Girl

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec - Au Moulin Rouge (1892-95)

Until mid-January, the Musée d'Orsay is hosting an exhibition entitled Splendeurs et misères. Images de la prostitution, 1850-1910 which delves into the lives of prostitutes as represented in art in the early 20th century. The museum's employees were striking, so on the day that I went the museum was overrun with people. The prostitution exhibit was overcrowded and hard to enjoy as everyone bumped past one another. What I got from it was a) to return another day because what I did see was excellently curated, b) that black and white porn films from 1909 are awkward when viewed with about 40 other people with a median age of 60 and c) that in the past 100 years, things have changed as much as they haven't.

By coincidence I live in the area that the exhibition centres around. Montmartre housed most of the brothels and bars where the girls could work, as well as offering cheap housing for artists like Manet, Degas and Picasso. The exhibition also details the world of higher class escorts who catered to the extremely wealthy and mostly managed to marry someone with a title, thus ensuring their livelihood. But for most women, prostitution was what they had to do to survive: in addition to being washerwomen, maids or bar ladies, they had to supplement their income by selling their bodies in order to survive in the city.

Now, a century later, the street between the Moulin Rouge and Anvers consists of sex shops and tourist stores. To the left of my door is the what seems to be the gay leather sex-wrestling outfits store, and to the right the dildo one. Then there is the Sexodrom with various floors (and their are urgently looking for a sales person, judging by the sign that I have walked past daily in the last weeks). All of them somehow have signs that just read 'Sex', so I am not sure about the specific customers that they cater to. It can't just be tourists that get lost on their way from the Sacre Coeur to the Moulin Rouge. These shops must survive because there are actually enough people buying 50-Shades-of-Gray branded handcuffs and pleather suits and porn on DVDs.

There is a certain seediness to it all. As with the red-light districts of other cities, it seems like something to poke fun at, something where tourists can enter and as a joke buy a little somethin-somethin. But just as in the 1900s there must be a social and cultural undercurrent now that accepts the need for prostitution. What is that need though? Is sex really a need, something that should be pencilled into the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or added to the Ten Commandments or whatever system of belief it is that humanity adheres to? What are the implications when ever increasingly the body comes at a price? And here, I am not just talking about literally paying for the sexual services of a person, of money exchanging hands. No, what are the consequences of when social media become sexual media? As much as apps such as Grinder, Tinder and here, adopte un mec (jip, "adopt a guy") are used to simply connect with other (mutually interested and interesting) people, one cannot deny that most of them are also used as hook-up apps.

I find it all disingenuous. Everyone searching for easy accompaniment, for no-strings-attached, for emotional uninvolvement and not knowing anothers names, and yet everyone somehow seeming so damn lonely all the time.

Lonely Souls

This past weekend I went to Bremen, again with the international students. It was miserable, gray and the kind of cold that infiltrates your bones and refuses to leave for the next months. Even our arrival at the central station was marked by how unspectacular everything there was: simply another big building with groups of anti-establishment homeless young adults and other homeless skulking about, reeking of beer and piss. The city tour was immensely boring as the lady who showed us around did not seem to notice that she was talking to students and not a group of geriatrics. Luckily that evening some of us went out and met up with my friend Pina, with whom we ended up at a gay club, dancing to Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, and other 90s hits.

As half the group is Catholic, we attended mass in the Bremer Cathedral, which must have been the first time in years that I sat through a sermon. More interesting that being preached to were the stained glass windows and the architecture of the cathedral. Afterwards, a Russian girl accompanied me to the Weserburg Museum of Modern Art, which divides its permanent collection and temporary exhibitions between 5 floors.

After exploring four floors and contemplating rooms filled with Rothko-ish colour paintings, children's drawings and cultural artifacts exhibited next to art works we opened the door to a black room in the fifth floor. Initially I thought it would be another strange video installation that I refused to suffer through, but Richard Mosse's The Enclave (2012) was miraculous.

Four large screens formed a rectangle in the middle of the dark room, with a screen hanging at a distance on two more sides (so 6 screens in total). We went into the rectangle and focused on the film shown on only one of them, the rest were blank, bathed in black. The film showed what looked like a refugee camp in between strangely pink hills, with African people moving out of the camera's way as it progressed through the makeshift village. As we followed the camera's path, the other screens went on and suddenly we were overwhelmed by this pink colour that did not seem to fit the suffering these people must have endured (and are still enduring).

Turns out the footage was filmed on 16mm infrared film, used during wartime to differentiate between plants and people as the chlorophyll in the plants shows up in red-pink tones. For this film alone it was worth going to Bremen.

Richard Mosse: The Impossible Image from Frieze on Vimeo.

I should live in salt

So. Art exhibit #2 was Absa's L'Atelier, held at the Absa building in Joburg's CBD. Getting there was quite testing because there was traffic everywhere and as soon as we hit the inner city we stopped moving because of the build-up of cars, commuters and taxis. My spidey senses tell me that this was a very larney do, because of the following clues: 

- there was a guest list. 

- the ladies were all wearing heels. 

- lots of waiters in black. 

- there was an MC and speeches. 

- it reeked of pretension

- I was a +1. Haha. 

It was a mixed bag. Some of the artworks were plain silly (see the rainbow-coloured rugby balls and the basin below). Some were mediocre. Some were really cool. My favourites were the two works by Skullboy because they were fun, awkward and at times slightly sad as well. They felt human, whereas most of the other works felt more like they were created to get into the exhibit, not to express a particular emotion. I guess, like everywhere else, there is a lot of bullshitting that goes on in art.

Sasha Hatherly, Circadian I, 113111

Blantina Khutso Mmethi, Rhythmic Railway

Daandrey Steyn, Kalosesthesia & Eidosesthesia

Heidi Janice Mielke, This little piggy...wore high-heeled shoes

Cassandra Wilmot, Prosthetic II

Pierre Henri Le Riche, Hierargie (Hierarchy)

Louis De Villiers (AKA Skullboy), The Lost Supper

Andrew Sprawson, Drawn Curtains II

Andrew Sprawson, Detail from Drawn Curtains II

Megan Patricia Mcnamara, Flood

Skullboy, You & Me

From here onwards, it is just individual parts of Skullboy's You & Me piece.

Nothing

Most often, art does nothing for me. I'll search for who it might be aimed at and who might purchase it, but ultimately art is a gut reaction, a stirring of an emotion that says: Ah! Now this, this I like! In turn, what I like might not be liked at all by others. Or one might admire the craftmanship but not the subject matter. Art is a fickle, intangible response by the self to what it experiences when looking at/touching a 2D image or 3D object.

This week I went to two exhibits, and the first one was rather disappointing. It was titled Metro Musings and held at the University of Pretoria's Rautenbach Hall on Monday evening. I randomly saw an invite on FB and decided to attend. It was rather disappointing because most of the works were by fine arts lecturers, and it didn't seem all that cool. Maybe my eye just needs better training.

The sun going down on my way to the exhibit.

Diane Victor - Vagrants from the circle (Panel 1), 2013

Diane Victor - Vagrants from the circle (Panel 2), 2013

Diane Victor - Vagrants from the circle (Panel 3), 2013

Elfriede Dreyer - Ship of Fools I, 2012

Frikkie Eksteen - Detail from Blindfold - South, 2013

Frikkie Eksteen - Blindfold - East, 2013

Pieter Swanepoel - Whitewash, 2013

Magdel van Rooyen - Concrete Conversations, 2010

Magdel van Rooyen - Detail from Concrete Conversations, 2010

Leana van der Merwe - Untitled II, 2013

Pistol Dreams

I spend most of my nights in old sweatpants and a T-shirt, eating instant noodles while watching an excessive amount of series on my laptop. Not the past weeks though. I actually combed my hair and put on some heels. What for? Art. One has to dress up for art. Apart from Exposure and Exhibit A, there were the PPC Young Concrete Sculpture Awards, which sees concrete giant PPC (of the elephant ad) in partnership with the Association of Arts Pretoria and encourages artists to use concrete in unexpected ways.
 
What follow are a few images from the exhibit:

Liberty Battson, Concrete on Canvas, 2012

 

Vincent Elmer Siebert Kruger's Marikana hat a little sign that encouraged playing. Best. I mean, who doesn't like playing with something at an art exhibit, where normally you are too afraid to move in case you touch/damage a work and, well, have to buy something you cannot afford.

Colleen Winter, Pussy power, 2012

Evert Harmen van Engelenhoven, A little world with big possibilities, 2012

Close up of Zyma Amien's The day they came for our house, 2012.

There is winter in every spring

I was sweating like a pig. It was really hot in the Rautenbach Hall. Maybe menopause was hitting me about 30 years too early, but I spent most of the final year Fine Arts students' exhibition, entitled Exhibit A, thinking about if it would be terribly rude to lift my arms and walk around like a zombie to cool down. Or if drinking another white wine/fruit juice mixture would help. Or if there was some fan I could go make friends with. It was all to no avail. Maybe sweating this profusely could count as a workout.

I don't really know what artists do, except that they spend time in their studios drinking coffee, watching Adventure Time (or some equally banal series), moaning about having too much work to do, being rewarded for constantly fucking up whilst doing nothing, and going to a lot of gigs where there is mediocre art and free wine to make it all seem less mediocre.

Exhibit A somehow does not fall into the "hey art you bore me" category (I went again when it was raining and empty-ish to verify that the initial assessment was not due to heat stroke or something). There are a lot of different media on display, ranging from sculpture to photography to installations to drawings and paintings. However, many of the students did incorporate something digital, be it a projection, or a video, or thinking that showing the audience your Photoshop skills qualifies as a great work of art.

My cousin and I walked around, trying to decide what would we buy if we had money. If I was a somewhat trendy guest house owner, where the beds are covered with crisp white linen and the walls painted in something off-white/sand-ish, I'd buy some of Libby Bell's works to add a hint of colour and local flavour (because I am a trendy guest house owner, none of that typical 'this is Africa' art and beadwork would suffice).

Libby Bell,  This is my home, not yours -series, 2012

Libby Bell, Close-up of Acacia gates, 2012

Now, if I'd own a hair salon that charges exorbitant amounts for a terrible hair cut, I'd purchase one of Zaheera Ismail's hair-prints and hang them up so that clients could a) see what an awesome hair stylist I was, b) how when I do hair the face becomes irrelevant (except for the ear, of course), and c) how it becomes art (or something equally pretentious).

Zaheera Ismail, Red Space, 2012

My cousin liked Xandri Pretorius' prints of semi-fragmented people. It does fit in some clinically white bachelor pad, situated in some blocky appartment building in Joburg and bought as a 'thoughtful' birthday gift by a hipster friend that wants to be more than just friends.

Xandri Pretorious, Fragmented: Kayla (Or it could be Nushka, I cannot recall), 2012

To me it seems like all the 4th years wanted to prove that they could not in fact do anything that is similar to classical art and actually requires some effort and talent, preferring instead to take photos with their Canon DSLRs on 'Auto'-setting and watching YouTube videos in order to learn how to merge layers in Photoshop.

Cue Danai Chinyenze's "Photography/Digital Art". Although decent to look at, I assume he did nothing of substance throughout his studies at University and in order to produce an extensive body of work in the very short timespan before the final exhibit he resorted to taking meth and jumping around in front of (yet again) the camera. Those YouTube-advice videos prove fruitful as in every image we see multiple Danais merging on 2D. This is done mostly in black-and-white, because every one knows that photography in monochrome is always more art than mere mechanical (or is it digital now?) production.

Danai Chinyenze, 2012

Heidi Fourie produced buy-able paintings if one is old and/or likes life to be still. I mean, she can paint, that is indisputable, but I wonder if her skills would not have been better used on something besides collections of tea bags and dying Frangipani flowers.

Heidi Fourie, 2012.

Justin Bergh did a number of chalk, charcoal and ink drawings of baboons, which I have no opinion on. I guess they would sell well because they are already framed and people could buy it and hang it up in their spare bedroom immediately.

Justin Bergh, Untiltled 6, 2012, and Allen Laing's pedestal and sculptures reflected in it.

In a corner of the hall Allen Laing has recreated his studio, because his sculptures are only noticeable if they are a chaotic clutter that threatens to fall from a slanted shelving unit. Art is not made only to be purchased, but I assume artists have to survive somehow if their parents are not rich people from Mpumalanga, or wealthy enough to fly their non-Capitalism-endorsing children to Dubai for a quick getaway. Laing might win prizes, but no one buys the stuff he makes. If I were not broke without the prospect of ever earning real money, I'd buy the pedestal he made to put his freakish little sculptures on instead of the art. I like the pedestal and am fascinated by the King of Limbs, but the rest I'd give to disadvantaged children to play with until the sculptures break and can be returned to the ground as dust. Hopefully Paris will incite some fresh inspiration where it is not Allentimeallthetime.

Allen Laing's  mock studio

There are two things I did like. One is a print by Zaheera Ismail entitled Screened Palm because it does not fit in with her hair-salon prints and looks ghostly. I watched Casper as a child, so ghosts are great. Or it could look kind of Cleopatra-ish because of the milkyness. It doesn't really matter what it looks like, though.

Zaheera Ismail, Screened Palm, 2012

The other is Annika Prinsloo's (Cut)opia. We were wondering if she had laser-cut all the little figures and details, but the absence of burn marks and being told that she hand-cut everything proved us wrong. The main reason I like it is because it looks like it took an enormous amount of time to make and a dedication to getting the works just right.

 Annika Prinsloo, (Cut)opia, 2012

Earlier I stated that Exhibit A did not bore me. Instead, I found it disappointing. Not all art appeals to everyone else, but the ability to appreciate what one does not like still has to be a possibility. And this is where most of the artists (some I have not mentioned because I just cannot remember their work and was thus not interested in photographing it) are a let down. It feels as though there is no real passion for their craft, as though they only produced enough objects and images because their degrees depended on it, not because they actually liked what they were doing.

Overall, Exhibit A was a lesson in personal disillusionment with what artists do. We grow up thinking that the stereotypical artist produces work because to live there is no other option but to follow this intense affection. Even though earnings are dismal, the artist must sway from the corporate path that others have taken, because his/her work is like a love affair, an ardent affection that has to be maintained, ha, til death do them part.

Instead, it seems like young artists merely make "art" because they want their parents to buy them an iMac and finance four years of mediocrity. Nothing I saw was inspired (except for Prinsloo, maybe). Art has to stir something, has to evoke an emotional response, but this was just bland, like getting a plain slice of white bread when you were expecting a Dagwood.





* I tried not to get the artworks' names wrong, but there might be errors.
** This is a subjective opinion, others might feel that this exhibit was great.