MIKE MAVURA muses on the eagerly awaited highlight of the local arts calendar.
There is palpable excitement in Stellenbosch and beyond as the art world’s focus turns to the town for the much-anticipated second edition of the Stellenbosch Triennale, taking place from19 February to 30 March. It will be intriguing to see how the participating artists have responded across the three main exhibitions to the theme ‘B’azinzile: A Rehearsal for Breathing’. What goes on in the minds of artists, we wonder. How do they creatively conceptualise the shape, the form, the materials and the narratives that ultimately result in the art that they make for this Triennale from the curatorial prompt ‘A Rehearsal for Breathing’? Across three main exhibitions, the Triennale connects venues in presentations that speak toa triangulation of time on a linear framework of past, present and future.
The three exhibitions ‘In the Current’, ‘On the Cusp’ and ‘From the Vault’ are conceptualised on this past, present and future framework, with each marking a time in history. Starting with present and future time, the historic Oude Libertas venue is hosting the ‘In the Current’ and ‘On the Cusp ‘exhibitions. One of the things that make these exhibitions so exciting is their positioning in the same venue to create artistic dialogues and slippages between established and upcoming practices displayed side by side.
The ‘In the Current’ exhibition engages with artistic practices that speak to present time. It showcases established artists who have undergone the rigour of rehearsals over years, who have developed their artistic practices by means of their line of enquiry, by their improvisation and by their choice of mediums, materials and aesthetics. In this exhibition we will see works by eight established artists: Alexandre Kyungu Mwilambwe(Democratic Republic of Congo), Aline Motta(Brazil), Aziz Hazara (Afghanistan), Lebohang Kganye (South Africa), Simphiwe Ndzube (SouthAfrica), Thierry Oussou (Benin), Torkwase Dyson(USA) and William Miko (Zambia). In a sense, ‘In the Current’ is a metaphor for works that sustain the current moment by defining directions in contemporary art practices with themes that contribute to contemporary cultural discourse. Thierry Oussou’s art practice, for example, researches and proposes hope for an ideal production and distribution cycle of raw materials like cotton within global trade dynamics. Of equal stature, Torkwase Dyson has, as Pace Gallery states, “distilled a vocabulary of poetic forms to address the spaciousness of freedom and question what type of climates are born out of world building”. Artists ‘In the Current’ seem to truly embody the call of theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel that “we must cultivate many moments of silence to bring about one moment of expression”
Using mediums ranging from sculpture to photography, these artists serve as cultural commentators, as masters of breath-work reflecting the values, struggles and aspirations of current times. Through their work, they challenge perceptions and provoke thought, while providing a compass for reflection and inspiring change. The great American abstract expressionism artist Jackson Pollock proposed that “technique is the result of a need” and that “new needs demand new techniques, total control, denial of the accident, states of order, organic intensity, energy and motion made visible, human needs and motives – acceptance.”
The dynamism and evolution of life always presents new challenges and new needs that have to be met and expressed. This is best expressed in ‘On the Cusp’, an exhibition that presents voices no longer at ease, new voices that are searching. These are practitioners in full rehearsal and experimental mode, who are creating rhythms and frequencies that give glimpses to future directions of contemporary art. On show here are Tuli Mekondjo (Namibia), Takunda Regis Billiat (Zimbabwe), Simphiwe Buthelezi (SouthAfrica), Nandele Maguni (Mozambique), Manyaku Mashilo (South Africa), Kasangati Godelive Kabena (Democratic Republic of Congo), Helen Zeru (Ethiopia) and Astrid González (Colombia/Chile).At Oude Libertas, in ‘On the Cusp’ we see narratives and experiments in material and form that are significant registers in contemporary art – the promise of tomorrow’s breath. From organic materials such as plants and cow horns to art forms of sound, installations and paintings, an exciting array of works are on show from an assembly of new voices on the verge of shaping narratives, discourses and directions of contemporary art. If the timelines of the future and the present are grounded in the ‘On the Cusp’ and ‘In the Current’ exhibitions, then the ‘From the Vault’ exhibition completes the triangulation by speaking from the past