In den letzten 10
Jahren ist die Arbeit afrikanischer Photographen zunehmend auch im
Westen bekannt geworden und hat dadurch das Bild nachhaltig verändert,
welches wir von afrikanischer Kunst im 20. Jahrhundert hatten. Ihre
künstlerischen Strategien und kritischen Arbeitsweisen widersprechen der
herkömmlichen Meinung, nur der Westen sei zu Innovationen imstande.
Zudem unterlaufen sie kritisch die fotojournalistischen und
dokumentarischen Bilderfluten der letzten Jahrzehnte über Apartheid und
Postapartheid in Südafrika.
In der zweiten Ausstellung von ZWELETHU MTHETHWA in unseren Galerieräumen zeigen wir das photographische Projekt MAIDENS,
welches unterschiedlichste Verhaltensformen junger Mädchen und ihre
sozialen Beziehungen während des Reet-Tanzfestes aufzeigt. Ein Zulu
Ritual, das meist nur bekannt ist als Jungfräulichkeitstest, in
Wirklichkeit aber heute noch ein sehr komplexes Ritual für das
Erwachsenwerden der Mädchen bedeutet. Im Laufe dieses Rituals werden sie
über die Bedeutung ihrer Weiblichkeit, ihrer Körper, ihrer Sexualität
belehrt, sie erfahren Wichtiges zur Erhaltung ihrer Gesundheit. Und sie
hören und lernen aus umfangreichen „Protokollen“, welches Verhalten es
zu lernen oder abzustreifen gilt, um am komplexen Leben in der Familie,
in der Gemeinschaft und der Gesellschaft insgesamt teilnehmen zu können.
Das Ritual bringt junge Zulu Mädchen aus verschiedenen Clans und
Regionen Südafrikas zusammen. Diese Mädchen treffen sich als Fremde und
gehen oftmals als Freundinnen auseinander. Sie lernen über sich selbst
und die anderen, indem sie ihre Geschichten austauschen und neue
Beziehungen knüpfen: auf sozialer, kultureller, politischer und
sexueller Ebene.
It visually explores certain
moments and gestures that reflect how these young girls forge (old and
new, including extended) family ties, friendships and comradeships. Of
importance is how the girls occupy and negotiate a ritual site reserved
for them, as such enabling their confidence about their (youthful)
femininity and sexual identities for bonding, even outing.
Through a series of photographs
taken at various angles and distances, framed as portraits in space,
MAIDENS seeks to visually create a reflective space wherein the
relationships between the girls could be viewed and understood.
Underscoring MAIDENS is a visual negotiation of the important and
complex relationships between the girls in particular how their postures
exhibiting their state of self-consciousness and attitudes. MAIDENS
thus contemplates associated affairs during a moment marking one of the
many phases through which (Zulu) young girls are initiated in their long
journey towards respectable, responsible and mature adults, perceived
both as individuals and members of a community in society.
Thembinkosi Goniwe
THE DANCE OF LIFE, ein
4-minütiges s/w Video von Mthethwa, zeigt eine Gruppe von Tänzern, die
kreisförmig und rhythmisch in die Dunkelheit entschwinden und wieder
auftauchen, begleitet von Trommeln, die dem menschlichen Herzschlag
entsprechen. THE DANCE OF LIFE als Symbol für Wiedergeburt, Reinkarnation, Auferstehung? Oder als Erinnerung an den Tanz von Henry Matisse?
Over the last
decade, a large corpus of photographic output by African photographers,
has come also to Western public’s attention and therefore contributed to
greater awareness of twentieth-century African modernity. „They have
established artistic initiatives that build their own critical
operations outside the imagistic traditions of the West, and
consequently have loosed upon the field of visual culture an immense
process of reassessment of cultural practices often attributed only to
Europe and North America“. (Lauri Firstenberg, 2001) Furthermore their
conceptual modes of photographic production negotiates critically the
hypersaturation of images of South Africa by
documentary/photojournalistic tradition of apartheid and postapartheid.
This show by Zwelethu Mthethwa – for
the second time at our gallery – presents the project MAIDENS, examining
relationships and attitudes of young girls participating in the Reeds
Dance, a Zulu Ritual popular known for testing girls’ virginity.
“The importance of this ritual is more
than just testing virginity, a complicated subject that cannot be
simply reduced into a policing of women sexuality and bodies. In the
course of the ritual, the girls are taught the importance of their
femininity, bodies and sexualities, issues regarding health and
cosmetics are among relative protocols to learn or unlearn their
behaviours that enable them to partake in their family-households,
communities and society at larger.
Importantly, the ritual brings
together young girls from different (Zulu) households, clans and regions
in South Africa. These girls meet as strangers and depart as friends,
relatives, families and comrades. Some of them discover their distant
relatives and family members; in this way, various forms of kinships,
friendship and bonding are developed. They learn about themselves and
each other, and thus establishing connecting histories and relationships
socially, culturally, politically and sexually.
MAIDENS’ focus is therefore on
these (human) relationships. It visually explores certain moments and
gestures that reflect how these young girls forge (old and new,
including extended) family ties, friendships and comradeships. Of
importance is how the girls occupy and negotiate a ritual site reserved
for them, as such enabling their confidence about their (youthful)
femininity and sexual identities for bonding, even outing.
Through a series of photographs
taken at various angles and distances, framed as portraits in space,
MAIDENS seeks to visually create a reflective space wherein the
relationships between the girls could be viewed and understood.
Underscoring MAIDENS is a visual negotiation of the important and
complex relationships between the girls in particular how their postures
exhibiting their state of self-consciousness and attitudes. MAIDENS
thus contemplates associated affairs during a moment marking one of the
many phases through which (Zulu) young girls are initiated in their long
journey towards respectable, responsible and mature adults, perceived
both as individuals and members of a community in society.
Thembinkosi Goniwe, 2005
THE DANCE OF LIFE, a
4-minutes b/w film by Mthethwa shows a group of dancers who circularly
and rhythmically disappear into the darkness and then appear into light
again, accompanied by a drumbeat which is in fact a sound of the
heartbeat. THE DANCE OF LIFE as a symbol of rebirth, reincarnation or resurrection? As a recall of Matisse’ JOY OF LIFE?
