It is the night of the opening of the FNB Joburg Art Fair and the Sandton Convention Centre is abuzz with the sound of people grousing about the fact that wine and food was not complimentary this year. Without warning, the persistent grumbling was interrupted by the shrill sound of guitar feedback, soaring over the rhubarb and sustaining for several minutes. Due to the fact that the source of this intervention was ambiguous and seemingly spontaneous, an audience member retorted with “Bloody James Webb must be at it again,” before subsequently resuming his commodity exchange of a grubby coupon for a glass of admittedly classy Idiom Cape Blend. Further investigation, however, reveals a decidedly different source than South Africa’s resident sonic terrorist.
Conveniently coinciding with the current display of a selection of Frank Marshall’s Renegades photographs, the Rooke Gallery had organised for the enactment of Joachim Schӧnfeldt’s performance Guild Flag upon an unsuspecting Art Fair audience; a hard rock reinterpretation of the South African national anthem performed by Linda Buthelezi. The fact that much of the 2000+ crowd remained oblivious to the source of the intervention is perhaps entirely appropriate given the photographic works that it took place in front of. Indeed Marshall’s series is an interesting one both in terms of documentary photography as a perennial staple of the South African art industry and in terms of its current context as an exhibited work within the FNB Joburg Art Fair .
The series brings into play a sort of subaltern double-negative wherein Botswanian subjects appropriate (and indeed passionately embrace) the conventionally “lowbrow” occidental Heavy Metal subculture. A criticism frequently directed at (but obviously not limited to) African documentary photography lies in the inference that there is a sort of colonial gaze inherent in the photographic lens, fundamentally disempowering the subject as a depiction of the “Other” due to the discrepancy between the perceived hegemonic photographer’s cultural and historical perspective and that of the depicted subject.
As soon as the “different but similar” cultural Venn diagram presents itself however (as in some of Pieter Hugo’s Nollywood works) an interesting paradox is presented; the auto-response is that the “occidental-ness” encroaches upon the “African-ness, whilst simultaneously the African-ness seemingly bestows the leather jackets, spiked wrist bands and macabre American Death Metal band shirts with a dislocated aesthetic. Call it a liminal cultural conglomerate. In this case, it seems disingenuous to sound the “problematic othering” alarm when the depicted individual actively (and proudly) subscribes to a subculture wherein a rebellious sense of community within being “other” is half the point.
Which brings the discussion back to the context at hand. The Press Release for the FNB Joburg Art Fair infers that the fair proffers “contemporary African art as it exists locally, on the continent…” In this regard the works presents a perhaps extreme example of this playing out, a perpetual performativity as it exists, however unlikely, on the continent. The accompaniment with Schӧnfeldt’s opening night performance as soundtrack further adds a degree of contextual discourse as that work itself marks an investigation into the material reinterpretation of cultural custom. In light of Marshall’s work, one can’t help but feel that the final resolution was perhaps more restrained than it need be, some “up to 11” hell-raising would have been a welcome cultural juxtaposition to the decidedly subdued affair of the opening event.