Reference, Deference, Difference: Illustrative writings on the Work and Practice of the Magolide Col

REFERENCE DEFERENCE DIFFERENCE ILLUSTRATIVE WRITINGS ON THE WORK AND PRACTICE OF THE MAGOLIDE COLLECTIVE IN REGARDS TO, ‘THE COUNTER-SPACE OF POP CULTURE IN ZAIRE’.

This is a podcast recorded by Beautiful News a week prior to the opening of, ‘The Counter-Space of Pop Culture in Zaire’ at TMRW in Keyes Art Mile. The podcast gives background into the solo practice of Mzoxolo ‘X’ Mayongo- and elaborates on the conception of the MAGOLIDE Collective. Adilson De Oliveira and Vincent Baloyi join the podcasts as guests- to speak about their work and contributions to the exhibition.

Listen: https://soundcloud.com/magolide-collective/the-counter-space-of-pop-culture-in-zaire-podcast

The Counter-Space of Pop Culture in Zaire Installation View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuCFcqKnCSI

MAGOLIDE is a duo collective formed between Mzoxolo Mayongo & Adilson De Oliveira in the beginning of 2019. We view ourselves as alchemists, who in turn are concerned with the transmutation of matter into visual knowledge, in particular with our attempts at converting academic writings (history of art) as much as broader global histories; rewriting the narrative of the African body (continent) and other marginalised bodies whilst tending to contemporary issues of identity, race and sexuality into a consolidated body of art. We are influenced by the writings of Griselda Pollock and her theory of the avant-garde as a determination of reference, deference and difference- and began thinking around her ideas of modernism as a starting point of a practice heavily centred around decolonising forms of artistic production, curation, and dissemination. We began looking at our position and work in relation to master narratives which came before us, and in turn, we saw an array of historical bias in the manner in which the book of ‘the’ history [of art] was written. White heteronormative males were pushed to the foreground of these philosophical and conceptual movements, while people of colour and those who identified as queer were disregarded, pushed to the background and written out of the history books.

Fundamentally, our work attempts to question the place of the western-scholastic institution in art, and whether these institutions define an artist’s success in the art world. So too, we use anthropological research and artistic principles and ethos of performance art, mediated through the ‘body’, as an instrument of communication.

We explore the dynamic conceptual ideas of the human condition and experiences, its histories and environment- interrogating nuanced complexities and dispositions.

This is methodically executed through the body and by the body. Performative acts are embraced throughout our work, as they convey the artistic expression needed to be shown; often in the political space of the oppressed, marginalized and silenced. The body becomes the vehicle of channelling collective histories and shared experiences in which we tell our forgotten stories and unwritten histories. The collaborative nature of our artistic practice is based on radical acts of decolonial theory, thinking through our practice in both academic framing and cultural working in the production of knowledge as much as the creation of artistic expression. These notions are creatively practiced through dismantling western frameworks inherent in both global history and art history. We hope this offers institutional critique therein- presenting investigations that critiques the erasure and counterfactual depictions of a true African body and history. Challenging monolithic history-telling- we intend to produce new modes of knowledge promulgation. Essentially, it is a re-imagining of Africa’s omitted histories and representations. Looking through the lens of Afro-centric, Pan-Africanism and ‘post- coloniality’.

Politics of the ‘self’ is evident in our work, as we aim to ask the question of our own positionality in an ever shifting contemporary art world. Performance is the primary mode through which residue is generated. This residue is then mediated through our use of different mediums, which allows for the performed to be translated into new realms of dissemination.

Throughout this essay, we will discuss the ideas in which we have come to define, perceive, and understand regarding concepts of decolonial or decolonisation as a critical practice. In doing so, we will elaborate on the thinking of Fred Moten, Mignolo, Panchia, Hennessy Youngman, Valerie Cassel Oliver, and Laura Mulvey as their writings, and lectures lend themselves to the notions of decolonial thought, and critical practice as a form of decolonisation. We will constantly be referring to a body of work we produced titled, ‘The Counter-Space of Pop Culture in Zaire’- as a way of drawing a conceptual and comparative analysis of the manner in which we think we

are dismantling histories of modernism- and bringing forward a mode of practice that is decolonial in theory. We will speak to the manner in which our work was conceived, produced, curated, and the concepts surrounding it disseminated. Secondly, the conception of our motifs, references, and symbols will be discussed- as many of them invoke the notions surrounding Griselda Pollock’s definition of modernism as a game of reference, deference, and difference. A game in which we as a collective have embraced as a form of artistic decree. A game in which we think could be used to pull to pieces the problematic monolithic histories still pervasively controlling the art world today. We hope this essay will aid in establishing the theoretical natures of our practice and the manner in which we have come to determine what constitutes decolonial art promulgation.

When consulting the nature in which our work would function within an institutional space, we as a collective were resentful of the manner in which Western Art History has a tendency to praise the individual in complete isolation from the people in which said individual garnered inspiration, critique, or technical traits from. We found this value system to be problematic, as an art show is not achieved by one holistic individual, but rather many individuals coming together as a collective force. Many who more often than not are not accredited for their contributions. Fred Moten’s, ‘All That Beauty’, presents writing as a communal effort, and exhibits a decolonial approach to how one can accredit those whom have contributed to a work. It strives to blur the line between the original writer, and those who might have influenced the direction in which the final work went. Each poem includes a list of collaborators, though it’s not certain whether they literally co-wrote the poems, or whether Moten is in conversation with their work, and perhaps assembling his own establishments from inspiration drawn from their concepts. Either way, these notions of collaboration ascertain that any form of collaboration and individual provenance in dictating authorship is contested and insincere. As if to underline this point of false authorship, the poems more often than not beckon a nod to the other writers (Nate Mackey, Harryette Mullen, Claudia Rankine) and musicians (Son House, Sun Ra, Thelonious Monk); these names are not used as mere reference points to drive home what Moten is putting down, but rather they insinuate his interest and inspiration from these cultures and philosophies, they are testimonies of stimulus to those whose art and thought underwrote the final product that is the poems. This all is brilliantly framed within the first foreword pages of the reading, as if to reiterate the point that less is more- that to explain the nature of the collaboration in a tedious inundated fashion would serve only to render the point of collective practice pointless. All this is accomplished through a simple foreword to the poetry, “come on, get it! with Michelle Castañeda, Laura Harris, Arthur Jafa, Ra Judy, Julian Moten, Lorenzo Moten, Valerie Cassel Oliver, Elizabeth Povinelli, Denise Ferreira da Silva, and Wu T sang’n’em” (Moten, 2017: 5). This line of thinking around collective practice is what inspired our thought process in regards to authorship and propagating the ideas behind- ‘The Counter Space of Pop Culture in Zaire’.

The title of The ‘Counter-space of Pop Culture in Zaire’ records a multitude of several elements which speak to the notion of omitted African histories and narratives, and the act of re-writing and re-inserting said African histories and narratives into the forefront of the contemporary landscape of the future. Essentially, it’s broken down into three components:

1. Our definition of ‘The Counter-space’ signifies the intersection of the new space in which digital technologies and innovation hold as an artistic medium in encountering the old traditions and visual language of art. This was important as a sufficient part of the show used 21st century mediums such as Virtual/Augmented Reality and 3-D printed sculptures.

2. ‘Pop culture’ is a mode of known aesthetic language which is already exists as a cultural transmitter of information through mass media. Aimed particularly at a younger part of society which has been prevalent over the past decades emerging from the 60s and 70s. ‘Popular Culture’ was constructed as a Western framework which strove to pioneer social and cultural construction of change through the use of media. We use ‘Pop Culture’ images as a tool to break down and over-turn the complex ideas and concepts engaged with in the show. This speaks back to the audience engaging with this body of work as much as contemporary society, which then serves as a reference pool in which people can locate themselves within the work.

3.

‘Zaire’ represents an integral fabric of the African history and narrative which we found to rhyme with a multitude of African histories throughout the continent. Mignolo’s writing becomes useful here, as his work discusses the notions of a validity of spaces and understanding among people through the medium of cartography. A Highly contested history and cultural landmark: Zaire is a known time and space of violent atrocities, dictatorship, repression, pillaging of resources as much as loss of the African body instigated both by Mobutu Sese Seko and Western forces. But in contrast, hugely important cultural events took place in Zaire: whether that be in regards to sport, art, theatrical performance or film. We use all of these histories and known cultural contexts of Zaire as a reference point to speak on complex intersectional narratives of representation, identity, socio-politics, and lived experiences of the land. These notions simultaneously manufacture and contradict one another in a multifaceted mix of propaganda, anecdote, spy-craft and instrumentalization. Fred Moten immediately becomes relevant as his writing explores the notions of the effect surveillance and voyeuristic power structures have on a colonial structure. Rumble in the Jungle is depicted in ‘Zaire’ (VR) as a floor, an important highlight to the exhibition as much as to the VR piece it is depicted, in addition it is underpinning and emphasizing the over-arching idea of the spectacle and (celebration) of voyeurism the event held, both in that time and as a global and cultural, and historical event. Heralds to Zaire 74 are made within Emergence: Afri Viola (TOMB VR)- as the semiotics surrounding that concert interested us thematically and conceptually. These events in essence, were a herald to the negation of the true nature of the countries violent socio-political context it existed in.

Human discourse enables the voyeuristic nature of pop culture in relation to ideas surrounding spectacle. It is not something that is explained, but rather something which is birthed through power dynamics. A narrative of heroic action and celebration of Muhammad Ali in the boxing ring becomes a key figure of commentary to a larger power dynamic of a ‘regime of truth’... issues of deliberate selection and extraction in instances of historic events is a problem facing many narratives of global histories. In a nutshell: the meaning behind the exhibition’s title of, ‘The Counter-space of Pop Culture in Zaire’ presents a series of investigations that critique the erasure and counterfactual depictions of a true African history. Challenging monolithic history-telling which intends to produce new modes of knowledge promulgation. We are cautious in the manner in which truth is claimed. Essentially, we are trying to re-imagine Africa’s omitted histories and representations. Looking through the lens of Pan-Africanism and ‘post-coloniality’- Zaire becomes important in the manner in which it’s histories rhyme with those of South Africa- and the rest of the continent. The title beckons on the creative technology of mixed realities to remember the passing visceral moments and transported lived histories & cultural events into immortal digital space and virtual non-linearity.

The Counter-space of Pop Culture in Zaire (VR) View: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q6F5sEl7R0)

This body of work culminated at The Mixed Reality Workshop (TMRW Gallery). “The Mixed Reality Workshop has been established to make existing, immersive and interactive digital technology more broadly accessible to creative professionals in order to expand on their artistic practices and normalise complex technological thinking for audiences of contemporary art. TMRW commissions and exhibits key new works by emerging and established artists and provides both educational programmes and the necessary forum for critical engagement with conceptual, political and ethical issues related to working across modalities of reality.” 1 The first attempt at removing notions of authorship came about through the show vinyl. It was important for us as a collective that it spoke to the notions of a spirited group of collaborators, whose efforts where scattered throughout the work present, thus beckoning the notion that doing so insists that collaboration ascertains that any form of collaboration and individual provenance in dictating authorship is deceitful and insincere. Hafiza Asmal, Vincent Baloyi, and Gabriel Baard were the primary collaborators of this exhibition as they enacted and performed different roles and characters as a reimagining of Africa’s omitted histories and representations- roles which were crucial to the production of the final work. Moreover, Hafiza brought in a unique voice with elements of her individual artistic practice in relation to our overarching concept as MAGOLIDE. In regards to Vincent Baloyi and our collaborative work with him, we intended to create, curate, and direct works and shows which aim to herald a call for historical insertion, as well as the overturning of the convention evident throughout art history of forgotten, and omitted black modernists. This was an important contribution to the show- as Vincent’s work speaks conceptually to the ideas of omitted histories and significant contributions made to art history. We are worked with Vincent to try and ensure he is inserted and re-established back into South African Art History. In many ways he has functioned as a mentor to us, and his work and practice inspired moments present in our work.

Our partnership with Vincent is one that we as a collective have felt crucial to our practice, as his insights surrounding modernism in South Africa sparks a dynamic conversation between his work and ours.

This conversation around curatorial practice and the work of Vincent Baloyi began at The Point of Order (TPO)2 when we had just begun creating the body of work foregrounded in the beginning of this essay. This relationship stemmed from a curatorial mission surrounding the manners in which one constructs an archive and how an archive can work to build an artists career. Vincent Baloyi was born on the 14th of February, 1954, six years after apartheid was written into law and policy in South Africa. Due to the socio-political & economic impacts of Apartheid, Vincent, along with his work was systematically victimized and discriminated against under a racially oppressive and authoritarian society. When work did sell it was usually for incredibly under-appreciated prices, only to be flipped for thousands at an auction house. It was here that we as a collective launched our conception of exploring Vincent’s life and archive. The more we dug up, the more we realized Vincent Baloyi is a name that rarely comes up in conversation when one discusses many crucial aspects of South Africa’s Art History. He has had work exhibited at the Louvre Museum, worked alongside internationally acclaimed artists such as Eduardo Villa and Sam Nhlengethwa, and based on his timeline and geographical locations throughout his career he was amongst these names at the same time, producing the same level of work, and forming amongst a collective of modernists performing avant-garde gambits crucial to the art history landscape of South Africa. In our opinion, we believe his contributions to modernism in South Africa, as well as the cultural landscape - have been overlooked and pushed to the background of South African history. It was with this in mind, that the notion of a lost master painter, drove this curatorial project at TPO. 1 2

Source: (https://www.edenlabs.africa/tmrw) Source: (https://www.wits.ac.za/wsoa/fine-arts/point-of-order/)

Vincent Baloyi at work assembling found scrap car parts for a series of sculptures constructed for the, ‘Counter-Space of Pop Culture in Zaire’

In exploration of a curatorial strategy we looked to the writings of Nontobeko Mabongi Ntombela in regards to her masters’ thesis on A Fragile Archive: Refiguring, Re-imagining, Re-presenting, Gladys Mgudlandlu- as her curatorial work strived to remember and place Mgudlandlu on a timeline of South African art history through correcting past archives and thus forming new ones.

This act of ‘using the archive’ without discretion, and thus creating archival inaccuracies also spans into the work that is sold online under auction houses. A vast amount of work as well as the biography’s written on Vincent are titled incorrectly, conceptually framed inaccurately, and placed in a time-frame not true to the conception of the artwork. These inaccuracies are in turn what drove our curatorial strategy. We chose to envelop the notions of a curatorial strategy in which the use of archival material such as biographies, performance residues, historical documentation and new archival material such as film and books were placed amongst one another to disrupt timelines, re-write false narratives and re-enact a form of retrospective of Vincent Baloyi as a contributor to the arts.

Understanding we would have to convey a new archive- we decided to conduct an interview with Vincent in which we asked him a series of questions relating to who owns these works, did he attain any monetary gain from selling them, are the names, mediums, and briefs on the pieces correct, and any other information around his biography he could give us. The interview acted as a mediator between the existing archive and the archive we were going to build. We looked at O’Doherty’s writings on, ‘The gallery as a gesture’, in regards to how we could achieve merging the old with the new. O’Doherty states that the original audience has no appreciation of the original gesture as it is being carried out as he believes that it is only when the gesture is given context through remembrance can an audience learn to garner appreciation for what they saw.

Essentially, our exhibition strived to give the audience a ‘notion’ of the original gesture through high-resolution, framed ‘original’ artworks of Vincent Baloyi- these framed works strived to replicate the real woks (and act as a stand in for them). The interview acted as a form of context through remembrance- to allow for the audience to garner an appreciation for what has come before, as well as what they now see. The act of remembrance is one which is fragile- and in regards to building an archive- it offers up subjective points often negated in academic writings. The books collected strived to solidify this context through factual publication- allowing what Vincent says in the interview to be backed up and consolidated through publicised text.

We chose to look at A Fragile Archive as a blue-print to establish a conversation around the manner in which an archive is formed in regards to Vincent Baloyi. Nontobeko’s thesis examines the quandary which occurs when an archive is missing in relation to an artist, and how that impacts the production of a biography. Nontobeko also examines the manner in which curation can be used as a form of imperative research. This is elaborated on further when Nontobeko establishes how one singular short biography can be used to consistently misrepresent an artist. “Mgudlandlu’s short biography provides an understanding of her life, geographical location and position within the context of where she worked and lived. There are a number of other publications that have included her short biography. These biographies often carried misrepresenting information on the artist’s life and achievements, such as in Mgudlandlu’s case, where her date of birth is incorrectly captured. I would like to look at how these discrepancies occur and how they reinforce what becomes considered fact about her life.” (Nontobeko 2013: 32). We found that the approaches, aims, and meth-

-ods used by Nontobeko rhymed with that of our own- allowing a correlation to form. A Fragile Archive became useful in understanding the inconsistencies in Vincent’s archive and why such inconsistencies have been allowed to remain unscathed. “Such mistakes happen in the process of the initial media reporting and writing, and are later taken up by historians, curators and librarians. Mbembe says that there are two levels of engagement with the archive. The first is in the action of “putting together” (compiling) data, both historical and current. The second is the act of “using” the archive. However, both these actions exercise a level of authority and discretion, which can also result in archival inaccuracies. As a result, these inaccuracies affect what gets accumulated in the archive, and the subsequent use of the archives” (Nontobeko 2013: 21). Vincent’s only online digital biography that is available online can be found at www.sahistory.org.za/people/vincent-baloyi, and it is written by SA History, an institution founded with an aim to safe-guard an online archive of South African history, but this biography failed to update and ensure his biography remains accurate.

The Johannesburg Art Gallery as well as Goodman Gallery and the founders of Keyes Art Mile have works, as well as biography’s on Vincent, however the manner in which they have failed to translate them onto any of their digital platforms raises questions around their complicities in the erasure of Vincent’s archive and career. The contemporaries Vincent forged paths alongside are given digital archives, rotated collections at Keyes Art Mile with heavily updated archives and digital press.1 O’Doherty’s text becomes imperative when one examines & explores the gestures employed by Nontobeko Ntombela’s, A Fragile Archive, as the gestures she employs prescribe meaning and context. Ntombela curated a type of ‘retrospective’ show in which she explored the life’s work and history of Gladys Mgudlandlu’s work. When placed in reference to Vincent, Mgudlandlu’s context rhymes. She was a black female South African painter whose work and influence on South African modernism was excluded from the notions of art history. Ntombela engages with the gesture of shedding a light on Mgudlandlu’s importance as a black female artist in a contemporary South African zeitgeist. O’Doherty’s is consistently critical of any original audience who is present throughout the phase in which this original gesture is carried out.

This original audience in the case of Mgudlandlu, and especially in the case of Vincent, exists in a zeitgeist of systematic racism, patriarchy and inherent prejudice. Thus when O’Doherty states that he believes that the original audience has no appreciation of the original gesture, he is not wrong. It is only when the gesture is given context through remembrance can the audience learn to garner appreciation for what they saw. In the case of Mgudlandlu, the gesture of her work in the gallery space is only given context through the manner in which her as well as her contributions to modernism is remembered by Nontobeko Ntombela’s curation. Ntombela curates the show in such a way as to perform past events through the inclusion or negation of certain works, documents and audio recordings. Ntombela uses the gallery space not as a one of commercial gain, but of one as historical archive. In regards to Vincent these past events not only have to be found, they also have to be written about from a perspective which is trying to garner a form of remembrance, and through this act of remembrance a reinsertion of his work and practice into contemporary conversations. We acknowledged the Point of Order as a space renowned for its continuous envelopment of the idea of a ‘project space’- thus removing it from the notion of a white cube. We also understand it to be a space in which Vincent held a solo show in which ethical capital was generated for both him and the space. This thus sits as a space which overturned the conventions which allowed Vincent to be taken advantage of, discriminated against and thus written out of the books of art history. We understood this to be an enactment of what O’Doherty states as a root concern of modernist artists in regards to white cube spaces as these artists “were more concerned with eroding the traditional barricades set up between perceiver and perceived, between the object and the eye. Vision would then be able to circulate without the impediment of traditional conventions” 1

Source: (https://keyesartmile.co.za/2019/03/21/vertical-presence-the-sculpture-of-edoardo-villa/)

Vincent Baloyi taking us through a photographed archive of his work.

As the installation stood: a triptych of Vincent’s works that exist online via auction websites were placed in white-box frames (typical of white cube South African spaces during a context of the 70s to 90s) and sit to the left. We placed these works, interviews and books in a non-linear scattered way to disrupt the archival convention of linearity. We wanted the audience to take them in as representations of what we consider to be valuable relics. We wanted to treat these “photographic documents in contradictory ways: sometimes they are collected in a linear structure forming a seemingly coherent narrative, or they may be transformed into fetishized, individual units on which a dim spotlight is fixed, lending them an almost devotional character, in a panoply of sentimental configurations that, remarkably, are designed to evoke shrines.” (Enwezor 2007: 31) In conclusion, through conducting an analyses on the writings of O’Doherty & Nontobeko, we were able to build off of them a blue-print on how to execute a new archive of work which intervenes, re-writes, and re-enacts old artistic gestures as a way of bringing them into a new digitized archive. Through the use of curatorial approaches, we were able to make use of archival material such as biographies, performance residues, historical documentation and new archival material such as film and books, curated in such a way as to disrupt timelines, re-write false narratives and re-enact a form of retrospective of Vincent Baloyi as a contributor to the arts. A curatorial strategy which in turn was a starting point for us as a collective in the manner in which we began thinking around the problematic semiotics surrounding authorship in regards to art history. A failure of this project was its inability to conjure up any resurgence of Vincent’s work in the now. However, what it did accomplish was a working relationship in which we began to think around the manner in which we could work alongside Vincent in inserting him in a contemporary conversation through collaboration. This conversation took the form in the physical manifestation of a series of metal sculptures built from found scrap car parts. These sculptures would be the mechanisms which housed the 360 degree films during the duration of the exhibition at TMRW Gallery.

TO THE LEFT) Digital Prints of Vincent’s work that exists via auction house websites.

(Source:https://www.mutualart. com/Artist/Vincent-Baloyi/ E01004054D357E8F)

(CENTRE) A television separates the installation and asks the viewers to put on headphones in order to listen and engage with the life story, as well as artistic intervention of Vincent Baloyi.

TO THE RIGHT) sits three mounted books, which hold intrinsically rich, & unknown textual and photographic evidence of Vincent’s contributions to South African Art History-as well as collaborations with contemporaries of his time. The title Ulahleko Le Nkosi Mdwebi (The Lost Master Painter) sits above these textual archivesas almost a reminder that this man who sat amongst these now highly-revered contemporary artists- has yet to achieve the same widespread monetary and critical acclaim due to him and his practice.

‘Listening as Critique’, offers a definition of decoloniality as something which can only be undone if an attempt is made to break down the manner in which coloniality functions within a modern zeitgeist.

Bhavisha Panchia asks the question, “Who has written these books, whose position are they written from...’Why is my curriculum white/’’ (Panchia,2017: 5). Hence therein, in regards to the show constructed at TMRW Gallery, ‘The Counter Space of Pop Culture in Zaire’ we collaborated on a series of metal sculptures with Vincent in which his conceptual and technical mastery of the sculptural medium were in direct conversation with our performance video/ 3D printed sculptures: in overall there is a dilution of his sculptural ideas into our broader concept of ‘Zaire’ as a speaking mouth to the erasure and forgotten histories and representation in the art world, more so in the literal sense of a overlooked modernist like him.

‘Listening as Critique’ proposes that the undoing of coloniality can only be achieved through the mandated pursuit of recognising the colonized body- and the recognizing of systematic ill intent harboured and implemented against the other by the colonizer. ‘Listening as Critique’ offers a solution in the manner in which acknowledgements are made towards the other. Through this acknowledgement, decolonial critique is established as, ‘Decolonial critique acknowledges the critical tradition of the west but stems from recognising that modernity is not a total historical reality… Decolonial critique engages modernity through listening to the outside, to the experiences of coloniality, and very importantly other geo-genealogies of thought.’

(Panchia,2017: 5) The Show vinyl signalled to an attempt to acknowledge an overturn of colonial authorship convention:

We employ a number of universal symbols in our pieces which aim to speak to a broader socio-political African context, histories and cultural events. Embedded therein in the work are key symbols we employed throughout the show: the reference to Andy Warhol, Edweard Muybridge, Brenda Fassie, natural mineral resources alluding to the South African mining histories, and the implication the West holds in stolen African art/artefacts. These referential symbols attempt to play a game. A game that’s rules become clear when considering the manner in which our work tries to disrupt conventions found within Western Art History- the writing of Griselda Pollock becomes crucial towards the way we approach our practice. Her writing on the avant-garde and the gaze are tools in which we as a collective have used throughout the construction of every performance, print, VR Environment and video piece we embarked on throughout this show. In order to begin to dissect our practice and workand the manner in which it explores notions of decolonial cultural proclamation, one needs to explore Griselda Pollock’s theory of the avant-garde as a determination of reference, deference and difference. This theory will also be essential in understanding the manner in which we use our work to break away from the contrived academic traditions of technique, composition and subject matter propagated by institutional players - and how this hopefully will pave the way to a new way of thinking about art that in turn outlines a specific manifestation and representation of a decolonial form of modernism. Tamar Garb’s chapter on Gender & Representation will hold a place in refining the notion of the ‘gaze’ in relation to the contextual analysis of how our work questions functions. This as a whole, should usher in a concise understanding of the notion of how one makes a mark in an avant-garde community, as well as the avant-garde as an indispensable dynamic to a decolonial modernist position. A position in which we as a collective have built a practice around critiquing, denunciating and satirizing. In order to establish how our work engages in a form of decolonial avant-garde gambits, we will use an example of how Édouard Manet’s, ‘Olympia’ engages in this game of reference, deference, and difference with that of Titians’ Venus of Urbino.

In order to comprehend the manner in which Manet paved the road for modernism, one needs to understand the need for the avant-garde, in relation to social, political, and cultural change, and how the ideologies surrounding the avant-garde came to be. In order to do that one needs to understand that modernism is not defined as a movement but rather as an autonomous way of thinking. Modernism erupted from the era of enlightenment in which philosophers, poets, writes, and more importantly artists began to reject the notions of bourgeois society. It was an attitude of philosophical and sociological response which can be traced back to as early as the Renaissance. The term Avant-garde comes from a military term to describe a military group that stays ahead of an army. This avant-garde, in relation to art is a sociological desire to disrupt convention. It is a practice of taking already-made ideas, images, beliefs and battling with them until an evolution occurs which is both fulfilling to the artist’s desire to create difference to the conventions of Art History, his ‘mutually referencing groups’ whom ‘identify with one another (Pollock 2010: 800), and the public.

Pollock describes the phenomenon as ‘a concrete cultural phenomenon that is realized in terms of identifiable (though never predetermined) practices and representations through which it constitutes itself in relation to, and at a distance from, the overall cultural patterns of its time’ (Pollock 2010: 800). This concept of avant-garde is the agent which stimulates an overhaul of past conventions.

Now that a definition of the avant-garde is stipulated, as well as the factors needed to induce an avant-garde community, one may begin to dissect Griselda Pollock’s theory of the avant-garde as a ‘game’ of reference, deference, and difference. Pollock stipulates that in order to earn your stripes in an avant-garde community one needs to understand how to relate one’s work to the artistic zeitgeist of past movements- in regards to their political, social, or historical impacts. Now that one has the ability to conjure up a comprehensible ‘reference’, one may begin to ‘defer’ to icons of a movements past, or leaders of the avant-garde gambit one found him or

herself in, in order to fully capture their conclusive sociological end. One would then invoke a ‘difference’ to these past conventions. One would have to execute this in an aesthetic and critical manner in order to ensure conventions do not remain, and a political, social, or visual evolution occurs. Pollock summarized this theory by stating that ‘reference ensured recognition that what you were doing was part of the avant-garde project. Deference and difference had to be finely calibrated so that the ambition and claim of your work was measured by its difference from the artist or artistic statement whose status you both acknowledged (deference) and displaced’ (Pollock 1992: 14). Understanding Pollock’s theory of the avant-garde which Pollock defines as a ‘game’ of reference, deference, and difference – we may begin to see how it was put into practice throughout Art History, but for the welfare of comparative analysis to how we as a collective practice, how it was performed by one of the founding fathers of modernism – Edouard Manet through his painting entitled, Olympia.

Edouard Manet’s Olympia is a key example of an avant-garde artist engaged in this theoretical game of reference, deference and reference. Manet’s Olympia gives relevance to this theory as it references Titians’ Venus of Urbino. Titian was an Italian Renaissance painter who embodied the aesthetic, political, and social dynamics of the Renaissance movement. The aesthetic dexterity is evident in his painting Venus of Urbino as there is a consolidated approach to proportion & linear perspective, as well as an implementation of sfumato1 and chiaroscuro2.These were technical characteristics typical of the Renaissance, a movement which had its conventions unchallenged for centuries before Manet disrupted it with his image of Olympia. Manet references Venus of Urbino as he depicts a nude women sprawled across a bed being gifted flowers by a servant, rich earthly colours are used, revoking the Renaissances use of strong, rich, dramatic hues. ‘The pose of the nude is essentially the same, and the nude’s accessories seem to be chosen as the modern forms of their Renaissance prototypes: orchid in place of roses, a cat for a dog, Negress and Rowers instead of servants bringing dresses from a distant cassone’ (Clark 1984: 93). Short, thick brushstrokes are plastered over grounded colour. The painterly language is expressive rather than precisely rendered, and paint is thickly applied. Already Manet proposes that Pollock is on to something with her theoretical game. He has understood, and shown a relation to Titian’s Venus of Urbino through a borrowing of subject matter/imagery. Already the viewer is able to stipulate a correlation between Olympia and the artistic zeitgeist of past movements (Italian Renaissance) - in regards to it’s social, historical and technical attributes. Manet has formulated a reference, but in order to succeed in creating an image that encapsulates difference, Manet had to work out a way to defer from Titian’s Venus of Urbino. He couldn’t change it so much as to displace the reference of the original image, but he also couldn’t lurk in it’s conventions. Pollock describes this conundrum of the avant-garde gambit (an act in which an artist risks breaking convention in order to define a new one) as only possible to succeed if one can ‘evoke a reference/text, and rework it so that its status is overcome and its place is occupied. If the work is too different, reference will be stymied; if it is too close, deference will overwhelm its separate identity and it will seem merely derivative or, worse, banal and hackneyed’ (Pollock 1992: 28). Manet understood this principal, and walked the tight-rope that is applying it to his work. He rejects the subjectivity, idealism, and opacity of Titian’s romantic classicism which pushed an emphasis on the individual, a feeling for nature and its signified power, amplified drama and exaggerated emotions. The notions of art being more than just ornamental objects for the rich to commission, possess and dictate who views it was rejected.

1 2

Sfumato, (from Italian sfumare, “to tone down” or “to evaporate like smoke”), in painting or drawing, the fine shading that produces soft, imperceptible transitions between colours and tones. (Source: https://www.britannica.com/art/sfumato) Chiaroscuro, (from Italian: chiaro, “light,” and scuro, “dark”) technique employed in the visual arts to represent light and shadow as they define three-dimensional objects. (Source: https://www.britannica.com/art/chiaroscuro)

Instead of portraying a goddess (Venus) Manet opts to depict a scene from conventional everyday life. Manet alludes to the fact that this scene existed, and is not a fantasy conjured up by the artist. It depicts a working class prostitute (this was assumed by the public as Olympia was a common prostitute name at the time), superseding the role of the Goddess, thus deferring the manner in which the female body was conventionally represented. Essentially, Manet begins to ‘conceptually interrupt established historical narratives and their segregated temporalities’ (Pollock 2010: 804). He turns the Renaissance ideal of the female body being a symbol for fertility into one of suggested pleasure.

Olympia’s hand blocks her genitalia, rather than ushering in the viewer’s gaze as seen in Titian’s Venus. As much as a technical difference in colour, style, and painterly gesture is apparent, the biggest difference that occurs is one of sexuality. Manet’s depiction of the female body is less phallocentric, and exhibits a budding understanding of female empowerment growing in the zeitgeist he found himself in. He breaks away from the Renaissances ties to Christianity, in which subject matter was some-what encouraged by the ideological viewpoints of the church. Placing a prostitute in the position of a deity was avant-garde and placed Manet at the forefront of his ‘mutually referencing groups/peers’.

This move broke the complicity of art in regards to the triangle of state, religion and family. Pollock elaborated on this when she stated that, ‘Since the Renaissance, Western figurative art had shared a fundamental intimacy with Christianity that shaped not just its content, but also the very plastic and aesthetic character of its representation and practices epitomized by the primacy of its figuration of the body (Pollock 2010: 811). In doing this Manet also differentiates the role of the viewer. In Titian’s Venus of Urbino the viewer is a mere mortal allowed to wander at the window of a deity ushering them in to become the bearer of new generations, now, in Olympia Manet places the viewer in the position of another one of Olympia’s client. This then leads one to examine the notion of the gaze and its significance in the deference it triggers in this work.

The gaze is what allowed this work, in Pollock’s terms, to create a difference in the ‘game’ of avant-garde. Tamar Garb emphasizes this when she stipulates that there is no such thing as a simple ‘pleasure in looking’. This is due to the fact that a power dynamic always occurs between the female body, and the male viewer. Garb suggests that there is very little difference in the hyper-sexualized consumer advertising found in 20th century western culture in which the female body is a representation of sales, to that of ‘highbrow art’. ‘The customary objectification of Women in representation is a function of male fantasy’ (Garb 1985: 95). The act of looking is very different for men than it is for women. ‘The gaze’ is never devoid of meaning. The manner in which Manet enforced ‘the gaze’ turned the deferred the reference of a goddess into a prostitute. A lady of love turned a lady of the night. The difference in the work is created by the male gaze which is disrupted by the implicit ‘impurity’ of a prostitute, thus disrupting the male fantasy of the female nude in modern painting which incites repressive power relations. “Femininity in such a representational system is conditional on an absent, masculine creativity, which defines and controls the world it creates” (Garb 1985: 95). Olympia’s gaze is no longer mythological but empowering for its time. It shatters the male viewers voyeuristic fantasy and confronts it as a fetish.

In conclusion, Griselda Pollock’s theory of the avant-garde as a determination of reference, deference and difference is essential in understanding the avant-garde artist’s role in enforcing the ideologies of modernism. This is evident when exploring the manner in which Edouard Manet’s, Olympia references, defers, and differs from Titian’s, Venus of Urbino. Monet broke away from the contrived academic traditions of technique, composition and subject matter through his own artistic inventions, but also how he disrupted what Tamar Garb describes as the notion ‘of the gaze’, no longer giving it room to be perceived as a mythological representation but one of empowerment. It shattered the male viewers voyeuristic fantasy and forced a confrontation to occur that never happened in past movements. This in turn paved the way to a new way of thinking about art that in turned outlined a specific manifestation and representation of modernism as an ever-changing path which could branch off into other exemplifications. Tamar Garb’s chapter on Gender & Representation will hold a place in refining the notion of the ‘gaze’ in relation to the contextual analysis of Olympia. This as a whole, should usher in a concise understanding of the notion of how one makes a mark in an avant-garde community, as well as the avant-garde as an indispensable key to a modernist position.

An illustrated study of the notions of reference, deference, and difference. A re-interpretation of Manet’s, ‘Olynpia’.

This game of reference, deference, and difference became crucial to the manner in which we think about creating work that is decolonial and critically engaging. By drawing from artists that represent a history littered with bias, inaccuracies, and notable prejudice- an act of overturning their significance occurs. Griselda Pollock becomes important yet again in our attempts at disrupting modernism and its schema- as in Modernity and the Spaces of Femininity,” in Vision and Difference: Femininity, Feminism and the Histories of Art- Pollock challenges the manner in which Art History has been mapped out by historians. Each movement is placed on a chronological flow chart in which one presides over the next -channelling influence and response. Each movement is then presided over by a chosen artist- always white and male. When contemplating why this is the case, Pollock says, “All those canonized as the initiators of modern art are men. Is this because there were no women involved in early modern movements? No. Is it because those who were, were without significance in determining the shape and character of modern art? No. Or is it rather because what modernist art history celebrates is a selective tradition which normalizes, as the only modernism, a particular and gendered set of practices? I would argue for this explanation. As a result, any attempt to deal with artists in the early modern history of modernism who are women necessitates a deconstruction of the masculinized myths of modernism.” (Pollock 1988: 51).

These ideas of modernism- and the impact these notions have on our socio-political landscape – played as catalysts towards a number of thematic concepts and universal symbolism found within our work. These concepts and universal symbols extends from the chosen textile material of the costumes utilized in the different video performance artworks, VR/Augmented reality and 360 degree films. The characters such as the Pink Panther, Mr. T, the Apartheid Policeman, the Bart, and the ‘Black Body’ (dress up of a latex body suit) all function as metaphors which seek to explore, interrogate and confront the multiplicity of these institutionalized knowledge systems and histories which exist in ‘Zaire’ and within the ‘Global South’ – which are in actual fact a direct commentary and reflection of our current existing realities past to present - both locally, continentally, extending to the global sphere of human existence. What is most important in our point of view conceiving this work is how all of these characters and the larger body of work is underpinned by playfulness and humour. Parody and satire more often than not take centre stage as a tool to undermine and overturn notions of coloniality. Much like Moten, a common goal needs to be established amongst both himself and said collaborators in order to ensure a body of work which is successful in the manner in which it tries to be decolonial in practice- and thus decolonial in theory.

A common thread of collaboration that occurred within, ‘The Counter Space of Pop Culture in Zaire’ was both the curatorial practice of including a conversation between our work and the solo practice of Vincent Baloyi- and ensuring that a conversation surrounding our two practices was foregrounded in the work. Before the audience was greeted with the Show Vinyl, a series of clay sculptures were exhibited on plinths outside of TMRW Gallery. It is important to note that this exhibition ran in conjunction with that of Eduardo Villa’s, ‘Vertical Presence: The Sculpture of Eduardo Villa’. Eduardo Villa’s sculptures were littered throughout the atrium of Keyes Art Mile- and we decided to exhibit a series of clay sculptures Vincent had produced outside amongst these sculptures- almost as a curatorial gesture which pinned Vincent within the life and work of Eduardo Villa.

Again, to try ascertain that Vincent Baloyi is a name that should be included in conversation when one discusses Eduardo Villa, Sam Nhlengethwa, Rorkes Drift and many more crucial aspects of South Africa’s Art History. Based on his timeline and geographical locations he was amongst these names at the same time, producing the same level of work, and forming amongst a collective of modernists performing avant-garde gambits crucial to the art history landscape of South Africa- this curatorial gesture was a way of placing this notion into a quite literal form of place and time - the now.

Vincent Baloyi, Umzebenzi: Tyhafazwa, 2013. Clay Sculpture

Vincent Baloyi, Imbeleko Ye Nkaba, 2013. Clay Sculpture

Through an installation titled, ‘The Big Brother Prognosis’, we wanted to surround the viewer with figures that confront the audience and their presence in the space. We wanted the characters to almost seem as if they were coming out of the walls, and watching or surveying the audience as they navigated the space. This installation consisted of six 1.8-metre-tall wheat pastes of Andy Warhol’s, ‘Double Elvis’, in which the heads were replaced with JVC Televisions displaying looped video portraits of the characters focused on within the show. This work aimed to challenge the somewhat ignored aspects of Andy Warhol’s voyeuristic consumption of his subjects. An idea had surrounding the curation of this installation- was one of which we wanted the audience to feel as if they were being watched while walking around the space. An element of a ‘big brother’ prognosis to the effect that the audience person becomes self-aware of their humanness in relation to the pervasive technology and the digital reality that is seemingly integrated in our present day lived experience. As much as we now find ourselves in a space and time of technological intervention in our daily lives through social media and other forms we have become desensitized to this new mode of dis/connection with what is real or what is not, or the intersection of a multi-dichotomy of realities that we see and experience daily. There seems to be a blurred line that exists between the performed virtual reality of our identities and that of our supposed physical and somewhat literal state of lived reality through the flesh and material forms. So this exhibition seeks to explore and in someway comment largely on the blurred lines of multiple realities and narratives that are conjoined in the present day which becomes tomorrows history. This denotes both the collective discomfort and desensitization of our individual representation to the collective lived experienced account of our humanity. In conclusion, although this can never be conclusive nor reach a final verdict on the much needed conversation of how technology forms part of our human identity in the contemporary landscape. Neither can it claim to articulate or indicate the true master of this new framework of our humanity in telling the creation of new histories and knowledge systems going forward but through self-awareness, discomfort and dislocation of self, the audience is drawn to their role in the spaceand through this are implicated within the work.

We’re well aware of the theoretical approach of ‘the gaze’ through the history of theatre, film, and art propagated by the theorist Laura Mulvey1 . Whether it be in real life, through a photograph, a work of art, or a film, we agree in the regard that to look is to confirm a prerogative to do so. If the look only occurs in one direction, the assumption is of one person’s ascendancy over the other. We also then understand how due to the incredible shift in social media, as well as the speed in which technological advancement has arisen, how the gaze has shifted from the predominantly known ‘male gaze’ into the now pervasive digital realm. This shift has essentially provided platforms in which the individual is the central figure of their own lives. This is in itself a commentary on Western ideology and the lens through which it views Africa, African art, and its histories and cultures. The digital gaze places us at the centre of our world. The innovation of perspective in the History of Art echoes that of the personal feeds of social media in the manner in which they are designed to assemble us so that we become a token viewer. So too are we implicit in this act as we are the generators as well as the consumers, and unintentional bystanders or witnesses to this invasion of digital voyeurism. VR/Augmented reality in ‘Zaire’ is conceptualized to adopt the same principles. This becomes a normalized condition, and it is easy to forget that our curated timeline is unique to us. Hence then we intentionally emphasized and exaggerated this effect in the space and in the work. We use digital technology to overpower and discomfort the viewer whilst critically and enthusiastically engaging them on these notions and modes of works.

Having understood this position- we as a collective still felt that these avant-garde gambits have been crucial to the manufactured nature of an artist’s identity within the 20th and 21st century. The practice of actively defying the old in order to build anew is a philosophy in which we think is imperative within art history- and therefore imperative the work we consider challenging and making. This thought process is what drove the construction of our symbolism, characters, performances, and as a result our performative residue. When engaging with our work this thread of theory hopefully ties in to what we are trying to complicate within the interpretation of our practice.

1Laura Mulvey (born 15 August 1941) is a British feminist film theorist best known for her writing that confronts the objectification of women in film, art and popular culture- these writings eventually culminated in the theory of the ‘Male Gaze’. (Source: https://www.filminquiry.com/film-theory-basics-laura-mulvey-male-gaze-theory/)

The Big Brother Prognosis (Television and Wheat-paste) View: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ky_v3rVgh0)

The Bart stands as a representation of a visual aesthetic language we grew up engaging with. Animators from the late 80s and 90s- specifically those which produced shows for MTV- nurtured our need to work with these popular culture icons as a tool of critique. The Bart character was inspired by Brett Murrays, ‘Africa’ 1- and thus became a parody of his work. The conception of the ‘Colonial Bart’- or just the use of the Bart Simpson mask comes from an inherent resentment we harbour towards a majority of white, post-apartheid South African artists- who used the language and guise of resistance art to position and assert their ‘value’ both conceptually, technically and as a by-product, monetarily in the cannon of South African Art History. The Bart symbolises the benefactors of whiteness within the art world. ‘Hennessy Youngman’ 2 in a satirical performance lecture breaks down these notions in a video titled, How To Be A Successful Artist: (View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNXL0SYJ2eU) in which he breaks down four crucial aspects of being a successful artists: 1.

2.

3.

4.

Be White Be A White Male Be A White Female Be Ambiguous

This video tackles something that is predominantly ignored in regards to Art History at large- and by a by-product South African Art History. Hennessey Youngman states that the white-male narrative is subsequently the universal voice and therefore anything made by a white-male artist isn’t pigeonholed into a subversive historical archive. He goes on to make a comparison between how a painting of a flower would be perceived and written about if it was painted by a white-male artist versus a black artist. A white-male artist paints a flower and it will almost always be seen as a flower- in which its formal and technical attributes will denote its value. A black artist paints a flower and it becomes a representation or signifier for racism and oppression- an immediate prompt towards an assessment of power. In thinking around this critique of whiteness through the construction of the ‘Colonial Bart’- we as a collective feel as if within a South African context, Hennessy Youngman’s list on how to be successful in the art world could be revised as follows: 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Be White and speak about Apartheid Be A White Male and speak about Apartheid Be A White Female and speak about Apartheid Be Ambiguous and speak about Apartheid Do all of the above and fail to mention your failure to implicate your whiteness within your conversation around Apartheid

1

Some felt he was insulting African culture, others just found it ugly and protesters threatened to disrupt the unveiling, stated City Press. However, Murray said “he was depicting Africa as a dumping ground for Western culture” added City Press.

(Source: https://controversialvart.wordpress.com/2013/04/28/bart-simpsons-heads/)

2

Hennessy Youngman is a persona invented and performed by Jayson Musson. Youngman makes addresses to the Internet at large in online episodes of a series titled “Art Thoughtz.” (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hennessy_Youngman)

The Colonial Bart holding a miniature version of Brett Murray’s, ‘Africa’.

Walter D. Mignolo becomes influential in theorizing these statements, as his writing, ‘The Darker Side of the Renaissance’ provides insight into the power dynamics upheld through territorial rhetoric. Mignolo uses the notions of cartography as a decolonial practice, in which he discusses the manner in which perceptions of where one’s body related to space were used to regulate and control the colonized body. He discusses the manner in which European maps, diagrams of the human form, and cosmos were dictated in order to highlight the discrepancies in cultures. Through these discrepancies, a prejudiced power structure was formed which placed Europe as the centre of the world- thus ensuring a hierarchy of knowledge was conceived which prejudicially placed colonial ideals at the top of the pyramid of knowledge creation. In many ways the ‘colonial Bart’ speaks about to the voyeuristic and consumerist implication of the white homogony in the creation of knowledge systems, and cultural mechanisms which dictate the consumption of the value in art and other cultural spheres and histories. Locally and abroad, voyeurism is used as a tool that privileges the white artist and the white body in all matter of respect and the ‘colonial Bart’ strives to expose those prejudices and biases while affecting humour and parody to these complex issues of our humanity. Mignolo becomes useful, as one can use his theories of space and the body in space to draw comparisons to the power structures which exist in the South African art world. The galleries have cleverly placed themselves as the centre of the artist’s world, becoming a central force of knowledge production which stipulates what is relevant historically and what is not. These spaces are inherently colonial- therefore their tools of knowledge promulgation are inherently biased. This was explored in a 6-minute video performance titled, Ndize Ndize (Version 2). Ndize Ndize is a site-specific installation and live performance in which an interrogation and evaluation of the lived-experience of the black body within the structural white cube format is critiqued.

Residue of this performance was then extracted and formed part of a wheat-pasted installation titled, Ndize Ndize: An Edweard Muybridge Study. This installation made reference to Edweard Muybridge’s human figure studies – a series of studies in which the western world has attributed as the birth of stop-motion animation. The notions of curating these wheat-pastes next to the animation executed in tilt-brush aimed to disrupt or challenge these ideas- in a way playing on a satirical juxtaposition of the old versus the new.

Ndize Ndize (Version 2) View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BZkIDxD0UY&t=28s

The use of other characters of popular culture that exist within the exhibition such as MR T, and the Pink Panther speak and articulate the conceptual alliteration of MAGOLIDE’s practice in confronting the Western framework and Art History cannon positioned as ultimate truth overriding what is perceived as alternative narratives and histories of other bodies (the black body), and other marginalized groups as relevant cultural tools of information informing our human experiences and existence in the global sphere. The MR T character was conceived through a biography we read on Lawrence Tureaud (The American actor, Wrestler and Television Personality). What struck us about his life and story was the manner in which his name and subsequent birth of his internationally celebrated persona came from his self-ordained title MR T. Tureaud began calling himself MR T as a rejection of the term ‘boy’- a term which was used within the United States of America as a long-suffering term towards black men- the term implied an acquiescent status. MR T famously said, “I think about my father being called ‘boy’, my uncle being called ‘boy’, my brother, coming back from Vietnam and being called ‘boy’. So I questioned myself: “What does a black man have to do before he’s given the respect as a man?” So when I was 18 years old, when I was old enough to fight and die for my country, old enough to drink, old enough to vote, I said I was old enough to be called a man. I self-ordained myself Mr. T so the first word out of everybody’s mouth is “Mr.” That’s a sign of respect that my father didn’t get, that my brother didn’t get, that my mother didn’t get”1. The term ‘boy’ was, and still is used within South Africa as disparaging term towards domestics. This intersectional narrative of racial power structures interweaved systemically into coded language- is what heralded the call to play with the semiotics of ‘MR. T’ within the work.

The ‘Black Body’ is another character that is predominantly focused on within the show. The ‘Black Body’ is a character of cultural representation that functions as both an object and a subject. This character exists as a critique of the stereotypical signs associated with blackness within contemporary media, society, and even within the historical archive. We draw from the biased cultural and historical depictions of the black body that arose from The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade (the commodification of the African Body) and subsequently the notions of minstrelism- and in drawing from these notions of representation aim to overturn them through redefining the black body in positions of power, insurrection, and subsequently art historical significance within a contemporary zeitgeist. The ‘Black Body’ is almost always the central figure within our performances, and this is done as an instrument of coded confrontation. Valerie Cassel Oliver’s, ‘Putting the Body on the Line: Endurance in Black Performance’, argues that the black body is almost always perceived as a site of compulsory visibility. A site of historical contestation that is never devoid of political interpretation. “The experience of racial (mis)recognition plays a determining role within the formation of phenomenal blackness. The black body, whether on the auction block, the American plantation, hanged from a light pole as part of a lynching ritual, attacked by police dogs within the Civil Rights era, or staged as a “criminal body” by contemporary law enforcement and judicial systems, is a body that has been forced into the public spotlight and given a compulsory visibility” (Oliver 2016: 15). This system of perception is integral to not only performance art but also the notions of black performance art. The ‘Black Body’ as a character aims to subvert expectations of what is expected of it within a performance, where it is placed, and what it decides to defer from in regards to its placement within art historical cannons. This character strives to overturn what is expected of blackness within the framing of contemporary art. Oliver, in reference to performance artists such as William Pope.L, Tameka Norris, & Sherman Fleming, states that ‘the actions presented by these artists over a forty-year period demonstrate that the black body as raw material continues to be charged with the ability to provoke, to elicit reflection and at times humour’ (Oliver 2016: 19). The motif of the ‘Black Body’ draws ideological pieces from the aforementioned artists- as it strives to place itself within a body of work, performance or conversation on its own terms. The fact that this character is comprised of a performer in a black latex body suit- essentially rendered unidentifiable- comments on a notion that compels the audience to to underpin the performance as a metaphor towards something much larger. Oliver’s reflections on William Pope.L, Tameka Norris, & Sherman Fleming becomes important once more in reflection on what we as a collective strive to implement in our work, as she states, ‘Their work compels the viewer to consider who the artist is, not “what” he or she is, presenting a body that resists subjugation and refuses to be flattened into a monolith” (Oliver 2016: 19).

1

Source: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._T#cite_note-8)

An illustritive study of the ‘Black Body’

The notion of including Brenda Fassie, speaks to the broader concept of what the exhibition is centred around: a series of investigations that critique the erasure and counterfactual depictions of a true African history. Brenda carries a complex and contested history of identities, representation and sexuality embodied through this iconic figure that society still uses to disregard her cultural political activism through her music, contested identity of queerness but more so her holistic humanity as a whole however complicated its deemed or found. We saw this as a work of tribute to Brenda Fassie, as we feel her impact on both us as artists, and too society to be one of profound magnitude. Fanon drives home this point of casted erasure based on ones contested identity when he states that, “because it is a systematic negation of the other person and a furious determination to deny the other person all attributes of humanity, colonialism forces the people it dominates to ask themselves the question constantly: “In reality, who am I?”” (Frantz Fanon, 1961: 249) Predominantly, we wish to explore the notions of negation surrounding the female and queer black body, as well as other marginalized people’s, whose stories are not given the global history (Western Frameworks) prevalent space, and importance in the public discourse of our existence. The Brenda Fassie silkscreens beckon the technical aesthetic language around Andy Warhol’s, ‘Marilyn Monroe’. We find it important to reference Warhol- as again we look to ‘Listening as Critique’ in this regard. In order to practice decoloniality one needs to recognize the colonial. Warhol is infamous for his treatment of female creatives in the manner in which he used their image and creative input for his own work- without giving them the necessary acknowledgement of contribution. We as a collective strive to ask the question of what would Western Art History look like if it was written (or painted/silkscreened/performed) by a South African/African creative at large. Politics of the ‘self’ is evident in our work, as we aim to ask the question of where our position is in this ever shifting contemporary art world- in an incredibly burlesque/parodied manner. Brenda Fassie is both a predominant artistic figure in our cultural and broader socio-political history in South Africa that represents and signifies of the said marginalized black bodies, and more so of the female and/or queer black body. This is articulated directly in the contemporary History of South Africa which prevails in the modern day. We as male artists are very much aware of our positionality as men and we use her iconography as a means of overturning the oppression and exploitation of Brenda, and to herald her as a figure of celebrating African women in society, in Art History, as an LGBTQI+ protagonist, and so too in our lives.

Through understanding the ideologies of Bhavisha Panchia- we began to understand this work, as well as the manner in which it functions as a collective exhibition, as something which embraces the idea of a relationship between articulation and the act of listening. We say this as our work functioned in a dynamic space in which the sonic took centre stage as a way of creating links between static works such as, ‘Brenda printed 50 times in the style of Andy’, and the more dynamic 360-degree video performances. We produced a song which re-interpreted Brenda Fassie’s, ‘Good Black Woman’- as a means of linking performance and its residue to the prints on exhibition. We chose to do this as we too felt that sound has the power to dictate meaning- especially in the manner in which it can subconsciously indicate a path in which the viewer can take in interpreting the work. The sonic is also inherently collaborative- and ushers in a mode of practice which blurs the lines between individual and collective authorship. ‘Sound is spatial, social and political in that it can produce fields for the reception of different sensibilities and experiences, and create spaces for contestation and dissonance- whether that is in a club, a music video…’ (Panchia,2017: 5) or a gallery in which the audience is questioning the political activism we aimed to highlight in regards to Brenda Fassie’s contributions to society, and too us as a collective.

The idea of producing a song that referenced, ‘Good Black Woman’, was one of highlighting Brenda’s contributions as a political activist. Contributions which are more often than not overlooked. “Modernity’s monopolisation of representation has been grounded on the negation of listening” (Panchia,2017: 5).

The use of the motifs of coal and gold, speaks to the value system that exists between the hegemonic binary which exists between the genders, and the unequal power dynamics that exist therein. On a broader context we assume the same assertions to be true of the binary power dynamics between the West and the Global South, more specifically the African continent and its erasure and counterfactual depiction thereof in the global history and its larger role to it that is omitted and negated. Through the mineral and natural resources used in our practice as MAGOLIDE we underpin our practice of visual alchemy through the transmutation of knowledge systems that are detested and ignored in the contemporary zeitgeist. In reference to the past re-writing and re-imagining of a new perspective of an African context and narrative relating to the said marginalized bodies.

On the other muhfuckin’ hand, neoliberalism is a concerted attempt to obscure the essential and essentially exclusionary relation of identity and politics, which is better known as liberalism, which is less well known as fascism, (business) man. It’s ashamed of where it comes from, a cold city on a dry marsh. Lots of loose talk about hills and light, and here we come and go, the wet recrudescence of the marsh, the much Listen: https://soundcloud.com/magolide-collective/good-black-woman-cover more + less than malarial life of drops of nonlocal gold, as anti- and ante-aristocratic swarm laid open to natural, natal, univocal return. (Moten, 2017: 19.1) Through this text, Moten describes the manner in which he perceives representation. He explores how the process of representation governs the lived experience of race.

He describes how lived experience ignores the notions of control as he perceives life as something to which is ungovernable and erratic. Moten’s writing alludes to the idea that social identities and power structures which are inherently problematic and marginalizing continuously form hierarchies throughout history, in a never ending pattern of re-emergence. The lived experience always somehow manages to overcome these structures- as the lived experience does not follow said structures rules. This notion of the lived experience always circumventing the idea of governance was explored in a work titled, Emergence: Afri Viola (Video Performance).

Bitmapped acetates used to produce the Brenda Fassie Tribute Silkscreens

Emergence: Afri Viola, 2019, Stop Motion Animation (Duration: 11 min 17 sec) View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2a4cc2jDM0U

Emergence: Afri Viola (Video Performance) is a video consisting of a 11-minute stop-motion animation that was built and executed in Google Tilt-Brush, which is a room-scale 3D-painting virtual-reality application. This video merges the traditions and conceptual visual language of art and the innovative technology of virtual /augmented realities. In it we explored the intersection of performance art and its residues. The video heavily references Bill Viola’s ‘Emergence’, in which two women are depicted resurrecting a Christ like figure from a marble cistern. The original video depicts two women, whose vigil is suddenly interrupted. The younger women abruptly turns and stares at the cistern. The two women contemplate the stone cistern in silence until one has a premonition: a figure slowly emerges from the water and the women aid the man in climbing out of the cistern and lower him to the ground. They break down in tears. The work has metaphorical associations: the man rising out of a fountain of water implies birth, but his body, when laid out on the ground, suggests death. This video was originally inspired by a fresco from the 1400s by Masolino da Panicale which depicts Christ in a sarcophagus, being supported on either side by his mourning mother and St. John.

Our video, Emergence: Afri Viola, defers from Viola as it is deliberately sped up to contrast his established meaning of contemplation through slowing down the video to allow the viewer to experience the emotions of the actors. In this performance, the ‘Black Body’ (wearing boxing gloves) can be seen being lifted out of a marble cistern housed within a signified tomb. Two women, both dressed in Shweshwe dresses and colonial military coats are seen on either side of the cistern. They aid the ‘Black Body’ out of the cistern and onto the ground fetching a boxing gown and laying it over the ‘Black Body’ to signify mourning. This act is then looped for 11 minutes- in order to suggest a performance which is in a constant time-loop- in which poetry speaking to the lived experiences of the colonized body can take centre stage. This performance aims to over-turn the convention of the white messiah in Western Art history and also aimed to explore the notions of how the Black African identity was directly stripped, stolen, and re-appropriated into a mouth-piece of Western colonial propaganda. This propaganda was to use the device of religion as a tool of oppression and enslavement. This thus created an omission of an African knowledge system and histories, which then created a subverted system of pseudo-scientific, global-humanistic knowledge. Much like Moten’s, ‘All That Beauty, come on Get It’, the poetry was a collaborative process in which the notions of individualistic authorship were erased. The writing was intended to be disorientating, humorous, and ambiguous in its attempt to record and speak to multiple discourses throughout the global South’s contested histories. The work brings video art and performance into 4-dimensional (4D) platform through the transmutation of 2D animation and photography, thus pushing the VR and Augmented reality media into new, unexplored dimensions as an active component and central point. They offer new possibilities for ideas and stories to exist, evolve, and consolidate new narrative into digital material landscapes.

In regards to the symbols and motifs used throughout our work. Boxing is a motif which is continuously referenced as it is a sport which has historically signified violence, emphasized racial dynamics and systematic power structures which were built off the notions of monetized masculine vehemence. A big emphasis is made to the boxing gloves and the colour red that permeates over its form, we seek to define its representation as a source of contestation and ‘fight back’ of the African body to the hegemonic white western framework of history. This alludes to a cultural insurgency of the violent blood soaked past (and ongoing) repression, exploitation and violence that the west has enforced on the African body. This speaks directly to the South African body and landscape through the means of the colonial project, religious escapades, culminating in the recent local history of the Apartheid system and its effect in the modern day. The Post coloniality of the status quo alludes to our endeavours of propagating an artistic means of expression that is in pursuit of decolonization of the status quo in regards to histories in the modern day framework.

The Egyptian statue seen in the centre of the tomb, was that of Queen Nefertiti which was stolen by the Germans in 1913 through the use of fraudulent documents. The semiotics which surround the sculptures history were fascinating to us as a collective, as the sculpture was allegedly considered to be returned in 1935, but Hitler decided against it. Egypt has been campaigning for decades for Germany to return the statue. Germany continues to profit greatly from Nefertiti as the figure draws millions of museum visitors annually. This statue alludes to a general theme of colonial dictatorship and exploitation. And this too is found to be true in regards to the other artefacts used right throughout the show, such as that of the Benin Ivory Masks and Bangwa Queen sculpture from Cameroon, and many others. Because they are rendered in 3D form with an animated effect this then creates a convoluted hidden meaning which is seemingly palatable to the viewer although the articulation of our concept still stands true of this nature of events in this object. These notions of replicating stolen artefacts only viewable in European museums hints to the notion that these aren’t really the original artefacts. In essence this speaks on a larger issue of art artefact and the mineral resources of the African continent which were pillaged and stolen with the notion of ‘anthropological and cultural preservation’ of such, whilst enriching and benefitting only the Western institutions (galleries, museums, and others) and socio-political and economical standing in the global system. The imprisonment of this bust and many others like it is still a contentious issue that exist in the contemporary with the west enforcing its power dynamic of safekeeping over these stolen artefacts, although the African countries seek to repatriate – with great failure and resistance from the West, these cultural objects back to their original locations within the continent, in relation to their cultural indigenous people. The notions embraced in ‘Listening as Critique’ rear their head again. We produced a song which aimed to signify the relationship between the black body and the European idea of Christianity- as a means of pushing the concept of the work further. We chose to do this as we too felt that sound has the power to dictate meaning- especially in the manner in which it can subconsciously indicate a path in which the viewer can take in interpreting the work. The sonic is also inherently collaborative- and ushers in a mode of practice which blurs the lines between individual and collective authorship. This was explored in a tilt brush piece titled, ‘Emergence: Afri-Viola(Tomb)’, we created which aimed to extend the video performance. Within this VR environment- a nod to Michelangelo’s, Sistine Chapel, is made. The Sistine Chapel ceiling is considered a keystone of Renaissance Art. The overarching theme of the mural is that of the Christian creeds conception of salvation being offered by God through Jesus Christ. This doctrine is the same method of decree that Christian missionaries used in their campaign of colonization. Throughout Africa, almost all of the colony’s populace were forcibly removed from their traditional belief systems and were converted into Christians, which the colonial rulers used as a reason to enslave communities, obliterate former faiths, and exploit the lands for mineral resources and labour. Interrogating this, we constructed a two-metre digital print of the Sistine chapel titled, ‘The Sies1 -tine Chapel’, in which we inserted the characters constructed throughout the show- superseding the original saints and deity’s of Michelangelo’s original.

In conclusion, the ideas in which we have come to define, perceive, and understand regarding concepts of decolonial or decolonisation as a critical practice comes from the thinking of Fred Moten, Mignolo, Panchia, Hennessy Youngman, Valerie Cassel Oliver, and Laura Mulvey. Their writings, and lectures lend themselves to the notions of decolonial thought, and critical practice as a form of decolonisation that we have used in regards to the manner in which our work was conceived, produced, curated, and the concepts surrounding it disseminated. ‘The Counter-Space of Pop Culture in Zaire’- aimed to establish a connection between these thinkers, writers and artists, as a way of drawing a conceptual and comparative analysis of the manner in which we think we are dismantling histories of modernism and art histories - bringing forward a mode of practice that is decolonial in theory. The conception of our motifs, references, and symbols invoke the notions surrounding Griselda Pollock’s definition of modernism as a game of reference, deference, and difference. A game in which we as a collective have embraced as a form of artistic decree. A game in which we think could be used to pull to pieces the problematic monolithic histories still pervasively controlling the art world today. We hope this essay has aided in establishing the theoretical natures of our practice and the manner in which we have come to determine what constitutes decolonial art promulgation in a South African contemporary zeitgeist.

1 Etymology 1[edit] From Afrikaans Interjection[edit] sies 1.

(South Africa) Expressing disgust, disappointment, or annoyance.

Source: (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sies)

Sies-Tine Chapel

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3p2YiRxdZuQ&t=1s View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jp73nPyiKA4&t=59s

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW8nhOWZSEA&t=192s

Sculptures by Vincent Baloyi Hand Casts by Hafiza Asmal 3-D printed sculptures by MAGOLIDE

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