Mawande Ka Zenzile
Uhambo luyazilawula
Mawande Ka Zenzile Uhambo luyazilawula
Mawande Ka Zenzile Uhambo luyazilawula
With texts by Sinazo Chiya, Nkule Mabaso, Nomusa Makhubu and Kabelo Malatsie
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Untitled: Scarecrow 2014 Cow dung, earth and oil on canvas 180 × 170cm
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The Mythology of the Rape 2014 Cow dung, earth, buttons and oil on canvas 151 × 180cm
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Portrait of Saddam 2015 Cow dung, earth, gesso and oil on canvas 85 × 85cm
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Martyrdom: Geronimo 2014 Cow dung, earth and oil on canvas 85 × 85cm
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ET 2015 Cow dung and oil on canvas 170 × 200cm
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The Man on the Trojan Horse 2015 Cow dung and oil on canvas 120 × 185cm
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Left Who’s watching the watcher (Snowden) 2016 Right Who’s watching the watcher (Data) 2016
Cow dung, oil and gold leaf on canvas 70.5 × 70.5cm Cow dung, oil and gold leaf on canvas 70.5 × 70.5cm
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In self-defence 2016 Cow dung, oil and gesso on paper 73.5 × 74cm
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Ityala lamawele 2017 Cow dung, gesso and oil on canvas 75 × 74.5cm
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A girl with a hoody 2015 Cow dung and oil on canvas 70.5 × 70cm
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Crazy 2017 Cow dung, gesso and oil on canvas 91 × 80.5cm
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Portrait of Darwin 2015 Cow dung, oil and gesso on canvas 140 × 91cm
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Woman in Red Dress 2016-17 Cow dung and oil on canvas 183 × 127cm
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Left Trap I 2015 Cow dung and oil on canvas 70.5 × 70.5cm Right Trap II 2015 Cow dung and oil on canvas 70.5 × 70.5cm
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Suicide Note (The Honey Trap) 2015 Cow dung, earth and oil on canvas 150.5 × 90.5cm
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Destroy This Mad Brute (Caliban and Miranda): The End of an Allegory 2015 Cow dung, gesso and oil on canvas 150 × 90cm
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They Don’t Give a Fuck About Us 2015 Cow dung, earth and oil on canvas 131.5 × 77.5cm
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As nasty as they wanna be 2016 Cow dung and oil on canvas 150.5 × 179.5 cm
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Untitled (Silence) 2015 Cow dung, earth and oil on canvas 166 × 182cm
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Black man you are on your own 2014 Cow dung and oil on canvas 170 × 240cm
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A Lesson 2013 Cow dung and oil on canvas 167.5 × 139cm
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Double date 2014 Cow dung and oil on canvas 170 × 240cm
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Cash Cow 2016-17 Cow dung and oil on canvas 110.5 × 161cm
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The genie lamp: ayinethi iyadyudyuza 2016 Cow dung, oil and gold leaf on canvas 70.5 × 70.5cm
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Frankenstein’s Man 2018 Cow dung, oil and collage on canvas Triptych, 62 × 124cm
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Imbongi Yomthonyama 2016 Digital video, sound
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Homage to the Negritude 2016 Digital video, sound 2 min 28 sec
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Anglophone/Francophone 2015 Two-channel video installation 2 min; 2 min 15 sec
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Outwitting the Devil 2017 Digital video, sound 8 min 4 sec
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Uzesazi 2018 Digital video, sound 25 min 30 sec
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A Homage to the Magicians 2014 Performance with Buhlebezwe Siwani, 27 November 2014, Stevenson, Cape Town In background The Mythology of the Rape 2014
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Performance with Zwelakhe Khuse, Stevenson, Cape Town, 26 April 2017
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Silence 2014 Drums, metal, hessian, gloves and wood Installation dimensions variable
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Heritage of a noble man 2016 Stone 17.5 × 39 × 78cm
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Iingcuka ezambethe ifele legusha 2016 Wood, hessian, fabric, found objects 140 × 35 × 55cm
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Next Chapter 2016 Wood, cow dung, hessian, steel, rope, found objects Dimensions variable
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Ingqami (The end of an ideology) 2015 Rocks, enamel plates, hammer and sickle Dimensions variable
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Ingqami (The end of an ideology) 2015/18 Installation view, Both, and, 2018, Stevenson, Cape Town
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Crime Scene 2016 Wood, hessian, brass, fabric, found objects 105 × 155 × 61.5cm
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Previous spread and opposite Rope Trick 2015 Wood and rope Dimensions variable
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Previous spread and opposite uGologolo-indoda yaseKomani 2013 Commercial wood and stones (igoqo), money box, dimensions variable. Performance with Lihle Mananga, 28 November 2013, Stevenson, Cape Town
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Previous spread Usoze 2015 Mud and mud bricks Dimensions variable Opposite Intsika 2018 Thatch, strap jacket, hessian, rope and wood Dimensions variable
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50 Niggaz (isimalelo ne waku) 2016 Enamel bowl, tablespoons 20 × 70 × 70cm
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Honoring the Flag 2014 Two American flags, sound Installation dimensions variable
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Inyawo zinodaka 2016-17 Wood, hessian, earth and metal 125 × 131cm
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Abangoma 2017 Cow hide, rope and metal oil drums 60 × 181 × 60cm
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Umondlalo (Pause)  2017  Mixed media installation, dimensions variable
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Udludlilali 2020 Installation with cladding stones and audio 300 × 150 × 40cm
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Installation view, Udludlilali, with You’ve made your bed now lie on it, 2020,   industrial wood, bed, blanket, 105 x 238 x 92cm
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Priesthood Brotherhood 2020 Neon light Diptych, 41 x 125cm; 36 x 118.5cm
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Table-turning 2020 Taxidermied chicken, wood, hessian, leather and stone 124 x 30 x 40cm
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The Gulag Archipelago 2017 Cow dung, earth, oil wood and hessian on canvas 181.5 × 180.5cm
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Sibhala sicima 2016-17 Cow dung, earth, gesso and oil on canvas 133 × 184cm
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Erratum 2017 Cow dung and oil on canvas 36 × 60cm
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Don’t put your hopes in the future 2018 Cow dung, oil and gesso on canvas 100 × 150cm
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Respectability 2018 Cow dung, gesso and oil on canvas 118 × 196.5cm
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Blank Slate 2018 Cow dung, gesso and oil on canvas 134.5 × 196cm
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Barking up the wrong tree 2018 Cow dung, oil and gesso on canvas 100 × 150cm
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Tic tac toe 2018 Cow dung, gesso and oil on canvas 80.5 × 180cm
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Untitled 2016-17 Cow dung and oil on canvas 115.5 × 225.5cm
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Under Construction 2016 Cow dung and oil on canvas 39 × 39cm
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Leviathan 2016-17 Cow dung and oil on canvas 62.5 × 200cm
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A man with no history (an unmarked grave) 2016 Cow dung and oil on canvas 154 × 173cm
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The Conundrum 2016-17 Oil on canvas 89.5 × 33.5cm
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Linear Opposites 2018 Cow dung and oil on canvas 43.5 × 45cm
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MK Ultra 2017 Cow dung, gesso and oil on canvas 172 × 134cm
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The Philosopher’s stone 2016-17 Cow dung and oil on canvas 41.5 × 78cm
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Logos 2017 Cow dung and oil on canvas 90 × 70cm
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Wei-wu-wei (wave) 2018 Cow dung and oil on canvas 49 × 118.5cm
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Espionage 2015 Cow dung and oil on canvas 170 × 170cm
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Pandora’s Box 2018 Cow dung, gesso and oil on canvas 161 × 202cm
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The Enigma 2016-17 Cow dung and oil on canvas 151.5 × 74.5cm
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Blue Book, Brown Book (Grammar Police) 2016-17 Cow dung and oil on canvas 34 × 49cm
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Linguistic 2020 Cow dung, oil paint and gesso on canvas 40 × 170.5cm
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Feminine Mystique 2020 Cow dung, oil paint and gesso on canvas 40 × 180cm
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Umzomkhulu 2020 Cow dung, oil paint and gesso on canvas 100 × 200cm
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Elagcwabeni 2020 Cow dung, oil paint and gesso on canvas 100 × 200cm
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Ingethe 2020 Cow dung, oil paint and gesso on canvas 100 × 200cm
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Ozelwe embethe 2020 Cow dung, oil paint and gesso on canvas 170 × 300cm
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Bathwebula idlozi lami kuba befuna libheke bona 2019 Cow dung, oil paint and gesso on canvas 70.5 × 70cm
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Vanity not Humanity 2019 Cow dung, oil paint and gesso on canvas 70.5 × 70cm
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Tenacity/Audacity 2015 Cow dung, earth, gesso and oil on canvas 90.5 × 60.5cm
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Institutionalized Guilt 2018 Cow dung, gesso and oil on canvas 93.5 × 93cm
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This page The Fringe Dweller Opposite Intellectual Convictions
2016-17 Oil and gesso on canvas 128 × 55cm 2018 Cow dung, gesso and oil on canvas 90 × 179cm
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Calling a spade a spade 2016 Cow dung and oil on canvas 154 × 172.5cm
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Untitled 2014 Cow dung, earth and oil on canvas Diptych, 90 × 90cm each
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Leave your mind outside 2018 Cow dung, gesso and oil on canvas 162 × 202cm
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Installation view, The Stronger We Become, the South African Pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale, 2019, with paintings by Mawande Ka Zenzile (installation on far left by Dineo Seshee Bopape).   Courtesy of the South African Pavilion/South African Department of Arts and Culture
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Ubuza ibhasi ibhaliwe 2019 Cow dung, gesso and oil on canvas Diptych, 200 × 100cm each
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Installation view, solo presentation, Cape Town Art Fair, 2020
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Trivium Quadrivium 2016 Cow dung and oil on canvas 61 × 61cm
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Debunked 2016 Cow dung, oil and gold leaf on canvas 63 × 83.5cm
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The Will 2015 Cow dung and oil on canvas 70.5 × 70cm
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‘The observer is the observed The analyzer is the analyzed’ 2015 Oil on canvas 60.5 × 60cm
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The Dialectical Fiasco 2017 Cow dung, earth and oil on canvas Diptych, 76 × 51cm; 48 × 29cm
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I am not that 2017 Cow dung, earth and oil on canvas 83.5 × 56.5cm
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‘The Word is Not the Thing’ (after JK) 2018 Cow dung, gesso and oil on canvas 52.5 × 52cm
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Untitled (chicken ’n egg) 2015 Cow dung and oil on canvas Diptych, 70.5 × 70.5cm each
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Above Below
Spiritual/Material Body/Soul without the Mind
2018 2018
Cow dung and oil on canvas 27 × 40.5cm Cow dung and oil on canvas 27.5 × 43cm
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The white man’s burden (after Kipling) 2016 Cow dung and oil on canvas 180 × 177.5cm
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Note on Commercial Theatre (after Langston Hughes) 2017 Cow dung, gesso and oil on canvas 177 × 112cm
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Uchane Iintaka Ezimbini Ngelitye Elinye 2018 Cow dung, oil and gesso on canvas 44 × 99cm
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Dis Poem (after Mutabaruka) 2016 Cow dung and oil on canvas 180 × 177.5cm
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White (after Amy Edgington) 2017 Cow dung, gesso and oil on canvas 183 × 122cm
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Goals 2017 Cow dung and oil on canvas 190 × 135cm
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When I Look At You My Spirit Leave My Body 2019 Cow dung, gesso and oil on canvas 100 × 200cm
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Hahaha (Motivation & Reward) 2016-17 Oil on canvas 180 × 86cm
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Left Untitled Poster I 2016 Cow dung and oil on canvas 70.5 × 70.5cm Right Untitled Poster II 2016 Cow dung and oil on canvas 70.5 × 70.5cm
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‘And then I went to school, a colonial school and this harmony was broken. The language of my education was no longer the language of my culture’ 2017 Cow dung and oil on canvas 60 × 61.5cm
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We Describe Our Music as a Road to Consciousness 2018 Cow dung, gesso and oil on canvas 102.5 × 52cm
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Behaviorism 101 2018 Cow dung, gesso and oil on canvas 90.5 × 49cm
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The non-asymmetrical 2016 Cow dung and oil on canvas 70 × 90cm
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Sibonwa Mhla Ligqwithayo 2018 Cow dung, gesso and oil on canvas 71 × 59.5cm
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Uhamba undibhala ematyeni 2020 Cow dung, oil paint and gesso on canvas Triptych, 100.5 × 50.5cm each
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Life without the Sacred 2020 Cow dung, oil paint and gesso on canvas 50 × 140cm
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Misnomer 2020 Cow dung, oil stick and gesso on canvas 50.5 × 140cm
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The analyzer 2020 Cow dung, oil paint and gesso on canvas 40 × 90.5cm
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Stop making stupid people famous 2020 Cow dung, oil paint and gesso on canvas 40 × 180cm
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Group think 2020 Cow dung, oil paint and gesso on canvas 115 × 170cm
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Ugingqigongqo: After Comte 2020 Cow dung, oil paint and gesso on canvas 170 × 300cm
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Previous spread Ascended Masters 2020 Cow dung, oil paint and gesso on canvas 20 panels, 40 × 40cm each This spread Installation view, Udludlilali, 2020
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Why shape a human being according to a pattern 2020 Oil stick, oil paint and gesso on linen 43 × 100cm
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Forgive them father they know not what they do 2020 Oil stick, oil paint and gesso on linen 54.5 × 100cm
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Self-referentiality 2020 Oil stick, oil paint and gesso on linen 100 × 54cm
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Mawande Ka Zenzile with his goat during installation of Udludlilali, March 2020. Photo: Alexander Richards
234 Introduction: Towards a new model of engagement Sinazo Chiya 238 Of Refusal, Creation and Assertion Nkule Mabaso 242 Akukho Muzi Ungathunqi Ntuthu Local Knowledge as Creative Rebellion Nomusa Makhubu 248 Muthala: Through Johnny Mbizo Dyani andˆ Mawande Ka Zenzile Kabelo Malatsie 253 Biography 254 Bibliography
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Introduction: Towards a new model of engagement Sinazo Chiya
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Necessarily, there are catalogue essays in this volume of selected works by Mawande Ka Zenzile. In What Happened to Art Criticism? James Elkins appraises the mode, saying: Few people read catalogue essays with concerted critical attention. A more typical experience, the kind catalogue essays are meant to foster, involves glancing over text, finding phrases and concepts that signal the work’s importance. Catalogue essays are generally best when they appear absolutely authoritative, studded with references to important names and works, and the best essays also exude enthusiasm about the artist’s importance. The arguments should not be too complex, because they need to buoy a reader who may only be skimming the text. At the same time the arguments should not be wholly obvious because they need to sustain a reader’s faltering confidence in the work. If an essay is too simple, a reader may conclude there isn’t much to the work after all: hence the need to be just a little extravagant. (2003: 20) Evidently, for Elkins the appearance of authority is used to signify the presence of power – it conveys a believability that gives opinion the veneer of fact. He suggests ‘worldliness’ and knowledge are signposted through the tincture of communally weighted references and concepts. In his view, the cultural impact and intellectual lives of others, canonical or not, function as totemic objects used to elevate rudimentary arguments and validate objects of institutional sanction. His generalisations are glib but not untrue. Texts, like other forms of bodies, can become vessels for connotation. Just as a certain mode of dress can communicate an affinity with a specific subculture, Hegelian terms and evocations of bell hooks make allusions to the perspectives of the writer and the text. Even if it’s not familiar to you, reader, this phenomenon is wholly foreign to none. It is the textual manifestation of the impulse responsible for name-dropping in a group of strangers, and deference to the tallest and loudest during an emergency. Balancing manufactured ease and contrived complexity, the typical experience thus becomes a banquet of artificial critical richness. Uhambo luyazilawula proposes a different sort of material in order to propose a different kind of experience; translated from isiXhosa or isiZulu, the title means ‘the journey governs itself’. Initially, the contents of this volume were gathered under a different heading, yet this linguistic alteration had no ripple outside itself. Just as a destination is unchanged by shifts in the pathways carved towards it, the substance of this book is unaltered by functional adjustments because these are not ideological assemblages in the service of arbitrary value. These are signposts in service of the ungovernable journeys we all inevitably undertake alone. The texts that follow belong in the world of metonym rather than symbolism; they function in a milieu of contracted immensity rather than the allegorical
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Introduction
Sinazo Chiya
agreement between object and meaning. Provided the same catalogue of paintings, sculptures, performances, videos and commentary, Nkule Mabaso, Nomusa Makhubu and Kabelo Malatsie undertook different voyages and arrived at different destinations. Mabaso’s ‘Of Refusal, Creation and Assertion’ approaches the artist’s oeuvre as a project beyond decoloniality. Her emphasis is not on the consequences of the encounter with the colonial other but Ka Zenzile’s affirmation of Africanist epistemes – the ways in which he asserts ‘enduring, localised ways of being’. Makhubu’s ‘Akukho Muzi Ungathunqi Ntuthu – Local Knowledge as Creative Rebellion’ observes Ka Zenzile’s relationship with institutions and bureaucratised knowledge practices. Using the motif of the inverted house, probing the dividing line recurrent in Ka Zenzile’s figurative and non-figurative creations, she observes the role his work plays in the battle between incommensurability and compatibility. For Malatsie, Ka Zenzile’s process is as yielding as the final object. She makes a comparison to fellow Eastern Cape native, jazz musician Johnny Dyani. She concentrates on how both artists ‘go latela muthala’, following traces and fragments rooted in indigenous practices ̂ to form constellations that motivate them to push beyond the temptation to be legible to an other. In both artists she identifies a commitment to helping others upend myopic paradigms ‘even if that means that we become uncertain and are a people in perpetual pursuit’. In a 2018 conversation with Lois Anguria, Ka Zenzile stated, ‘For me it was just to throw clues in my art and in my writing, and whoever is sensitive enough to perceive these clues, and willing to let go of what they know, can begin to engage with my work.’ Uhambo luyazilawula is a collation of such visual and textual clues. In these divergent journeys the thoughts and stances expressed operate in tandem and individually. Ideas contest, overlap and distort one other, and the artworks presented amplify, fragment and cohere these discernible lines of thinking. We are not far from cacophony, but perhaps, in a climate where knowledge is considered an agent of power, a boisterous offering might be looked at as an elaborate device of kindness. If the artist’s catalogue is a receptacle for benign apathy as has been suggested by Elkins, form has not followed function in Uhambo luyazilawula. This has not been packaged for the satiety of a glance or the seasonal rearrangement of a coffee table. This volume spans history, philosophical thought, repeated narratives in Nguni lore, institutional critique, isiXhosa, the precepts of perception, music, an examination of the critical impact of nostalgia, the motives behind colonial directives towards the indigenous community, permutations of spirituality, economics and other notions in a reckoning with the expansiveness of possibility. The cues and references used are indexes for other ways of thinking, propositions towards healing, catalysts for the shifting of paradigms, a primer for the experience of wayfinding. In the words of one clue blurring even the boundary between text and image, ‘Come inside and leave your shoes and your mind outside’ …
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Introduction
Sinazo Chiya
References Anguria, L. 2018. ‘Art practice beyond theoretical learning: An interview with Mawande Ka Zenzile’. Conversation X. http://www.conversationx.com/2018/09/17/ mawande-ka-zenzile/ Elkins, J. 2003. What Happened to Art Criticism? Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press Sinazo Chiya is an associate director at Stevenson and the author of 9 More Weeks, a book of interviews with artists. She has contributed to the publications Adjective, Art Africa and ArtThrob, and is a 2019 writing fellow at the Institute of Creative Arts, University of Cape Town.
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Of Refusal, Creation and Assertion Nkule Mabaso
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The interpreters were bewildered at the too many meanings that the work suggested, and the more they discussed it the more meanings and hints and warnings it threw out. Things got so bad that three interpreters fought over their interpretations of the work, and one of them was killed. It was the first time ever that a man had died because of the impossibility of understanding a work of art of the tribe. Ben Okri, Starbook Everyone in the tribe was an artist. They were born into art, and they were born of art. Art conceived them; art gave birth to them; art nourished them; art helped them grow, sustained their lives, and guided them to the mighty mysteries and to illumination. Art aged them, art devoured them, art made them old. They grew old in art, and they died of art. They were buried in art. And in art they were remembered and immortalised by its continual practice and renewal in the great rituals and initiations of the tribe. Ben Okri, Starbook Ben Okri’s Starbook is a novel about art, and the
epistemology, Ka Zenzile asserts enduring,
passages quoted above suggest a people situated
localised ways of being. Aesthetically too,
within a visual sovereignty, maintained by a
Ka Zenzile’s practice confronts neo-liberal,
regime of active artistic practices in the service
global imperial tendencies in art that manage
of resisting dispossession and erasure (2008: 85,
to homogenise and erase difference. His
94). In this imaginary, mythical environment,
methodology of epistemic disobedience speaks to
regimented by the capacity of art, the cruelties
other genealogies in artistic practices and as such
of the world are reconfigured as a paradise
is firmly situated within what Walter Mignolo
found and then putatively lost. The many direct
terms ‘decolonial aestheSis’ (2011).
references to art in the novel, while broad and platitudinous, are Okri’s attempt to present
‘world sensing’ (Mignolo, 2011), and offer
‘whole’ persons who deal with the nature of
futurity by operating in resistance to those
reality, with a historical loss – a loss of ancestral
assumptions that consign native traditions to
wholeness, of life ways. The idea of an untouched
the past. His practice confirms the persistence
indigeneity appeals as much to Okri in Starbook as
and anti-fragility of spiritual awareness
it does to any subject at the wretched interstices
and connection to ancestral land as well as
of settler colonialism.
community in all its complexity. This offers up
The wholeness experienced and lost in Okri’s
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His motifs draw from Xhosa traditions and
black subjectivity as the bearer of knowledge that
novel is affirmed as never lost in Mawande
is enough to sustain a fragmented navigation
Ka Zenzile’s practice. Acutely aware of the
of a shared dysfunctional world, a world that
confinement that Euro-centred concepts of
continuously fails to see black people as whole.
arts and aesthetics have imposed on creativity,
Ka Zenzile’s work is an intimate invitation into
through the destructive processes of settler
his personal experience of finding voice in
colonial intrusions, territorial and imperial
this hostile terrain.
Of Refusal, Creation and Assertion
Nkule Mabaso
Articulated through interiority and an attachment to his self, his practice delinks from
render form and shape and give them their
and debunks accepted covert and coercive
function – skills that presently are not taught in
worldviews. In their place, Ka Zenzile demands
Westernised learning environments, but passed
a space in which indigenous bodies and their
on as living cultural practices. Intsika (2018, p85)
cosmologies are afforded equal space to assert
is a straitjacketed thatched roof, the title referring
their cultural modalities.
to the support staff that holds up the roof and
Placing himself at the centre of his academic
makes it steadfast. The straitjacket is made from
and creative inquiries, his work draws from Xhosa
canvas, and holds the intsika lying on the ground,
ways of being in the world and aesthetically
preventing it from performing its function of
embraces a liminal exploration in order to arrive
standing straight and tall and providing protection.
at a visualised, non-representative resistance. In
It almost looks like a spinning top, albeit one kept
his sampling of popular culture, rendered with
from spinning off on its axis. Intsika also refers to
the unconventional mixing of mud, cow dung
the head of the household, and the straitjacket can
and other natural elements as well as synthetic
be read as the placeholder for any and all possible
paints, the liminal nature of the work harkens to
restraints and pacifying mechanisms that keep
the past in order to produce a set of ideas about
black breadwinners labouring but never able to
the present. This is an aesthetic articulation of
meet their familial obligations. This entrenched
interiority that can bring about a regenerative
futility can also be read in Tic Tac Toe (2018, p118),
reconfiguration of sensibilities for the person
a game that nobody wins.
experiencing it. In the encounter with the
In the video work Uzesazi (2018, p54), the
work, the viewer experiences a moment of self-
huge ‘capacity for suffering’ of black subjects is
identification; all the smells, colours, shapes and
explored as in a treatise. Tea overflows from the
patterns are familiar and one is lulled by this
cup into the saucer; never reaching the table,
sense of affirming familiarity.
never making a mess, it is held in a continuous
In his exhibition Uhambo luyazilawula (2018),
loop of suspense. The pouring of the tea and
Ka Zenzile paints the gallery walls with ochre.
the low chorus of voices, the ebbing of the tea
The red earthiness of the pigment cocoons one
in the saucer as it threatens to spill over, convey
in a familiar place that has nostalgic attachments.
the ‘capacity to endure’. You are left to draw
It reminds one of the dark enveloping interior
your own metaphors from the red tea, the brown
of the rural homestead, perhaps a grandmother’s
colour of the hand, the tea cup and pot with their
home, with its walls of plastered mud and
delicate inscription of roses …
cow dung. Through this creative intimacy, the
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elements and require specialised labour to
Including bold and suggestive clues in the
exhibition becomes a holding space without
naming of his works, Ka Zenzile plays with the
reserve, a space with a visual vocabulary that
viewer’s desire for an entry point, the desire to
centres Xhosa, Africanist epistemes as legitimate,
understand. Read together, the title and the work
needing no translation. Ka Zenzile works to
form a dialogue. Liminality is traversed severally,
remove the veil of the covert mechanisms and
from a disturbance of the traditional/modern
histories of colonialism and re-articulates these
binaries through text-based conceptual paintings
narratives within the prized space of modernity,
against a background of cow dung and pigment.
the white cube.
In Body/Soul without the Mind (2018, p185), ‘Body’
The spatial dimension and scale of his
is placed above ‘Soul’, the two divided. The
installations take into consideration formal
distinction appears absurd and unnecessary;
Of Refusal, Creation and Assertion
Nkule Mabaso
by offering both concepts on the same canvas they are married, and one can accept the invitation to consider them as not separate from each other, as part of the same whole, transcending the Western schemas of duality that separate the mind and body, the splitting of oneself from emotion and spirituality. The work offers itself as an entry point to a liberatory practice of art that can contribute to the revitalisation of an indigenous self, rooted in a politics of land and place. Ka Zenzile’s articulation of an inner world, and his effort to grapple with an exterior world that is out of sync with the experience and expectation of that internal world, beckon us not simply to offer amendments or edits to this current world, but to sabotage it. The work seems to suggest that
References Mignolo, W. 2011. ‘Geopolitics of Sensing and Knowing: On (De)Coloniality, Border Thinking, and Epistemic Disobedience’. Transversal 09 2011: http://eipcp.net/transversal/0112/mignolo/en Okri, B. 2008. Starbook: A Magical Tale of Love and Regeneration. London: Ebury Press This text forms part of a larger paper: ‘Globaphobia’. In Curating After the Global: Roadmaps for the Present, edited by Paul O’Neill, Simon Sheik, Lucy Steeds and Mick Wilson. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press with the Center for Curatorial Studies Bard College/ Luma Foundation, 2019 Nkule Mabaso graduated with a Fine Arts degree from the University of Cape Town (2011) and a Masters in Curating, Post-graduate Programme in Curating, Zurich University of the Arts (2014). Mabaso currently works as curator of the Michaelis Galleries, University of Cape Town, and was cocurator of the South African Pavilion at the 2019 Venice Biennale. Recent projects are archived on www.nkulemabaso.com.
the prevailing regimes of power are not infallible, and we do not have to accept the options that are ‘available’. There is a way out of the clutches of coloniality, and in some ways we already have the reference book. If there is a story that Ka Zenzile is trying to tell us, it is an intimate one. One articulating a wholeness that he lays claim to, while upholding indigenous resistance and circulating it in commodity form in the capitalist art market as evocative pieces of work. One in which systems of power impact and overlap with individual and collective aspirations; that creates space in which fictions of inferiority are not resignedly accepted or assimilated. One that keeps us collectively awake at night as we wonder over the futures our children will inherit as global universalism and state multiculturalism take us further and further from ourselves into more fragmented subjectivities.
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Of Refusal, Creation and Assertion
Nkule Mabaso
Akukho Muzi Ungathunqi Ntuthu* Local Knowledge as Creative Rebellion Nomusa Makhubu
242
* Zulu proverb meaning that there is no home without internal conflicts
Introduction
Come inside and remember to leave your shoes and your mind outside Mawande Ka Zenzile’s work Leave your mind
house) and umzi (a commune, homestead or
outside (2018, p164) illustrates epistemic
an establishment). Ka Zenzile presents the
incommensurability, ‘the divergence between
predicament of (un)belonging by inverting the
different styles of reasoning and methods of
house, demonstrating the dislocation of the
justification’ (Baghramian 2004: 150). To enter
gallery through casting it as a mud house and
one house of knowledge, the work suggests, one
questioning the power structure of the university
must abandon other incommensurate ways of
– an act of creative rebellion.
knowing. Ka Zenzile illuminates a very specific predicament: the sanctuaries of learning in South
response to an experience he had while studying
Africa seem to be places of negation, alienation
towards an undergraduate degree a few years ago.
and violence. The paradoxes in Ka Zenzile’s work
Ka Zenzile identified this experience as epistemic
– the mud house in the gallery, the iconic cultural
violence, to use Gayatri Spivak’s nomenclature
images composed in cow dung, and the rebellion
(1988). An assessment task for his class asked
so inextricably bound to the institution it refutes –
learners to look outside a window of their home
are indicative of the urgent crises arising from
and discuss the landscape they saw. Ka Zenzile
multiple and reinforced racial and socio-economic
pointed out that such a task failed to acknowledge
disparities. His work asks: which worldviews,
the difference between what a window of a house
epistemologies or ways of knowing, modes of
in the township would show compared to a
living, are more relevant than others? Which are
window of a house in a suburb. This oversight, he
more truthful or scientific than others? Which are
contested, revealed an ideological battle in which
more valuable? Are certain ways of knowing and
experiential local, rural or township knowledges
living really that incompatible with others?
are to be not only transcended but forgotten
Among other themes, one significant trope
243
This rebellion is also demonstrated by his
or erased. Once one is in the university, the
in Ka Zenzile’s oeuvre is the inverted house. It
experience of the township or rural area seems
is symbolised in the explicit rendition of mud
‘out of place’ or dislocated. The window becomes
walls or his cynical critique of umzi wemfundo,
an allegory for knowledge frameworks connoting
the house of learning or university institution.
the distanciation and configuration of the world
He does this through interrogating the
‘out there’ beyond one’s own position. His oeuvre
pyramidal structure of power, with its centralised
asks us to question how we know what we know,
hierarchies, or the triangular complex of the
how we assign value to some forms of knowing
seven liberal arts defined by the trivium and
and not others. It also asks why local knowledge,
the quadrivium. By using the metaphor of the
particularly Xhosa, which is more responsive to
house, his work also posits the contemporary
and reflective of its African context, is neglected
South African nation not as a singular house
in favour of knowledge that is transposed from
but as divided and incongruous establishments
colonial Europe and therefore dislocated or
with divergent ways of knowing. After all, Nguni
misplaced in the postcolonial context, appearing
languages distinguish between indlu (singular
out of time and out of place.
Akukho Muzi Ungathunqi Ntuthu
Nomusa Makhubu
Who No Know Go Know
And then I went to school, a colonial school, and this harmony was broken. The language of my education was no longer the language of my culture In a 2017 work titled with the above quote,
in that space one has to perform outside of
Ka Zenzile makes reference to Ngũgĩ wa
one’s own local knowledge, finding oneself
Thiong’o’s experience of writing in English
simultaneously alienated from Eurocentric
and writing in Gikuyu. Wa Thiong’o asserts
knowledge and from the indigenous knowledge
that ‘language, through images and symbols,
that is undermined and eroded in universities.
gave us a view of the world’ (1986: 11). He
Ka Zenzile’s work functions as a form of
states: ‘the home and the field were then our
creative protest, seeking to reveal and challenge
pre-primary school, but what is important for
the disjuncture.
this discussion, the language of our evening teach-ins, and the language of our immediate
figurative and abstract works can be understood
and wider community, and the language of our
as one strategy to visualise this fundamental
work in the fields were one’. Colonial school,
rupture. It critiques Western humanism, founded
Wa Thiong’o asserts, disrupted this consistency.
on Renaissance empiricism and rationalism.
This irony, in which school enacts violence or
Unlike the animist thought entrenched in
‘breaks’ the harmony, lies at the core of the
local knowledge systems, humanist Cartesian
sense of loss and dislocation in Ka Zenzile’s
philosophy and dualism theoretically divide the
work. Suggested in the statement is that this
body from the soul and the spiritual from the
disruption lies not only in having to articulate
material. The works Spiritual/Material (2018,
one’s knowledge in the English language, but
p185)
and Body/Soul without the Mind (2018,
also in experiencing the loss of the particular
p185)
draw a link between Enlightenment-era
worldview offered by one’s own language.
theoretical postulations in which the body is
The language of one’s own culture ceases to
disfigured or separated from the mind and
resonate with one’s education in the proverbial
the deformation of the exploited body under
colonial school. Ka Zenzile astutely juxtaposes
colonialism. The dividing lines in his abstract
the tropes of the ‘home and the field’ with that
works, like lacerations, dissect the canvas as
of the ‘colonial school’, marking a fault line,
body, extending dialogues with earlier works
a rupture and disconnect. The (mud) house
where the body is literally disfigured, mutilated
inside the gallery building evokes the kind of
and defaced, as in Crime Scene (2016, p72).
alienation defined by Wa Thiong’o who argues
244
The dividing line that recurs in Ka Zenzile’s
In this reading, the adage ‘Come inside and
that ‘the disassociation of the sensibility of
remember to leave […] your mind outside’
[the colonial child] from his natural and social
can be seen to evoke the British colonial
environment’ resulted in ‘what we might call
strategy to limit the forms of education that
colonial alienation’ (1986: 17). The university
could be offered to Africans. British indirect
for Ka Zenzile is one such alienating space
rule saw educated Africans as a threat. Chika
and the white-cube gallery another. One is
Okeke-Agulu points out that ‘early twentieth
surrounded by knowledge, but to be assimilated
century British Colonial Administration
Akukho Muzi Ungathunqi Ntuthu
Nomusa Makhubu
was particularly suspicious of what was then
song. The words ‘Who No Know Go Know’
called literary education – social science and
emphasise the need to understand the intricacy
humanities courses (including fine art) –
of African knowledge within the entangled
because such education was believed to breed,
histories of colonialism and post-independence
in the colonized subjects, critical thinkers and
neo-colonialism. Only in this way can we see
“troublemakers” who constituted a formidable,
the dislocation of African paradigms and how
even mortal threat to the entire colonial system’
this hinders meaningful ways of knowing. It is
(2015: 22). It is through inferior education
no wonder that this phrase became the motto
systems that the colonised could be reduced to
of the pan-African Chimurenga magazine.
soulless, mindless bodies as units of labour.
The emphasis on locally produced knowledge
A striking example of this is Head of an
is an antithesis to the narratives fabricated
Anonymous Moor (2011), which is an illustration
to reinforce imperialism and foster racist
of the drawing formula used by Albrecht
colonialism. Ka Zenzile’s works can be read
Dürer to gauge human proportions. This
as declarations and protest slogans, written as
particular diagram is aimed at establishing the
though they were protest signs. However, like
proportions of an African’s head. In the original
the rebellions of musicians Fela Kuti and Bob
diagram, the head is depicted, and the lines
Marley, this kind of protest takes the form
cut across its profile. In Ka Zenzile’s work, the
of creative rebellion.
diagram consists only of the lacerating lines, which reduce the face to illegible sections and dehumanise the portrayed African.1 In this
Eating the Elephant
work, ‘rationalised knowledge’, upon which the scientificisation of the human body is based, is
If Ka Zenzile’s work is a form of rebellion, the
a particular form of violence. As the foundation
question arises: how does one fight an institution
upon which most disciplines are formed,
that one is already subsumed by?
scientific racism constitutes both symbolic and
spaces one questions and is suspicious of?
violence in institutions of higher learning, Ka
This paradox has been faced by artists globally
Zenzile discloses the crudeness of scientific
who engage in institutional critique. While
racism in general.
Ka Zenzile’s work differs from conventional
Ka Zenzile’s work brings to mind the classic
245
strategies of institutional critique, the question
song by the Nigerian musician and activist Fela
remains. Ka Zenzile once defined his artistic and
Anikulapo Kuti, Who No Know Go Know. In it:
intellectual work as a process of eating, from
ignorance is the opium of those who think they
the inside, the elephant that has swallowed him.
know it all. Music, in Ka Zenzile’s We Describe
The elephant, in this case the institution, has
Our Music as a Road to Consciousness (2018, p204),
overpowered and consumed him but, now that he
is described – here quoting Bob Marley (1979)
is inside it, he must in turn consume it internally
– as the revolution of the mind. In Who No
and eventually dismantle it.
Know Go Know, Fela Kuti laments the ignored 1 Head of an Anonymous Moor is reproduced in Ka Zenzile’s 2015 catalogue, The Problem We Didn’t Create, p79
What does it mean to practice in the very
material violence. Rebelling against systemic
Ka Zenzile’s approach reverberates with
narratives of African historical figures. He names
Audre Lorde’s well-known assertion that ‘the
Sekou Toure and Kwame Nkrumah. He also
master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s
refers to Idi Amin Dada whose brutal regime
house’ (1984). But perhaps for Ka Zenzile the
sets him apart from the others mentioned in the
master’s house can be turned inside out, where
Akukho Muzi Ungathunqi Ntuthu
Nomusa Makhubu
the fissures in the walls become clearly visible.
dialectic. As a place of knowing, the mud house
Perhaps the insertion of one architectural
is antithetical to ‘the institution’ but as its
language into another reciprocates the
inverse, represents the two as inseparable sides
dislocation of European architecture in an
of a coin.
African landscape by its inverse: the Xhosa
When Rasheed Araeen wrote the article ‘Our
architectural style in a gallery. In this way, the
Bauhaus, Others’ Mudhouse’, he was critiquing
words ‘the observer is observed, the analyzer
the exhibition Magiciens de la terre. This
is analyzed’, in a 2015 work of the same title
exhibition at the Centre Georges Pompidou
(p177), are cunning ways of engaging with the
in 1989 was aimed at exhibiting Western art
dialectic of the consumer as the consumed.
alongside ‘non-Western’ art to provide an antithesis to the colonial view that African and Oceanic art represents the modernist aesthesis
Isanusi and the Mud House Pluriversity
of primitivism. The institution, in this case the Pompidou (which is designed in such a way
Isanusi is a spiritual teacher. In many ways, Ka
that the internal structure is ‘turned out’ onto
Zenzile can be defined as that kind of artist:
the façade), literally encompassed mud houses
one who is deeply immersed in how knowledge
in its interior (for example, Esther Mahlangu’s
as power operates. Ka Zenzile’s creative
house replica, Bowa Devi’s paintings on mud
strategies, the inverted house for example,
walls, and Richard Long’s Mud Circle). In his
allude to the plurality and decentralisation of
article, however, Araeen argues that it failed
knowledge. His painting Leviathan (2016-17,
to achieve its goal. The exhibition is ‘a grand
p124)
spectacle’ that ‘ignores or undermines issues
engages with the intricacies of power
and specifically the argument that centralised
of a historical and epistemological nature’
power is more effective than democratic,
where ‘exoticism is not necessarily inherent
decentralised power. In the painting, there
in the works themselves’ but is rather ‘in their
is the impression of a horizontal structure of
decontextualisation, not only in the shift from
power, while simultaneously the title refers to
one culture to another (which is inevitable), but
Thomas Hobbes’s 1651 book which argues for
more importantly, in the displacement from one
centralised, sovereign power. The latter in Ka
paradigm to another’ which ‘has emptied them
Zenzile’s painting is implied in the hierarchical
of their meanings, leaving only what Fredric
layers where the brown base represents
Jameson calls a “play of surfaces” to dazzle the
those who are ruled through monarchy. This
(dominant) eye’ (1989: 4-5). Araeen suggests
interplay between horizontal and vertical power
that the discourses, even those seemingly
structures perhaps best illustrates Ka Zenzile’s
liberal, that thrust indigenous classical creative
sarcasm. His Leviathan, it can be argued, is a
forms into obscurity are destructive. Suspicious
sarcastic remark on how the democratisation
of the ‘anything goes’ plurality, he emphasises
and decentralisation of power still bears the
the importance of considering the ‘present
semblance of absolutism. People can still
historical and material conditions of cultures’.
experience the sense of absolute power and
That is, locating these in the present and in
authority even under the conditions of what
the paradigmatic frameworks to which they
seems to be decentralised governance. The
belong is important for understanding how they
mud house in Ka Zenzile’s work can therefore
continue to generate knowledge.
be seen as a metaphor for the inferior/superior
246
Akukho Muzi Ungathunqi Ntuthu
By bringing seemingly disparate environs into
Nomusa Makhubu
close proximity, Ka Zenzile points to not only this decontextualisation but also how power shapeshifts into different guises. Ka Zenzile also performs a protest against surreptitious violence in art institutions and institutions of higher learning. His work urges us to see violence even where it is sanitised as knowledge. Umzi we mfundo, the institution, is cast as a space of historical conflict where there is smoke, lapho ku thunq’ intuthu. Taking the house apart, turning it inside out, revealing its conflictual nature and rejecting its conventions and customs is a form of creative disobedience. Ka Zenzile’s cynicism in his work also caricatures the epistemes that are so valued in the classic colonial institution. Through parody, declarations, profanation (in the use of dung) and contestation, Ka Zenzile’s work is a creative rebellion against the systemic
References Araeen, R. 1989. ‘Our Bauhaus, Others’ Mudhouse’, Third Text, 6: 3–16 Baghramian, M. 2004. Relativism. London, New York: Routledge Lorde, A. 1984. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Berkeley, CA: Crossing Press Marley, B. 1979. Interviews in Australia: https:// bobmarley-fan.com/interviews-australia-sub-1979/ Okeke-Agulu, C. 2015. Postcolonial Modernism: Art and Decolonisation in Twentieth-Century Nigeria. Durham and London: Duke University Press Spivak, GC. 1988. ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’ In Nelson, C & Grossberg, L (Eds), Marxism and Interpretations of Culture. Basingstoke: Macmillan Education: 271-313 Wa Thiong’o, N. 1986. Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature. Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers Dr Nomusa Makhubu is an art historian and an artist. She is a fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies and was an African Studies Association Presidential Fellow in 2016. In 2017, she was a Mandela-Mellon fellow at Harvard University. She was co-curator of the South African Pavilion at the 2019 Venice Biennale.
violence of our current educational and cultural institutions.
247
Akukho Muzi Ungathunqi Ntuthu
Nomusa Makhubu
Muthala: Through Johnny Mbizo ˆ and Mawande Ka Zenzile Dyani Kabelo Malatsie
248
I was just into another level, because I know for a fact, Barney Rachabane and all these guys in South Africa, we used to jam all night. We’d play ‘Stardust’ 24 hours, just ‘Stardust’. We’d get all these chords, the meaning of this and that, because we were doing this experiment to see is there any kwela, mbaqanga, anything in these songs. Johnny Mbizo Dyani, December 1985
249
During a road trip from Makhanda formerly
rest of his life. Dyani played double bass and
known as Grahamstown to Cape Town, I
piano, which he learned from his brother Nuse
became aware of Johnny Dyani’s thoughts on
and the musical community he grew up in. In
his musical practice. On another road trip from
a 1985 interview with Aryan Kaganof, Dyani
Makhanda to Johannesburg, I encountered the
describes a commitment to pushing one’s
Eastern Cape, a landscape that informs and is
practice beyond what is intelligible to an other.
implicated in Mawande Ka Zenzile’s practice.
In contemporary practice, being intelligible is
In this text, I set out to read Ka Zenzile’s
often given unnecessary prominence. In this
artworks through a meditation on Dyani’s process in his music. This meditation serves
text, I use the Khelovedu word mut hala, which ̂ can be described as a dedication to pursuing
as a navigational tool to contemplate practices
a trace or an impulse, even if this does not
that draw from a myriad of references. Dyani
immediately follow a well-defined trajectory.
uses the term ‘black music family’ to describe the influences in his music, not negating the
Mut hala translates as following or looking for ̂ a trail that may not have a clear lead – the trace
cross-pollination of musical forms such as
may be hidden even to the person pursuing
umngqungqo, mbaqanga, kwela and marabi with jazz even though his preferred instrument,
it. Go latela mut hala is driven by an impulse ̂ to seek without a clear destination. Following
the double bass, is mainly played within the
the trace often looks like madness to those
jazz genre. Ka Zenzile’s practice also draws
watching at a distance, and perhaps to the
from a wide pool of references such as politics,
seeker as well because there is no immediate or
philosophy, history, popular culture and the
visible logic to the pursuit; this may also seem
esoteric, which he uses to think through
arrogant as the practitioner often has no large
societal systems that inform how we perceive the world we inhabit in his visual art. I draw
chorus cheering them on. In this sense, mut hala ̂ becomes equivalent to a persistent, tenacious
a parallel between Dyani and Ka Zenzile, for
and unrelenting quest.
both of whom the Eastern Cape becomes a conceptual framework, using the location
For Dyani and Ka Zenzile the muthala may ̂ not be visible in the finished work, the song or
and culture as a device to contemplate and
art object; it is within the process that informs
introduce another way of doing and thinking. Johnny Mbizo Dyani is a jazz musician
the practice that it is most visible. Muthala ̂ in some sense can be understood as a belief
who was born in the Eastern Cape in 1945.
that there is more that can be done and this
In 1964, as a late teen, he left South Africa for
belief is enough to keep the pursuit going.
Europe as a member of the well-known band
At times the trace is intuitive, but the process
The Blue Notes, and he lived in exile for the
of understanding is exhaustive. Dyani, in his
Muthala: Through Johnny Mbizo Dyani and Mawande Ka Zenzile ˆ
Kabelo Malatsie
interview with Kaganof, articulates that he was
formal instruction, something that requires
encouraged by his desire to ‘contribute’.
digging deeper, beyond the easily discernible
In the abovementioned interview, Dyani
components, which is described by Dyani in the
describes his practice and his understanding of
quote at the beginning of this text. In Dyani’s
jazz as something that required a lot of listening and hearing. His reference point remained
practice, following muthala seems to have led ̂ him to make the bass play beyond what was
African even when he was in exile where he
conventionally expected of the instrument.
was often invited to commercialise his practice,
Dyani was known for criticising South African
to make pop music. His understanding of jazz
musicians who ‘sold out’ and chose to create
depended on him recognising his own musical
popular music. He thought that African
and sonic heritage. He describes different
musicians had a reference point that American
scenarios where he realised he should not
musicians were perhaps far from, that they had
exclude his own understanding when playing.
the ability to push music and ‘contribute’, like
He speaks of being encouraged by an older
Fela Kuti and many other artists. Of course,
jazz musician, Dick Khoza, to ‘play it his own
there are many American musicians that Dyani
way. Break the rules.’ In another moment he
respected and that he simply said ‘had it’.
speaks highly of jazz musician Eric Nomvete
Having ‘it’ meant that you were a ‘contributor’,
playing at a concert ‘where everyone was playing
that you went beyond being understood and
so-called jazz’ and he was playing Pondo Blues
which encouraged people to be ‘aware of their
applauded. It is in Dyani’s following muthala ̂ that the Eastern Cape is visibly included in
own thing’. This making/playing of music that
his music. It is not only in the use of Xhosa
was inspired by his heritage, which includes
words in songs but how things were layered.
Dyani and the people he comes from and walks
This manner of layering becomes a form of
with, meant that he pushed his practice beyond
code, a conceptual framework. Dyani’s layering
being an intelligible musician concerned with
incorporated what he learned from his parents,
making popular music. Further on in the lengthy
who straddled and negotiated township
interview, Dyani mentions a conversation with
and rural ways of living. The shebeens, or
jazz musician Wes Montgomery about practice
cultural houses as Dyani called them, are
and the ability to ‘contribute’ which is not just
emblematic of this layering as different ways
playing for the sake of playing. Dyani ‘wanted
of being intermingled there, influencing his
to be a contributor’. He believed that following
inconceivable musical compositions.
1
muṱhala would lead to creating music with great
features physically in the materials used in
by accepting that his music is influenced by
his artworks and conceptually as a point of
its wider musical context – by American jazz
orientation as he unpacks what has become the
as much as Dyani’s experiences and cultural
normalised and one-dimensional understanding
heritage – and that this acceptance can lead
of our society. Whereas Dyani would play a
to music-making that pushes beyond what is
song for 24 hours straight, breaking down
currently accepted and legible.
its indiscernible components, Ka Zenzile is
I want to zoom in on the practice of ‘tracing’
250
In Ka Zenzile’s practice the Eastern Cape
depth, to ‘contribute’ to South African music
exhaustively dealing with the construction
a song’s audible and inaudible components to
of our perception of the world by looking
the things that cannot easily be understood by
at political, philosophical, popular culture
Muthala: Through Johnny Mbizo Dyani and Mawande Ka Zenzile ˆ
Kabelo Malatsie
1 Pondo Blues is the title of Eric Nomvete’s song. AmaPondo is one of the subgroups of AmaXhosa amongst AbaThembu, amaHlubi, amaMfengu.
and esoteric systems of thought, breaking
heritage that included older jazz musicians, Ka
down their unfathomable components.
Zenzile’s installations and interventions are
Ka Zenzile does not use art to make a logical
often made from materials from the Eastern
and convincing argument about systems of
Cape to anchor his pursuits in his exhibitions.
perception but rather, in following his muthala, ̂ he invites us to follow the trace that he leaves
This is seen in his decision to paint the
in his artworks. Ka Zenzile often says that
of thatch in the installation Intsika (p85) in the
the language/tools that are used to articulate
exhibition Uhambo luyazilawula (2018); in the
practice should be able to convey complexity
video Outwitting the Devil (p53), the sculpture
and nuance within the work; the translator
Abangoma and the smearing of the orange-
(curator/writer) must follow their own muthala ̂ in order to also ‘contribute’.
painted gallery wall with soil in the exhibition
Ka Zenzile was born in Lady Frere on 9
251
gallery walls with soil and ochre and his use
Archetypocalypse (2017, p92); in the sculpture Heritage of a noble man (p63) in his eponymous
January 1986, and grew up between Esingeni,
show of 2016; in the installations Rope Trick
Lady Frere and Nyanga East, Cape Town.
and Usoze in the exhibition Experimentation:
The Eastern Cape informs his practice not
All Hell Break Loose (2015). These marks point
only as a landscape that exists as a marker
to something that is not contained within the
of a very specific geographic location and
frame of perception.
its predominant cultural practices; it goes beyond this as it disrupts current frameworks
To conclude, mut hala is a form of practice ̂ engaged in a pursuit to understand or
of perceiving materiality. Like Dyani, Ka
comprehend one’s literacy that often seems
Zenzile demands that we look exhaustively at
incomprehensible to an other in order to
the work beyond the accepted ways of reading
create works that ‘contribute’. Dyani believed
artworks. The materials he uses include mud bricks in the installation Usoze (2015, p82-83),
that his following of mut hala would lead to ̂ creating music with great depth, to ‘contribute’
sticks in Rope Trick (2015, p75-77), and cow dung
to South African music by accepting that
and soil in his paintings and performances.
the music is influenced by its wider musical
These materials do not function as nativist
context, ‘the black music family’. Though I
and nostalgic references to his memory and
cannot assume to know Ka Zenzile’s intentions,
beloved landscape, as is often the case when
the materials he has brought to the fore
artists take on things from their distant past
point to a greater unlearning, not only of the
or childhood. Here, the materials act as a
simple readings of imagery and art objects
source code, a trace to follow, a conceptual
with our supposed critical education and
framework to navigate the many other materials
our notion of objectivity that often tricks us
that he uses in his pursuit to understand the
into believing that we are ‘contributing’ to
complex construction and composition of our
impartial knowledge-making. He is leading us
understanding of society. As Ka Zenzile would enthusiastically say, ‘I am interested in paradigm
to follow our own mut hala that may question ̂ and implicate us in enforcing hierarchical
shifts.’ Ka Zenzile’s artworks are traces of an
systems of meaning-making. In this sense, I
exhaustive process of understanding different intersecting paradigms in order to ‘contribute’
myself am trying to follow mut hala in order to ̂ start ‘contributing’ instead of making legible
to a shift. Like Dyani, who uses his musical
or intelligible what Dyani and Zenzile have
Muthala: Through Johnny Mbizo Dyani and Mawande Ka Zenzile ˆ
Kabelo Malatsie
created through a descriptive text that does not open up other complex ways of engaging practices. Following mut hala is an exhaustive ̂ process, which demands greater understanding of ways of doing that are not always visible when using accepted logical frameworks. If we follow Dyani’s and Ka Zenzile’s leads,
Reference Kaganof, A, Johnny Mbizo Dyani. ‘The Forest and the Zoo: Johnny Dyani Interview, 22-23 December 1985’. Chimurenga Chronic. https://chimurengachronic.co.za/johnnymbizo-dyani/ Kabelo Malatsie is an organiser and curator living in Johannesburg.
we need a different framework for writing or articulating practice, one that does not emphasise legibility and argument over following mut hala. ̂ Through Usoze and Ingqami (The end of an ideology) (2015-, p68-69), Ka Zenzile points us to keep turning the truths we have come to believe and identify with upside down and inside out, even if that means we become uncertain and a people in perpetual pursuit. The pursuit must start with the rejection of systems of objectivity and logic; we must break rules, disrupt spaces, not only for the sake of disruption but in order to follow muthala. ̂
252
Muthala: Through Johnny Mbizo Dyani and Mawande Ka Zenzile ˆ
Kabelo Malatsie
Mawande Ka Zenzile
Born 1986 in Lady Frere, Eastern Cape, South Africa; lives in Cape Town Solo exhibitions 2020 Udludlilali, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa 2018 Uhambo luyazilawula, Stevenson, Johannesburg, South Africa 2017 Archetypocalypse, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa 2016 Mawande Ka Zenzile, Stevenson, Johannesburg, South Africa 2015 Statecraft, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa 2013 Experimentation: All Hell Break Loose, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa 2011 Autobiography of Mawande Ka Zenzile: Iingcuka ezombethe iimfele zeegusha, VANSA, Cape Town, South Africa 2009 Crawling Nation, AVA (Association for Visual Arts) Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa Group exhibitions 2020 Matereality, Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa 2019 The Stronger We Become, South African Pavilion, 58th Venice Biennale, Italy 2018 About Face, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa Both, and, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa 2017 Tell Freedom: 15 South African Artists, Kunsthal KAdE, Amersfoort, the Netherlands Looking After Freedom, Michaelis Galleries, University of Cape Town, South Africa A Painting Today, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa 2016 I Love You Sugar Kane, ICA Indian Ocean, Port Louis, Mauritius 2015 Material Matters: New Art from Africa, ICA Indian Ocean, Port Louis, Mauritius Schema, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
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Biography
2014 Chroma, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa 2013 A Sculptural Premise, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa After the Rainbow Nation, Nirox Foundation Sculpture Park, Krugersdorp, South Africa Between the Lines, Michaelis Gallery, University of Cape Town, South Africa 2012 The Exuberant Project, Gordon Institute for Performing and Creative Arts, University of Cape Town, South Africa Material/Representation, Brundyn + Gonsalves, Cape Town, South Africa 2009 Umahluko, Cape 09 Biennale, Lookout Hill, Cape Town, South Africa 2008 Abazobi, South Africa and Norway X Marks the Spot, AVA Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa 2007 Stroke of Genius, Pretoria, South Africa Soul of Africa, Pretoria, South Africa Awards 2014 Tollman Award for the Visual Arts, South Africa 2013 Michaelis Prize, University of Cape Town, South Africa Residencies 2019 Cité internationale des arts, Paris, France 2014 Nafasi Art Space, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania 2008 Abazobi, Norway Academic conferences 2013 Between the Lines, Michaelis School of Fine Art, Cape Town, South Africa, and Hochschule für Bildende Künste, Braunschweig, Germany 2012 The Exuberant Project, Gordon Institute for Performing and Creative Arts, University of Cape Town, South Africa 2011 Thinking Africa + Diaspora Differently, Centre for African Studies, University of Cape Town, South Africa
Bibliography
Books and catalogues 2019 Mabaso, Nkule, and Nomusa Makhubu (eds). The Stronger We Become. The South African Pavilion. Newcastle: Natal Collective 2016 Momodu-Gordon, Hansi. ‘Interview with Mawande Ka Zenzile’. In Nine Weeks, 25-40. Cape Town: Stevenson 2015 Mawande Ka Zenzile: The Problem We Didn’t Create. Catalogue 83. Cape Town: Stevenson Selected articles and reviews 2020 Nkomo, Vusumzi. ‘Multiplicity of Knowing: Mawande Ka Zenzile’s “Udludlilali”’. ArtThrob, 23 March. https://artthrob.co.za/2020/03/23/ multiplicity-of-knowing-mawande- ka-zenziles-udludlilali/ 2019 Mduli, Same. ‘A case of an art language through the work of South African artist Mawande Ka Zenzile’. In The Stronger We Become. The South African Pavilion, edited by Nkule Mabaso and Nomusa Makhubu. Newcastle: Natal Collective Tsotsi, Themba. ‘The South African Pavilion builds a bridge between past and present’. Contemporary And, 30 April. https://www.contemporaryand. com/magazines/the-south-africanpavilion-builds-a-bridge-betweenpast-and-present/ 2018 Anguria, Lois. ‘Art practice beyond theoretical learning: An interview with Mawande Ka Zenzile’. Conversation X, 17 September. http://www.conversationx. com/2018/09/17/mawande-ka-zenzile/ Tsotsi, Themba. ‘Archetypocalypse’. Nka Journal of Contemporary African Art 42-43 (November): 298-301 Tsumele, Edward. ‘Return to the roots to find deep aesthetics’. Business Day, 30 May 2016 Fikeni, Lwandile. ‘Everywhere and nowhere’. City Press, 5 March Leiman, Layla. ‘Mawande Ka Zenzile
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Bibliography
on intuition and allowing a more subjective space for art’. Between 10 and 5, 8 September. http://10and5. com/2016/09/08/mawande-ka-zenzileon-intuition-and-allowing-a-moresubjective-space-for-art/ Matshediso, Matla, Bianca Stevens and Bianca Jacquet, ‘Lessons on lost knowledge’. Mail & Guardian, 11 March. https://mg.co.za/article/2016-0311-mawande-ka-zenzile-finds-lostknowledge Mdluli, Same. ‘Diary and Materiality: Mawande Ka Zenzile’s “Mawande Ka Zenzile”’. ArtThrob, 22 March. https:// artthrob.co.za/2016/03/22/diary-andmateriality-mawande-ka-zenzilesmawande-ka-zenzile/ 2015 Fikeni, Lwandile. ‘The state of our freedom’. City Press, 26 April Mabaso, Nkule. ‘The Art of the Possible: Mawande Ka Zenzile’. ArtThrob, 16 May. https://artthrob.co.za/2015/05/16/ the-art-of-the-possible/ Shorkend, Danny. ‘Rope binds rumination with twigs and cow dung’. Cape Times, 27 April Thurman, Chris. ‘When a postcolonial hero gets the club of kultur’. Business Day, 8 May Thurman, Chris. ‘Cow dung rather than faeces, but it is of our time’. Business Day, 24 April 2014 O’Toole, Sean. ‘Maybe if you made this video it would be more technically resolved!’ ArtThrob, 2 May. https:// www.stevenson.info/sites/default/ files/2013_sean_o%27toole_ artthrob_2013.pdf
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Published by Stevenson © 2020 Mawande Ka Zenzile for artworks © 2020 the authors for their texts ISBN 978-0-620-83290-8 Editor Sinazo Chiya Co-ordination Sophie Perryer Design Gabrielle Guy Photography Mario Todeschini, Anthea Pokroy Printing Hansa Digital and Litho Printing (Pty) Ltd, Cape Town
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