Abstract – SAVAH 2019

The ‘irritating’ object: creating futures for poltergeists in museum collections

Some objects in museums are particularly ‘irritating’. I describe them as poltergeists, instead of ghosts, because these objects are often fraught and problematic. The notion of poltergeist considers objects as actively troublesome, instead of passive vessels––often resulting in their disappearance from public access.

This paper proposes that irritating things can be reimagined through the process of historicization, disturbing their fraught pasts, in order to engage future belongingness within institutions, and their broader contexts. I refer to my study of ancient Chinese burial objects from the Han dynasty (206 BC–AD 220) in South African museum collections as examples of this process, providing insight into how one can imagine futures for objects that bear the weight of difficult histories.

Extrapolating from the use of the term ‘irritating’ by Michel Leiris (Kelly, 2007: 43–44), I propose that uncertain, and ‘unusual’ objects in collections can be re-classified, and demystified through engagement. Their sense of ‘place’ in collections can be asserted in new ways according to contemporary epistemologies and viewed as documents through which we can interpret the world in which they are situated.

Importantly, these articles cannot be divested of their histories and former connotations. In this paper I propose that in order to examine the process through which one can interrogate the ‘ghosts’ in museum collections, the object biography can be utilized as a methodological and theoretical tool through which to investigate the belongingness of silent objects, and bother the notions of these as artefacts of colonialism.

By looking at the multiple contexts of these objects over time, it is possible to situate them in the present moment as signifiers––not of historical shortcomings, but of vessels through which to reevaluate belongingness––complicating histories in order to serve present and future understandings of how to live with poltergeists.

References:

Kelly, J. Art, ethnography and the life of objects: Paris, c. 1925-35 (Manchester, United Kingdom; New York: Manchester University Press, 2007a)

Kelly, J. ‘Discipline and indiscipline: the ethnographies of Documents’ in Papers of Surrealism, issue 7, 2007: The Use-Value of ‘Documents’. (United Kingdom: Surrealism Centre, 2007b)

 

Business Day ART – August 2019

Business Day Art – August 2019

Floating Reverie 5 Years 2014 – 2019

 

Get your copy of our book here!

Floating Reverie is an online digital residency programme that was started in early 2014 by its curator Carly Whitaker. Floating Reverie consists of two components, the //2Weeks residency programme and the annual Post-Digital instance. In the past five years, from January 2014 to January 2019, Floating Reverie has hosted 33 residencies for 35 artists. Of these residencies, there have been 27 independent artists, two collectives, two collaborations, and two cross-residency collaborations, all of which have culminated in five Post-Digital instances.

As a mark of reflection and discussing the past five years, Floating Reverie has compiled all these residencies and Post-Digital instances into a publication. This publication documents, engages, and reflects on the past five years of practice in and around Floating Reverie.

Edited by: Nicola Kritzinger & Carly Whitaker

Designed by: Daniel Rautenbach

Essays & interviews by:

Tegan Bristow, Carly Whitaker, Daniel Rautenbach, Brooklyn J. Pakathi; Galleri Kalashnikovv & NO END Contemporary Art Space.

Thank you to generous funding from the National Arts Council (NAC)

Launched at the Fak’ugesi Festival Exhibition 30 August–8 September 2019

ENCOUNTERS WITH THE [IM]MATERIAL

A symposium that I was privileged enough to take part in…

ENCOUNTERS WITH THE [IM]MATERIAL

A one-day, international symposium at Wits Art Museum, 6 August 2019

Programme

09:00 – 09:15              Welcome and introductions by Dr. Alison Kearney

09:15 – 09:45

Thinking critically about the relationship between material and the (im)material: Some points for departure – Dr Alison Kearney, Wits University.  

09:45 – 10:30

What is Hidden and What is Revealed: Photographs of Fabric – Prof Marcella Hackbardt, Kenyon College, Ohio.

10:30 – 11:00

F(l)ight. The transformative implications of the gomesi – Lois Anguria, Wits University

11:00 – 11:30

Kali’s tongue: Threading myth in works by Reshma Chhiba – Dr. Irene Bronner, University of Johannesburg

11:30 – 12:00              Comfort break and refreshments

12:00 – 12:30

Tackling the Object Biography as methodology—looking at the object / looking from the object—the challenge of approach – Nicola Kritzinger

12:30 – 13:00

Dr Mshini’s Labratory: Exploring sonics, resonances and hauntings of materials – Daniel Grey

13:00 – 14:00              Light lunch

14:00 – 14:30

Footnotes from Feni: How Dumile Feni’s scroll continues to defy the art historical canon – Sven Christian

14:30 – 15:00              Brief summation, and closing.

 

 

 

Business Day ART – June 2019

Business Day ART June 2019

Collecting Strategy: Learn from the best

Business Day Art Supplement – 13 February 2019

Nicholas Hlobo

JMW Turner

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres

Kendall Geers

El Anatsui

Guan vase

Meiyintang Chicken Cup

Amadeo Modigliani

Dumile Feni at Constitutional Court Johannesburg

Cheri Samba

Chris Ofili

Chris Ofili

Dumile Feni with his sculptures

Wangechi Mutu

Edoardo Villa Mapogger Woman

Original Article: Art Collecting Strategies – Learn from the Best

A collecting strategy is the overall idea of what your art collection should look like, founded in a set of ideals related to your collecting practice. There are many ways to go about this, but the best way is to learn from the best.

Collectors often rely on advisors. João Ferreira recommends you “move through the art world with legerity.” He believes that, “Artists with a strong brand will stand the test of time and make for a strong collection.”

WalkerScott advise that established collectors sell minor artworks in their collection to buy works by established artists. They suggest evaluating space, budget, and create a focus that reflects vision.

Learning from what established collectors love and how they collect can be a good way to build a valuable collection, or inspire an area of focus. There is the potential to collect on any budget, but many of the best-known collectors have large and prestigious collections.

Collector Jochen Zeitz has focused on buying the work of early-career African artists that have an established market. He supports living artists and established the Zeitz MoCAA where South African artists like Nicholas Hlobo and Kendell Geers are in the permanent collection. The museum also exhibits the work of important late-career artists from the African continent and diaspora, Chéri Samba, El Anatsui, Chris Ofili, and Wangechi Mutu.

It was important to Louis Norval, a South African collector, to collect works by valuable historical South African artists over many years, focusing on sculptures by important artists like Edoardo Villa and Dumile Feni for the Norval Foundation in Cape Town. Norval also collects the sculptural work of the most talented contemporary South African artists.

Famous collectors like Liu Yiqian have collecting strategies discernible from auction records, for instance, he buys only the best and rarest objects within his areas of interest, like the Ming dynasty Meiyintang doucai Chicken Cup, or an exceptional Modigliani.

Charles Saatchi sought out the most talented young British artists (YBAs) for his collection. In buying the work of young artists, he purchased at a low price. Their fame and value rose in estimation quickly because of his purchases. Saatchi buys art like groceries and his strategies have been criticized by many art-world stalwarts, but Saatchi changed the contemporary art world with his contemporary art gallery and fascinating publications.

Some advisors build collections and hand pick artworks for a collector. It is still possible to see the indelible mark of Duveen on public art collections in the USA, like the Ingres Comtesse d’Haussonville in the Frick Collection, or Turner’s Rotterdam Ferry Boat in the National Gallery of Art in Washington. He sold only the best quality works to his clients that included J.P. Morgan, Henry Frick, and Andrew Mellon.

A collecting strategy is personal, and it depends on what kind of collector you want to be and what you love. Building a valuable collection takes time and money, but most importantly, alongside building a collection, you create something that reflects who you are.

Books to read about collecting:

Seven Days in the Art World – Sarah Thornton

Bernard Berenson – Ernest Samuels

Hare with the Amber Eyes – Edmund de Waal

Collectors, Collections, and Museums – Stacey Pierson

Duveen – S.N. Behrman

Babble – Charles Saatchi

Magazine PDF: Business Day ART supplement 2019

 

The Art Investment Journey

Business Day Art Magazine – 13 February 2019

Io Makandal, Entanglement, 2018, mixed media Installation at Cape Town Art Fair, Kalashnikovv Gallery

Io Makandal, Installation

Wycliffe Mundopa, The Future is in our hands part 4, 2018, Oil on Canvas, First Floor Gallery, Harare

Bronwyn Katz

Nolan Oswald Dennis

Io Makandal 2018

Cinga Samson

Zander Blom

Nico Krijno

Zander Blom

Bronwyn Katz

Gresham Tapiwa Nyaude

Kudzanai-Violet Hwami

Bronwyn Katz

Fred Clarke

Bianca Bondi

 

Original Article: Art as Investment: Buy Young Artists in 2019

Talking about the idea of ‘art as investment’ is tricky because art is not a traditional form of ‘investment.’ When a collector buys art, it’s not a once-off financial investment, but a consistent process over many years where the art enthusiast invests energy and money in building an art collection. Collecting art that will grow in value begs cultural participation.

Simple rules for buying art:

Always buy the best art you can afford. Take time to build a valuable collection with potential for growth.

Love what you buy. The real investment is in the love for your collection, and in the artist’s career. Curator and artist Jonathan Freemantle suggests that it’s better to buy five paintings by an artist you love over the course of a year than one big piece by an artist considered ‘an investment.’

Buy the work of young artists. Freemantle also suggests collectors consistently buy the work of young and emerging artists who are gaining international recognition.

Look at art – develop your ‘eye’. Developing your eye will teach you the difference between what is ‘good’ and what is excellent. Visual literacy is as important as historical art knowledge.

Educate yourself. Read voraciously about art. Keep up to date on contemporary art and emerging artists. Look at auction results. Learn about art from all time periods and all over the world. The more you know, the better decisions you will make buying art.

Diversify. Buy the work of many different artists, but also buy more than one artwork from an artist you love. Buying art consistently from an artist over years helps support their growth, and in turn, the value of the works in your own collection.

Be obsessive and consistent. Investing in art is long-term, and the value of art grows over time. Freemantle agrees that “galleries love a collector who is loyal to an artist and keeps pace with their career.” Galleries will offer new works to these collectors first, ensuring one buys choice works at the best price.

Ask Experts. Ask those who know about art in order to learn.

Who should you buy in 2019?

Pulane Kingston has her eye on a few young artists that are excelling in their careers. She loves Kudzanai-Violet Hwami for her “powerful nudes that raise lingering questions about the representation of black bodies. Her large-scale paintings and colourful brushstrokes effortlessly dispel ideas around African sexuality, spirituality and gender.”

Kingston also notes the work of Nolan Oswald Dennis for his “delicate and elaborate line drawings which evoke ideas of symbolic cartography.” She says that, “The theme of ‘becoming,’ that seems to be a thread across his body of work, deeply resonates with me.”

Kingston finds the work of artists Bronwyn Katz and Cinga Samson’s art alluring – Katz for her deconstructions of identity in her sculptural works; Cinga Samson for his haunting self-portraits “in which he addresses themes of youth, blackness, masculinity, and spirituality.”

SIDEBAR:

Young Artists to buy in 2019:

Major works under R100 000*

Io Makandal; Gresham Nyaude; Wycliffe Mundopa; Bianca Bondi; Fred Clarke

R100 000 +

Kudzanai Violet Hwami; Zander Blom; Nico Krijno; Nolan Oswald Dennis

*Prices for artworks depend on medium, size, and availability, and major works for the following artists are currently estimated in these financial brackets. This is subject to change. Smaller works within the lower price range are available from all the artists.

 

Please find the PDF for the whole magazine here: Business Day ART supplement 2019

The Troubles of the Neck: William Kentridge’s ‘Kaboom!’

November 1, 2018 – Goodman Gallery  – 13.10-10.11.2018

Artthrob.co.za

William Kentridge

William Kentridge’s latest exhibition ‘KABOOM!’ at the Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg is a large exhibition, which draws on work produced for his recent theatre performance projects. Audiences can expect to see many drawings, prints, animations from The Head & the Load, and Wozzeck, as well as some new sculpture on exhibit. This exhibition opens in the same month as some other significant Kentridge related events. One of his drawings reached an international record sales price of R6,6 million on auction, and Kentridge’s latest theatre piece The Head & the Load opening at the Tate Modern in London to mark the centenary of the First World War.

It can be quite easy to forget how significant Kentridge is internationally, as a highly regarded contemporary South African artist, because when he is in Joburg, he seems so accessible. His work is everywhere, the Centre for the Less Good Idea is open to the public during season, he’s spotted quietly minding his own business at art related events and around Maboneng, with a ready smile and tilt of the head for those who greet him. This exhibition at the Goodman Gallery is a window into the work that happens behind, and alongside, the major productions that make their way to the big museums, opera houses, universities, and art venues all over the world. It is a reminder of the larger workings at play.

William Kentridge Untitled (Drawing from Wozzeck 63), 2017. Charcoal on paper

Like most of Goodman’s Kentridge exhibitions in the past, ‘KABOOM!’ offers a great variety of visuals and experimental, expressive drawings for its audience. It affords insight into Kentridge’s process, and his mind, when you see the drawings that are both preparation for larger projects, and his determined production that stems from his research. This ability to provide access to the viewer is something quite unique, as quite often, we only see the curated, shiny, highly produced finished product of the artist. Not that the work isn’t ‘finished’ as such, but you can almost picture him at a wall in his studio with duct tape around the edge of the drawing, applying a bit of red conté, erasing a little charcoal, tearing up some archival document and gluing it to his paper with a fine brush. The tactility, motion and expression in his work renders it lively, the mark-making precise, yet free.

As is expected, the canon remains the same. Some of the details, or the images change, and it’s evident that Kentridge has new obsessions and curiosities, and has been reading new material, but thematically, the work still considers the same subject matter from different perspectives. The undertone in his work still confronts colonialism, and its long-lasting after-effects, but it’s insinuated rather than clearly depicted. The danse macabre that Kentridge has been employing in his stage productions, and the absurdism in sound poems such as Ursonate by Kurt Schwitter (1932) that he draws inspiration from, emerge strongly in his visuals.

William Kentridge Drawing for The Head & the Load (Fallen Figures), 2018. Charcoal on paper

When considering the period between the early 1900s, the advent of the First World War, and all the way into the Second World War, there was an efflorescence of absurdism in the art world. Marcel Duchamp, Cubism, the Dadaist movement, German Expressionism, and Surrealism, among many other distinct, or overlapping movements in Europe, had a great influence on the thought processes related to cultural production, not the aesthetics alone. These movements inspired a great amount of literature, political thought, musical expressionism and grand philosophical declarations. They were mostly counter reactions to the horrors of the wars, of the death, the starvation, the hatred, and the mobilisation of fascism. It seems almost inevitable that Kentridge, who has already related so deeply to these movements and their philosophical explorations, should focus on the First World War and the contribution that African soldiers made, fighting for their colonial powers.

There is a crossover between landscape, and body in landscape works like Drawing for The Head & The Load (Fallen Figures) (2018) wherein the deceased become the hills themselves. Maps are frequently used to complicate the images, showing extra levels of chaos and confusion, abstraction manifested physically, and intellectually, because maps represent so much about the way things happened, and the way land was perceived, instead of being the factual documents we expect or assume maps to be. This can be seen in works like Untitled (Drawing from Wozzeck 63) (2017), in which one sees the mangled structures that used to be buildings, an aesthetic echoed in works that look like aerial view maps with pathways, but simultaneously like barbed wire.

Kentridge deals with fragments in his works on exhibition at the Goodman. The drawings are moments in time from the greater narrative, humanized, and drawn from the perspective of the singular heart, or mind. His work reflects the chaos and the media of the Dadaists, using collage, bizarre combinations of words that form a strange poetry on the page, covered in drawings that emulate barbed wire, it emphasises the banality of war, and evades the temptation of overarching narratives, focusing on the local, the individual and the personal. The fragmentation gives opportunity to present multiple histories, as in the production of The Head & The Load itself, there are innumerable voices speaking, shouting, singing, laughing, crying, ululating, through his work.

William Kentridge Drawing from The Head & the Load (L’Impot du Sang) , 2018. Collage of printed text, charcoal, pastel and red pencil on paper

His work considers how narratives are told, and retold, throughout history, how the past is fragmented and subjective. Histories are multiple, complex and often contradictory tales of experience, sometimes told with the intention of telling particular versions that suit the victors, abandoning stories of the individual in favour of the overarching theme the writers of history wish to portray. In Kentridge’s work there are always many voices, visible in the sometimes chaotic scenes in his theatre performances where many strains of music, numerous voices and arbitrary loud sounds intersect to form its own absurdist ‘sound poem’.

For all the darkness portrayed, there is a kind of magic drawn out in his work, that speaks of human nature and how it is possible to find laughter and humanity in the absurdity, chaos, and darkness. Emotion, experience, history, understanding, memory – these are never linear, or definable experience with objective clarity, but complicated and abstract. Kentridge’s work is homage to this, to the individual, to the humans that lived through immeasurable difficulties at the hands of those that wrote the history books. These archives are torn up, repurposed and reorganized, drawn over by Kentridge, in an effort to lend a voice to those who would otherwise recede and be forgotten, recreate memories, and to remind all what is at stake for the average human when things come to a head between those in power. There’s something particularly poignant in globally politically turbulent times, all things considered, about the use of The Head & The Load as a play on the Ghanaian proverb, ‘the head and the load are the troubles of the neck.’

Download PDF: The Troubles of the Neck – William Kentridge’s ‘Kaboom!’ by Nicola Kritzinger

The Villa

An art experiment / studio / residency enlivened by artist & curator
Jonathan Freemantle

Johannesburg, 2018

Io Makandal, 2018

Download the full PDF document: The Villa art residency, studio, event & experiment.

The Villa exhibition was exceptional, as it presented a studio space in which some of the most talented young South African artists could not only exhibit their work, but also produce it for exhibition. Experimental spaces away from the ‘white cube’ experience allow for a messy experiential viewing among the ghosts of a disappearing past. The tangible nature of the transience of the space relived the artists of the concerns that present themselves when creating work in formal spaces. Taking over entire rooms and awkward nooks in a house set for destruction allowed the artists to expand their practice and wreak havoc on the prolific found objects. 

A neo-dadaist experience, the Villa offered a space for artists’ freedom of expression that can only be found in an experimental arena. Evident in the paintball guns employed by Dokter & Misses performative destruction of a pokey dirty bathroom, or the inclusion of newly collapsed ceilings in Io Makandal’s installation, the space harbored a sense of danger and exploration that enhanced the modes of creative production. Newcomers to the space were encouraged to explore an exhibition where magnificent paintings were hung in narrow closets (Lucy Turpin), or an unusable bathtub full of pins (Givan Lotz), hidden in the maze of rooms upstairs, juxtaposed against kitsch gold fixtures that hung from the last remnants of their previous pipes, or bizarre tiles that only the 1980s would have entertained as elegant, it was like a game of hide and seek, to determine what was intended to be viewed as art, and what was accidental. African masks in abandoned fish tanks, or the strange arrangement of pseudo-pychology books strewn on shelves, it was the viewer who made sense of what they saw.

Most evident from the villa exhibition was the dichotomy between the hedonistic expression and the serious nature of the application of hard-won artistic craft. It is difficult to curate an exhibition of the best young artists in the best of spaces, so working with the challenges of an unpredictable space was navigated with an adventurous elegance that created something completely new, bordering on theatre. In the light of day, the dissipated magic of the night-time opening was palpable, and felt like that movement you see from the corner of your eye, that you can’t quite focus on when you seek it.

Nicola Kritzinger, 2018

Interior and exterior views, The Villa, 2018

Jacob van Schalkwyk, 2018

Dokter & Misses, 2018

Read the Between 10 and 5 article on The Villa here or download the PDF:
The Villa – Bringing Exceptional Artists Together in Experimental Spaces

Jonathan Freemantle in front of his painting at The Villa. Portrait by Brett Rubin, 2018.

No Heroes Outside: Broomberg & Chanarin’s ‘Bandage the knife not the wound’

No Heroes Outside: Broomberg & Chanarin’s ‘Bandage the knife not the wound’

Originally Published on ArtThrob May 15, 2018

Broomberg & Chanarin By Nicola Kritzinger

Goodman Gallery – Exhibition ran: 24.04-26.05.2018

Upon first impression, the Broomberg & Chanarin exhibition at the Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg is one that will likely elicit the annoyed response commonly reserved, by even the most weathered of art audiences, for the type of contemporary art that relies on an untraditional art medium.

For this exhibition, the artists used Ultraviolet printing (an early method of photographic printing developed in the 19th century), producing works of art using a Ben-Day dot silkscreen-type aesthetic, and juxtaposing multiple forms of a selected image. Significantly these images mostly rely on cardboard as its ‘canvas.’ The use of pop art aesthetics and cardboard makes these works seem frivolous at first glance.

I was guilty of responding with a jaded eye, having expected something somewhat different from these two well-known artists (concurrently exhibiting at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris). It didn’t take me long to do my first trip around the exhibition and consider dismissing it as uninteresting – but I eventually realized that I was intentionally being presented with some seemingly banal images, on an even more banal medium, and that I hadn’t given it enough consideration.

Broomberg & Chanarin have a history of working with text alongside the image. They are not only artists that experiment with photography as a medium, but they are archivists, historians, academics, and detectives. They weave together narratives across time and place through the found image, and there is a profound method of questioning accompanying an odd sense of nostalgia in their work.

The cardboard surface, and the potential vulnerability of UV printing on this material made for disposal, lends itself well to what the artists are trying to convey to their audience. The disposability of the medium lives in contrast with our lust after the idea of art as the immutable relic of human intellectual experience.

Artists have worked with disposable or untenable media since the first human painted on a rock. Newspaper, out-of-date books, walls of dilapidated buildings – nothing is immune to being drawn into the fold as ground. But somehow, seeing such cleanly printed works on such cleanly cut card makes it a different ball game. The medium has presence in this space, unframed, and bent as a used box might be, it’s obviously important. It’s more than a poke at the value placed on art in the commercial market. It’s examining the core of how equally disposable content, and with it, human history, has become in the digital age. Somehow using such tactile display forms, and archaic printing methods, serves to highlight the contrast it holds to the current modus operandi. We’ll never again be confronted with Anne Frank’s diary, just maybe an old tumblr account, or an archived website from the late 1990s dedicated to the ‘dancing baby.’ There is something so anti-memetic about displaying overprinted photography on cardboard, which speaks volumes about the artists’ intentions.

The Goodman Gallery writes in its blurb about the artists that, ‘Over one trillion images were produced in the world last year.’ But this seems like a lowball estimate, considering how many people in the world have phones or cameras now. The calculation works out to approximately 130 images produced per person in the world per year. It’s overwhelming trying to imagine a trillion of anything, never mind the dizzying notion of more than a trillion photos entering the digital sphere annually. As an archivist, or a historian, it seems pointless to even try to comprehend how humans will deal with understanding this amount of content in future. Perhaps it will all be lost along with our ability to use the technology to see the digital, and what will remain is the cardboard.

Presenting alternative histories by creating more content, means that there are more alternate interpretations, and therefore understandings of, not only events, but all of human experience. This is a very overwhelming idea. A liberating one, but in its vastness it feels paralyzing. It seems like Broomberg and Chanarin deal with these ideas in the use of medium, and by isolating such a comparatively small number of images, it stands in contrast to the digital.

It probably says a lot about the show that I have found it near impossible to pick one or two particular works, or series of prints, to present as examples for analysis and description. The images flow into one another, zoomed in bits and pieces of humans from historically important images. Importantly the photos used encapsulate ‘the [small handful of] images that remain meaningful’ to the artists themselves in this world where the image has become so readily produced by anyone.

Broomberg and Chanarin’s attempt at narrowing down their selection, and their use of medium somehow convey the futility of their exercise, and emphasize that in some existentially depressing way we have rendered our record of history and our human experience unmanageable because now we are all recording. This most democratic form of writing history deprives us of heroes outside of ourselves.

The thing that I love about art is that, unlike most things, we get to read into it ad infinitum. We can interpret what the artists intended, or what we perceive for ourselves, but most of all, it provokes thought, and although no one work stands out on this exhibition as particularly special, it’s left me thinking about the dilemma it presents constantly over the past weeks, and I suspect that, as a historian, this contemporary dilemma of information overload is going to haunt me, and my own sense of relevance, forever.

 

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