By James King

I was excited for the fringe festival. I am (perhaps unrealistically) optimistic about the potential of unconventional work. The logic is sound I suppose: no obligation, no motivation other than the impulse to fulfil whatever desire it is that producers have to produce.
I have romantic notions of an underground. I wanted a contemporary salon des refuse, full of work which wouldn’t or couldn’t be bought at the fair. I wanted either an alt-fair, anti-fair or un-fair. I suppose I would have liked to have seen something with a more meaningful reason not to be on the fair. The fringe is “an independent art fair...to coexist with the first art fair in Africa...in happy reciprocity. It is an artist’s initiative run on high enthusiasm and a low budget.” (Claudia Schneider 2010). Perhaps it is a step in the right direction, but I feel that it had less impact, and provided less contrast than it should have.
However, of the 22 works there are a handful worth seeing, which proportionately, is probably better than the fair itself. In Kemang Wa Lehulere’s work, Ukuguqula ibatyi the artist inserts pencil after pencil into his hair, an absurdist extrapolation of the infamously absurd pencil test. Kemang does not engage directly with the camera, he is shirtless – the vulnerability is powerful, but not overt or cutesy. Its a moving work.
The two documentary fragments were both nice: the first a delicately narrated history of the Chief Architect of Gansta Rap (Dr. Dre) and his influence on the artist Ilya Karilampi from Gothenberg, and the second a harrowing account of the violence of the Sierra Leone civil war, manifest on a particular bridge. The somewhat nostalgic (sometimes Swedish, sometimes Sweded English ), narration of the first piece was at odds with the brash hip-hop aesthetic content is touching - if one were in the right frame of mind, probably quite an interesting hybrid-post-modern-adaptation-whatever, if not, its a lo-fi, uncommon and subtle inversion. The second work is called ‘The Memory of the Bridge, Fanon – Class Struggles vs Evil Spirits’. Its an extract of a larger feature length documentary by Steve Mokwena called ‘Driving with Fanon’, which was aired last week at the same venue as the Fringe. In the fragment, an ex-combatant, Victor Cole describes a series of atrocities from the bridge on which they occurred. He’s understandably not wholly able to contain his emotion, and his purportedly matter of fact recollections are often interrupted where language doesn’t suffice.
There will be screenings until the 28 March, at variously: the Gold of Africa Museum Gallery, AnglogoldAshanti, J.A.G., Mofolo Art Centre (Soweto), Arts on Main, the Bag Factory, and the Troyeville Hotel. And its free, which (I think) is as it should be.