The Dust On My Feet
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
For a while, just a little while, the dust in-between my toes belonged to me. For just that little while that dust caked in-between my toes was home, my only home. It was my sanctuary, the deluge of my existence.
Humanity is, has and will always be a fragile thing. Maybe that is humanity’s ultimate status: fragility. How corrupt we can be and ultimately are, is perhaps what makes us most human. The good is defined only by the bad. I battle to see any good in humanity anymore, let alone in art. Turn on the news, turn the leaves of the daily paper, turn the corner of the gallery and what you’ll find is decay. Decay of the human condition.
Art has become an unwitting vehicle for this decay. It has become the metaphorical mirror that artists hold up to the world. Yet there is something sinister about the reflections we see before us. The metaphors are jaded; jaded by our own narcassitic compulsions to look and see and finally to be seen.
Artists, at the same time as they show us our humanity, our failings, they also issue something of themselves into the frame. That’s the drive of art. Why do people create? Perhaps it is to externalise some feeling, some thought, or just to externalise the self. A desperate plea to some kind of identity other to the ‘I’. Some ‘thing’ beyond the trifling being, some kind of memorialised sentiment that, once created, will have a life independent of its master.
Yet this life will never be independent of its referent. Even when art takes as its subject matter itself, it is never free of its shadow; the object that it creates.
I came across this shadow, this object, twice during the past week. Lets call it the other for convenience. I was confronted, explicitly, with the other at the VANSA 20/20 during Dan Halters presentation. Rather than speaking himself Halter chose to present some twenty Zimbabwean refugees to tell their tales of coming to South Africa. As the tales of rape, extortion and death followed I was emotionally bewildered at the desperation of humanity on display.
2-764578.jpg)
This too bothered me. Humanity on display. What is the everyday reality usually circumvented by the present audience was suddenly inescapable. It was glaring in its actuality. Feeling uncomfortably like spectacle, I questioned the ethics of listening, wondering on the effect of these testimonies, finally questioning Halters intentions. The applause after each account sending shivers down my spine.
But here there where no objects. Each tale was imbued with personality. As some read and others joked about the ‘easy way through’, some told of leaving behind mothers and sisters who packed the last foodstuffs in the house for the journey. Here the everyday was the haunting shadow of the subject. The object resigned to the bitter human experience being conveyed.
This stood in sharp contradistinction to Ashleigh McLean’s presentation on the new show ‘The Status of Greatness’ at Whatiftheworld by muso fashion photographer extraordinaire Xander Ferreira. Embodying the persona of Gazelle, Ferreira inserts himself into the frame as a mock Mobutu wannabe, clad in the ‘recourse to ethnicity’ regalia of the former dictator. Glancing at the images and then to the faces of the previous presentees I shuddered at the twist of the knife that this satire presented.
There was nothing of the benevolent testimonies before. They had been replaced by a mocking assertion of the self, which addressed the other only through direct appropriation. The narrative of power in Ferreira’s project became glaring apparent in all its brutality. Suddenly satire here was revealed to be a cruel weapon, a double edged sword on which it’s easy to fall.
Getting home I washed the dust off my feet, wondering if I ever truly possessed it or if maybe I was just borrowing it.
Humanity is, has and will always be a fragile thing. Maybe that is humanity’s ultimate status: fragility. How corrupt we can be and ultimately are, is perhaps what makes us most human. The good is defined only by the bad. I battle to see any good in humanity anymore, let alone in art. Turn on the news, turn the leaves of the daily paper, turn the corner of the gallery and what you’ll find is decay. Decay of the human condition.
Art has become an unwitting vehicle for this decay. It has become the metaphorical mirror that artists hold up to the world. Yet there is something sinister about the reflections we see before us. The metaphors are jaded; jaded by our own narcassitic compulsions to look and see and finally to be seen.
Artists, at the same time as they show us our humanity, our failings, they also issue something of themselves into the frame. That’s the drive of art. Why do people create? Perhaps it is to externalise some feeling, some thought, or just to externalise the self. A desperate plea to some kind of identity other to the ‘I’. Some ‘thing’ beyond the trifling being, some kind of memorialised sentiment that, once created, will have a life independent of its master.
Yet this life will never be independent of its referent. Even when art takes as its subject matter itself, it is never free of its shadow; the object that it creates.
I came across this shadow, this object, twice during the past week. Lets call it the other for convenience. I was confronted, explicitly, with the other at the VANSA 20/20 during Dan Halters presentation. Rather than speaking himself Halter chose to present some twenty Zimbabwean refugees to tell their tales of coming to South Africa. As the tales of rape, extortion and death followed I was emotionally bewildered at the desperation of humanity on display.
2-764635.jpg)
This too bothered me. Humanity on display. What is the everyday reality usually circumvented by the present audience was suddenly inescapable. It was glaring in its actuality. Feeling uncomfortably like spectacle, I questioned the ethics of listening, wondering on the effect of these testimonies, finally questioning Halters intentions. The applause after each account sending shivers down my spine.
But here there where no objects. Each tale was imbued with personality. As some read and others joked about the ‘easy way through’, some told of leaving behind mothers and sisters who packed the last foodstuffs in the house for the journey. Here the everyday was the haunting shadow of the subject. The object resigned to the bitter human experience being conveyed.
This stood in sharp contradistinction to Ashleigh McLean’s presentation on the new show ‘The Status of Greatness’ at Whatiftheworld by muso fashion photographer extraordinaire Xander Ferreira. Embodying the persona of Gazelle, Ferreira inserts himself into the frame as a mock Mobutu wannabe, clad in the ‘recourse to ethnicity’ regalia of the former dictator. Glancing at the images and then to the faces of the previous presentees I shuddered at the twist of the knife that this satire presented.
There was nothing of the benevolent testimonies before. They had been replaced by a mocking assertion of the self, which addressed the other only through direct appropriation. The narrative of power in Ferreira’s project became glaring apparent in all its brutality. Suddenly satire here was revealed to be a cruel weapon, a double edged sword on which it’s easy to fall.
Getting home I washed the dust off my feet, wondering if I ever truly possessed it or if maybe I was just borrowing it.
posted by Matthew Partridge at 1:55 PM
42 Comments:
yawn.
Samuel Fosso
Le Chef qui a vendu l’Afrique aux colon
Take it off!
what r u borrowing exactly? the dust? satire? existence? editorship? i think u left the element of critique behind on this one MP;and instead you are caked in your own dust it might even be melancholy: nonetheless your point of testimony in both projects of ethics and ego is interesting because it suggests how testimony can be mutatis mutandi meaning what at first is benevolent transforms into cruelty perhaps only by one of the receptors.
Barend de Wet says there is no difference between art and life. He described to me that his most basic tatoo is on his penis. It is a a woodgrain thats colour ranges from yellow to brown.
This post has been removed by the author.
Aah, jes. Die Barend ding. Ek het ook die antwoord gekry dat daar geen verskil tussen lewe en kuns is nie, dus lewe is kuns en kuns is lewe. Hy het vir my sy tatoo op sy regter arm beskryf. dit klink baie groot. Dit is 'n vrou van die kant af met 'n slang in die agtergrond. Die vrou het swart krul hare met twee rose daarin. Ek dink dit is pers rose met pienk kolletjies of iets. Die vrou het pienk lippe en wangetjies en die shading op haar gesig is effens oranje. die slang is groen en lime green en onder geel en oranje....... en sy het 'n gypsy oorbel in
Barnend de Wet said the same thing to me. He's probably annoyed with the calls by now
Friendly old chap, Barend de Wet.
Die gesprek het oor sy tatoo op sy linker voorarm, aan die binne kant, gegaan. Dit is 'n dooie, blou swaeltjie wat op 'n donker rooi roos lê, daar is twee groen en geel blare op die stingel, met bloed druppels wat op dit afloop. Die tatoo is plus-minus 25cm by 20cm groot. Oor die ander onderwerp: Lewe is 'n kuns, so daar is geen verskil nie.
wil ook net sê ons het wel nie die foon in sy oor doodgedruk nie, ons munte het opgeraak.
Die einde
Barend said that there is no difference between art and life...whatever he does is creative whether it's eating, sleeping, painting or walking the dog.
I then asked him to describe one of his tattoos to me, and he described the skeleton in an open coffin which is on the back of his right forearm, from his elbow to his wrist.
I asked: What do you think is the difference between art and life.
He said: Nothing.
I asked: What and where is your favourite or most meanigful tattoo?
He said: Well i have 50 all over my body, but do you really want to know which one means the most to me?
I said: Yes.
He said: The one on my penis. Its covered in red and white stripes and also has shades of dark brown to yellow.
I thanked him for taking his time to speak to me and he then just said bye.
11 Comments
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Anonymous Anonymous said...
yawn.
2:36 PM
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Samuel Fosso
Le Chef qui a vendu l’Afrique aux colon
3:39 PM
Anonymous Hugh said...
Take it off!
5:12 PM
Anonymous misty said...
what r u borrowing exactly? the dust? satire? existence? editorship? i think u left the element of critique behind on this one MP;and instead you are caked in your own dust it might even be melancholy: nonetheless your point of testimony in both projects of ethics and ego is interesting because it suggests how testimony can be mutatis mutandi meaning what at first is benevolent transforms into cruelty perhaps only by one of the receptors.
7:49 PM
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Barend de Wet says there is no difference between art and life. He described to me that his most basic tatoo is on his penis. It is a a woodgrain thats colour ranges from yellow to brown.
10:28 AM
Comment deleted
This post has been removed by the author.
10:41 AM
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Aah, jes. Die Barend ding. Ek het ook die antwoord gekry dat daar geen verskil tussen lewe en kuns is nie, dus lewe is kuns en kuns is lewe. Hy het vir my sy tatoo op sy regter arm beskryf. dit klink baie groot. Dit is 'n vrou van die kant af met 'n slang in die agtergrond. Die vrou het swart krul hare met twee rose daarin. Ek dink dit is pers rose met pienk kolletjies of iets. Die vrou het pienk lippe en wangetjies en die shading op haar gesig is effens oranje. die slang is groen en lime green en onder geel en oranje....... en sy het 'n gypsy oorbel in
10:44 AM
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Barnend de Wet said the same thing to me. He's probably annoyed with the calls by now
10:47 AM
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Friendly old chap, Barend de Wet.
Die gesprek het oor sy tatoo op sy linker voorarm, aan die binne kant, gegaan. Dit is 'n dooie, blou swaeltjie wat op 'n donker rooi roos lê, daar is twee groen en geel blare op die stingel, met bloed druppels wat op dit afloop. Die tatoo is plus-minus 25cm by 20cm groot. Oor die ander onderwerp: Lewe is 'n kuns, so daar is geen verskil nie.
wil ook net sê ons het wel nie die foon in sy oor doodgedruk nie, ons munte het opgeraak.
Die einde
10:54 AM
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Barend said that there is no difference between art and life...whatever he does is creative whether it's eating, sleeping, painting or walking the dog.
I then asked him to describe one of his tattoos to me, and he described the skeleton in an open coffin which is on the back of his right forearm, from his elbow to his wrist.
11:29 AM
Anonymous Anonymous said...
I asked: What do you think is the difference between art and life.
He said: Nothing.
I asked: What and where is your favourite or most meanigful tattoo?
He said: Well i have 50 all over my body, but do you really want to know which one means the most to me?
I said: Yes.
He said: The one on my penis. Its covered in red and white stripes and also has shades of dark brown to yellow.
I thanked him for taking his time to speak to me and he then just said bye.
We decided to approach Mr. Yo yo (ma) via a loudspeaker conversation, none of us willing to confront naked-white-man-in-picture-with-strange-(yet hairless)-penis#229 alone. Safety in numbers. (numbers are safety). He, as was predicted, commented that art and life is one amalgamated mooshy thing, a sort of primordial soup of unity where every act in inherently creative. Yes, someone is possessed by Beuys!!! Subsequently, he, in minute detail, described one of his innumerable tattoos, the description of which I won't relate as I don't intend to bore the reader with the marks on the body of naked-white-man-in-picture-with-strange-(yet hairless)-penis#229.
Less affected writing masquerading as art criticism please.
terwyl ek na barend de wet se baie kaal prentjie sit en staar het, het ek hom gebel en ast'ware met die prentjie gesels toe hy geantwoord het. sonder twyfel het hy gesê dat kuns en die lewe onlosmakend is en dat daar geen verskil is nie. ek het toe vir hom gevra om sy kreatiefste tattoo te omskryf, waar ek, soos bogenoemdes, verras was met sy houtgrein kunswerk wat blykbaar lyk soos vlamme op hout. hy het my gevra om asb vir die res van die kunsklas te se dat die afmetings wat hy vir van die tattoos gegee het te klein was, en dat hy met n liniaal sit en besef hy het n fout gemaak.
http://www.whatiftheworld.com/files/posts/exhibitions/2007/01/19/evol-posters-by-david-west/barend.jpg
less bullshit masquerading as a request please ash.
less bullshit masquerading as a request please ash.
I recently had a conversation with Barend de Wet on the difference between Art and Life, he argues that there is no difference for him, his life is art. Although not everybody’s life is lived as art, that not all are artists. He also believes that the emphasis on creativity is overrated, and to live creatively does not mean that you are living an artful life.
Sometimes when I look at Barend I feel like touching myself. The difference between life and masturbation is very slim.
Another anonymous person send by a certain someone, to tell you...
that barend de wet says there is no difference between art and life. he also was very keen to describe his tattoo on his penis... which ruffly translates/or can be viewed as "a woody pecker"... quit sad...i thought
I hereby perform the rebelous artwork of not telling you what you don't want to hear.
Good writing Matthew, I'm impressed. As for everyone else, I think extermination is the only cure.
And get over Barend and his fucking stupid penis already, it's really not that interesting.
I asked Baren de Wet, a very tattooed man, what his theory was on the following question: "What is the difference between art and life. His reply was direct and simplistic: "Art is life and life is art, thus there is no difference." It is true but who is it directed to? To artist or the pulic in general. Some artist would fully agree that "art is life" because they have dedicated their lives to itand made it heir profession. The public would say that is how you live your life that "life is art."
For interest sake I asked him about his tattoos. He guesses he has 50 tattoos that have different sizes from 10cm to 25cm. He described me two oh his tattoos. The is a black & white Power Puff Girls tatoo on his one side, just below the rib cage. The image is 20 cm high and wide. Bubbles is on the left, Blossom in the middle & Buttercup in the right. They are placed in a triangle form and in a flying position. This tattoo was placed on his side 7 years ago. He wanted a tatoo of the Power Puff Girls because they were a popular icon.
The second tattoo was the most colourful, was placed on his right upper legand 15 cm high and wide. It's a red heart with a black and red star behind it and placed against a light blue background. The top of the heart is adorned with red,orange,with a little blue, japanese cherry blossoms. In the middle of the heart is an eye crying a tear. There is a thorn going across the heart from the heart's outline.
no comments on the main event i see. all eyes on the white man's vanity while africa burns. you people are far gone, probably beyond rescue.
Holy God! Warn a brother! http://www.whatiftheworld.com/files/posts/exhibitions/2007/01/19/evol-posters-by-david-west/barend.jpg: very disturbing!!
Barend says there is no difference between art and life. Barend has an open coffin tattoo on his right forearm with a skeleton inside the coffin.
"good writing". Can anyone here actually read? Come now MP, stop hiding behind your wishy-washy rhetoric and maybe, perhaps, consider some content?
no comments on the main event i see. all eyes on the white man's vanity while africa burns. you people are far gone, probably beyond rescue.
- PETER MY AFRICAN BROTHER
The people who've gone gaga about Barend are first years from Stellenbosch, who have been given a project about him. No doubt some out-of-date Arte Povera blather about ooh did you know you could get such a thing as a person who is a work of art. Yawn. They're probably too racist and blinkered to even work out how to think about the issues that came up at the 20/20 event.
att anonymous 4;59 pm - this info is of little worth
True enough. It also won't make any difference.
barend is not hairy. partridge is a student. ilzza is angry.
ARTHEAT IS A CUTTING EDGE STELLENBOSCH UNIVERSITY FINE ART DEPARTMENT STUDENT BLOG
ARTHEAT IS A STUDENT BLOG, BAREND IS ART, YOU ART WHAT?
Oh fuck, seriously, peeps. Don't be too easily sold on these Afrikaner myth-makers: when I was at varsity it was Kendell Geers doing walkabouts at shows, using big words and talking about how great he was. Same tune as this new de Wet ditty.
A few tattoos, a shaved pubis and a story about how walking the dog is a creative act do not an artist make.
Why is no-one asking the question of whether de Wet is a GOOD artist? It's all very Klein-esque to confer genius status on your very life, but at least Yves had he chops to back it up...
the previous anonymous is such an idiot - what the americans call a hater.
after very little research it looks like de wet does have the chops - bronze works outside the national gallery, numerous awards, works in international collections and an intrinsic understanding of what stupid doesn't want to grasp.
btw - which outdated construct is the twat using to define GOOD versus BAD?
Just because the National Gallery owns his work and his peers judging him worthy and some misguided collectors buying into his 'art' does not qualify him.
The twat, as anonymous 7.08 labels me, has a point: should've done my research on how many awards De Wet has garnered. But awards don't always mean everything: went to the Sasol Wax in 2007, where Walter Oltmann's godawful gilted hand sculptures beat Sue Williamson's kickass video on pubic waxing. And who can forget circa 2005 Tanya Poole winning the Kebble? What a travesty, Tanya Poole winning anything besides the 'myopic painting style of the decade'...
Though I take your point, 7.08, I think a little bit of hater is healthy for these kids to develop: at least it'll help them see past the stars in their eyes.
7:26 says "Just because the National Gallery owns his work and his peers judging him worthy and some misguided collectors buying into his 'art' does not qualify him." and 10:21 backs up 7:26 by dismissing awards. So what does make an artist good enough to be great? From my deckchair it appears that some people feel its their duty to reject the success of others. It fits their profiles as rebels and God forbid they stand up for Kentridge, Geers, Tretchikoff or even Lamprecht. Bless you Haters.
Point taken.
He also appears in the media spotlight periodically, has been analysed by academia and acts very much like an artist.
Looks like he has all his boxes ticked and has been at it for some time.
But does that mean I have to think he is good? Is there any point trying to change what is fact? Can I just take sides until I spend some time with him and decide I like him then I can say he is great and his art is cool, please?
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