar. The Yellow Hat (estimate R5 – 6 million) is a colour-drenched portrayal of a young man wearing a sou’wester rain hat. Stern frequently shuttled between South Africa and Europe by boat and developed a lifelong interest in depicting the traditions and labours of seafaring cultures.

The human figure is also a key subject of the sculpture lots. Sydney Kumalo’s magnificent bronze sculpture Saint Francis (estimate R1.2 – 1.8 million) is one of the artist’s most prized works. The sculpture portrays the Christian saint who renounced a life of wealth and privilege to devote himself to serving the poor and vulnerable. The brilliance of Kumalo’s bronze rendering is the outcome of his conflation of Christian and African symbolism.

Other notable figurative bronzes in the sale include Dumile Feni’s Anguished Woman (estimate R200 000 – 300 000), four castings of which were produced late in 1967 or early 1968. Two examples of this work are in the collections of the University of Fort Hare and Norval Foundation. Nandipha Mntambo’s maquette for her well-known

Alexis Preller, Mapogga Terrace, oil on wood panel 51 by 60,5cm, R 3 800 000 - 5 000 000

William Kentridge, Untitled, Drawing from Il Ritorno d’Ulisse, charcoal and white pastel on paper sheet size: 120 by 260cm, R 5 000 000 - 6 000 000

bronze Minotaurus (estimate R160 000 – 180 000) is one of two such preliminary studies, the other being English sculptor Lynn Chadwick’s Walking Couple (estimate R650 000 – 800 000).

William Kentridge, a son of Johannesburg, has a large collector base in his hometown. This sale includes 14 lots by this celebrated resident of Houghton. Depicting the ruins of the Baths of Caracalla in Rome, Untitled Drawing for Il Ritorno d’Ulisse (estimate R5 – 6 million) was one of roughly 40 drawings that Kentridge made for the very first opera he directed, Il Ritorno d’Ulisse, commissioned by the organisers of the Kunsten Festival des Arts in Brussels in 1998. Refugees (You Will Find No Other Seas) (estimate R600 000 – 800 000) is an aquatint etching depicting a rowing boat overloaded with figures. Made from 36 brass plates, this ambitious Kentridge print is a translation of an earlier ink wash drawing. Untitled Drawing for Mango Groove Music Video (Crowd and Megaphone) (estimate R800 000 – 1.2 million) depicts a key scene in the Kentridge-directed music video for Mango Groove’s 1993 song Another Country, with a banner-carrying crowd assembled around a tower topped with a megaphone.

Strauss & Co has a distinguished reputation for handling important single-owner collections. The 17 lots from the Late Toy Mostert Collection reflect this popular sports journalist and empowerment entrepreneur’s avid and eclectic taste for works by twentieth-century South African artists. Key artists in the Mostert Collection include Adriaan Boshoff, Robert Gwelo Goodman, Maggie Laubser, John Koenakeefe Mohl, JH Pierneef and Pieter Wenning. Mostert’s Pierneef is a striking dusk scene titled Kimberley Sunset (estimate R800 000 – 1.2 million). In 1975, Mostert, together with footballer Jomo Sono and another partner, opened the first KFC outlet in Soweto; they built the business up and six years later they had 46 branches.

The highlight of the six Pierneef lots is undoubtedly his Study for Klipriviersberg, Alberton (estimate R1.8 – 2.4 million), an oil on board linked to the artist’s landmark commission to paint 28 decorative and grand landscape panels for the newly-built Johannesburg Railway Station. The present lot, which shows an old, stone and redroofed Transvaal house, is a very rare oil study related to this commission.

“Painted quickly, with confidence and swagger, the surface has a gorgeous and swirling arrangement of olive and lime green, across which cut streaks of pink, brown and terracotta,” says Dr. Alastair Meredith, a senior art specialist at Strauss & Co and head of the art department. “The painting is the precursor of the famous Klipriviersberg, Alberton panel shown in Johannesburg Station after 1932. This is a rare opportunity for collectors to acquire a marvellous picture directly related to Pierneef’s best-known work.”

The majesty and complexity of the South African landscape continues to occupy contemporary artists. The final session of the sale spotlights two preeminent landscape painters: John Meyer and Keith Alexander. John Meyer’s impressive body of work, built up over half a century and on-going, has made him the doyen of the realist movement in southern Africa. Strauss & Co is pleased to offer four lots by this artist, including The Golden Gate from 1988 (estimate R700 000 – 900 000). Over a relatively short career of 25 years, Keith Alexander created an equally impressive oeuvre of immediately recognisable and psychologically powerful photorealist paintings. Produced over seven years, Epitaph from 1996 (estimate R800 000 – 900 000) depicts a gemsbok astride an empty plinth in a ruined classical landscape.

Strauss & Co’s second marquee virtual live sale of 2021 will commence on Sunday 16 May and conclude on Tuesday 18 May. The sale will be livestreamed from Johannesburg to bidders across the world, with the option of in-person bidding at Strauss & Co’s offices in Houghton. Covid-19 safety protocols apply throughout.

(Detail) Irma Stern, Three African Women, oil on canvas 58 by 58cm, R 4 000 000 - 5 000 000

Jacob Hendrik Pierneef, Study for Klipriviersberg, Alberton, oil on board 52 by 64cm, R 1 800 000 - 2 400 000 Penny Siopis, Birthday Cake, oil on canvas, 121 by 152,5cm, R 550 000 - 650 000

THE MUNDANE AND THE MAGICAL

New Johannesburg Public Sculpture By Artist Usha Seejarim

Metal ironing bases, steel square tubing, semi-transparent paint.

Three scholars affiliated with Brandeis University (Waltham, Massachusetts, USA) reflect on the significance of this striking work. Review Commentaries by Pam Allara, Ellen Schattschneider, and Mark Auslander

A newly installed sculptural work by Usha Seejarim, “The Mundane the Magical” (2021) stands at the southern entrance of the brand new Radisson RED Hotel in Rosebank, Johannesburg, opening out into the Oxford Banks neighborhood. Two large angelic wings are composed of hundreds of flat iron bases, painted in various shades of semi-transparent red paint, preserving the markings on each individual iron. An open space between the wings allows visitors to pose on the base block for photographs.

Pam Allara: Contextualizing the Work

Usha Seejarim was born in 1974 in Bethal, South Africa. Seejarim received a B-Tech Degree in Fine Art from the University of Johannesburg in 1999 and a Master’s Degree in Fine Art at the University of The Witwatersrand (WITS) in 2008, She lives and works in Johannesburg, South Africa. She has exhibited widely, and has completed numerous public commissions including a light installation for the Embassy of Switzerland in Pretoria in 2015, the public portrait for Nelson Mandela’s funeral in Qunu, South Africa in 2013; Figures Representing Articles From The Freedom Charter in 2008 in, Soweto, South Africa; and artwork for the facade of the South African Chancery in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (2008) amongst others.

In her art, Seejarim employs mundane objects that are commonly used in domestic labor: including brooms, irons, hand soap, and wooden clothes pegs. The strong tactility of her sculptures subtly underscores the fact that the objects are primarily used by women in the course of physical labor. The repetitive actions involved in creating the works also allude to women’s endless battles in ‘keeping the dirt of life at a distance.’ Because her art is not overtly polemical or political, it might be called ‘post-feminist,’ but nonetheless it makes explicit that feminism has not achieved its goal of releasing women from the sole responsibility for the drudgery of housework.

The recently-opened Radisson RED Hotel in the Rosebank section of Johannesburg, home to high-end boutiques and the corporate offices of Oxford Parks, is in the familiar International Style of architecture adopted by corporations globally in the twentieth century. Seejarim has stated that Radisson was exceptionally supportive and cooperative in her plans for executing this commission. However, the hotel itself is impersonal and unwelcoming, and as such can be considered ‘mascullinist’ in design, one that emphasizes power and control. Certainly nothing in its design indicates that the hotel may wish to suggest potential visitors that it is a ‘home away from home.’ Seejarim’s ‘The Mundane and the Magical’ counters this masculinist rigidity with a pair of soaring red wings that invite the visitor to mount the staircase and to stand in front or between them, imagining being able to take flight.

Like Seejarim’s previous work, it is constructed from domestic objects, in this instance, the bases of steam irons, a frequent motif in her art. If the motif is familiar, the use of color is not, as most often she retains the colors of the mundane objects she transforms: for example, broom handles and brushes. In this instance, she has acknowledged her patron with the brilliant red she has applied to the bases. At the same time, she is insisting that women and women’s labor be foregrounded. The domestic labor of ironing has often been depicted in modernist painting, from Degas to Picasso, and in every case the person executing this chore is a woman. (I know of no paintings of men ironing in the western art historical canon). The Mundane and the Magical’s irons are a reminder that hotel’s sheets were probably made clean and smooth by numerous, anonymous women. It is these women she honors by signaling the importance of the collective to

Newly installed sculptural work by Usha Seejarim, The Mundane the Magical, (2021) 6.3 meters. Commissioned for the Raddison RED Hotel, Rosebank, Johannesburg, South Africa. Photo. Clare Appleyard

transgress oppression and servitude and take wing. Seejarim has always insisted that the mundane can contain the magical through the power of imagination, especially the collective imagination.

Ellen Schattschneider: The Spirit of Sacrifice and the “Angel of the House”

Seejarim writes that she is in particular inspired by Virginia Woolf’s famous 1931 speech to The Women’s Service League, often known as “Professions for Women,” which contemplates the internalized impediments faced by women in their struggle to write with integrity, honesty, and rigor. Growing up in a late Victorian household, Woolf notes, she was always accompanied by the invisible “Angel of the House,” the subordinated feminine essence immortalized in the poem “The Angel in the House,” (1854) by Coventry Patmore. The ideal woman demonstrates infinite forbearance even when her husband unfairly attacks her: “And if he once, by shame oppress’d/A comfortable word confers/ She leans and weeps against his breast/and seems to think the sin was hers.”

Woolf recalls that the Angel of the House counseled her, as she started to write reviews of books written by men, to praise and flatter the male authors, paralyzing her ability to wrote in a critical voice. “The shadow of her wings fell on my page…she slipped behind me and whispered…’Never let anybody guess that you have a mind of your own.’” Woolf’s only liberation, she recalls, lay in murdering this passive and pure Angel: “Had I not killed her she would have killed me. She would have plucked the heart out of my writing.”

The passage calls to mind Rene Girard’s argument in Violence and the Sacred, an analysis of blood sacrifice in diverse human societies. Classically, Girard proposes, the sacrificial offering was a ritual double of the sacrificer, containing feared aspects of the person and their community which were consecrated to the Divine and then expelled from the self, so that the sacrificing person and polity could be reborn anew. Similarly, Woolf’s Angel is her “sacrificial double,” who has to be ceremonially killed and cast out in the interest of creative rebirth.

Seejarim dispatches the old, oppressive Angel of the House, the confining spirit of domestic space, only to allow her to live again in a breathtaking apotheosis. The hot irons, over which innumerable women have bent in drudgery, become light as feathers. Rather than casting shadows upon the page of the female artist, these new Angel wings are proudly situated outdoors, towering at least twice the height of those who stand before them. The angel’s body may be invisible, but she does not “whisper”: her enormous wings are poised to beat in full splendor, as she prepares to mount heavenwards.

As Pam notes, the intense redness of Seejarim’s two enormous wings honors the Radisson RED hotel chain, but these red painted structures also, to my mind, recall pillars of flame, billowing upwards. In this respect I am reminded of Hestia, the ancient Greek goddess of the hearth fire, to whom the first sacrifice was always directed in ancient Greek religious ceremonies. In these towering metal wings, the heated irons and domestic fires tended by women since time immemorial are transformed into sacrificial pyres dedicated to the ancient goddess, a reborn Angel of the House through whom the mundane, once more, becomes magical.

Mark Auslander: Goddesses, Superheroes, and Commodity Fetishism

As she joins with Virginia Woolf in subverting Coventry Patmore’s “Angel in the House,” and as she honors the spirit of classical divinities, Seejarim’s sculpture is resonant with diverse avian-human hybrid figures in global mythology, often female-coded. The ancient Egyptian sister goddesses Isis and Nephthys, who oversaw funeral rites and helped move once-living souls into the Afterlife, were depicted with the outstretched wings of falcons or keening kites. (Isis, significantly, restores the dead Osiris to life by fanning him with her open wings.) In a comparable vein, the ancient Greek winged goddess Nike, daughter of Pallas and Styx, was often depicted in vase paintings, at times as a charioteer for Zeus. Inspired by Nike, many classical Roman works of art were dedicated to the winged goddess Victoria. These winged “victories,” often represented in coins, relief, and statuary form, evoked the upward triumph of the spirit of victory. The most famous of these is the Winged Victory of Samothrace, on display in the Louvre since 1883 on the landing of the grand staircase, L’Escalier Daru, also known as ‘L’Escalier de la Victoire de Samothrace’

The classical motif of the winged victory was adapted in the Early Church, and by the 4th or 5th century Christian angels were depicted with feathered wings sprouting from their shoulders or backs, a device further echoed in classical Muslim iconography. By the early Renaissance, Jan van Eyck and Fra Angelico’s angels were depicted with wings of multiple colors. Angels

continue to be depicted with large wings, folded or unfolded, to the present day. Wings are thus intimately associated with themes of renewed life and hope, consistent with John Milton’s couplet in Paradise Lost, “O welcome pure-eyed Faith, white handed Hope/Thou hovering angel girt with golden wings.”

The artist may equally have been inspired by the sacred figure of Garuda in Hindu mythology, honored in innumerable works of South Asian art and literature. This winged divinity, Lord of the Birds, serves as the vehicle mount (vahana) of Vishnu, transporting the god through the heavens, and is a powerful symbol of the regeneration of life.

The Mundane and the Magical may also evoke the great artificial wings described in Ovid’s Metamorphosis. These were created out of feathers and wax by the inventor Daedalus to escape, with his son Icarus, from their earthly prison on Crete. Forgetting his father’s instructions, Icarus flew on his artificial wings so close to the sun that the wax melted, and he plunged into the sea. This act has ever since represented the essence of hubris, the human longing to rise above destiny and earthly bonds.

A more proximate inspiration might be the mechanical red wings of the superhero “The Falcon,” the first African American superhero in the Marvel Comics pantheon, introduced in a comic book in September 1969. These retractable wings, created with Afro-futurist technology from Wakanda, allow the hero to perform complex aerial maneuvers in combat. As signaled at the conclusion of the global megahit Avengers: Endgame (2019) the Falcon will assume the mantle of the leader of the Avengers, the global force of superheroes.

Whatever the wings’ precise referents, the empty space between them, in front of the hotel’s south entrance, invites passersby to pose for selfies, casting themselves as a Winged Victory or a superhero in an unfolding global drama. Like visitors to the Samothrace sculpture in the Louvre, they too can stand at the top of stairs and instagram their images around the world. (In this respect, the Seejarim installation parallels a series of paired wing sculptures, known as the “Wings of the City,” created by the Mexican artist Jorge Marin, installed in multiple cities around the world, including Mexico City, Tel Aviv, Berlin, and Dallas, which also invite self-photography.)

For all its playful aspects, Seejarim’s work could be read through a Marxist lens, as embodying Marx’s labor theory of value. Capitalism depends on the extraction of the labor of the worker, for which the laborer historically has been undercompensated. Thus, transformed labor power drives capitalist accumulation. In Marx’s model, this extracted labor power is congealed, rather mysteriously, in the figure of what Marx terms the “commodity fetish”— a “social hieroglyph” which seems to operate autonomously in the marketplace as if it had intrinsic value, but which actually is energized and given underlying value by the concealed labor of those workers who have created it in the shadows. As Marx famously observes in his masterwork Capital: “A commodity appears at first sight an extremely obvious, trivial thing. But its analysis brings out that it is a very strange thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties”

At the base of the new Radisson RED Hotel, Usha Seejarim’s paired wings, composed of hundreds of handheld commodities and objects of labor used every day by female staff, similarly manifests the transformed labor of working class women, reborn in a contemporary act of metamorphosis as the unfurled wings of a new divinity.

It is well known that the city of Johannesburg is built upon the extracted labor power of hundreds of thousands of male miners, who themselves extracted precious metal from deep underground. Yet the metropolis is equally built upon the labor of women of color, who labored above ground in domestic and industrial work, in shebeens, markets, and the hospitality. industry to make a life for themselves and their loved ones in the city of gold. In Seejarim’s metal wings of composite irons, we might argue, the hidden histories of female and male labor on the Rand are brilliantly combined, as if the workers and their labor power are poised to continue their upward journeys, liberated “Angels of the House” ascending to yet higher planes.

Pam Allara is Associate Professor Emerita of Contemporary Art, Brandeis University

Ellen Schattschneider is Associate Professor of Anthropology and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Brandeis University

Mark Auslander is Research Scholar in Anthropology, Brandeis University, and Visiting Associate Professor of Anthropology, Mount Holyoke College