Arguably one of the main attractions at this year’s art fair was Tate Modern director Chris Dercon’s day three Alpha Romeo talk on ‘Audiences: How Much Do We Really Care’ and indeed many interesting assertions presented themselves. One of the more eyebrow-raising sections emerged with regards to the Tate’s future plans in terms of incorporating African art both into the permanent collection and into future exhibitions. The result could be broke down as such:

“All methods of African art production that are going to be ignored by the Tate in the future please step forward. Not so fast Young African Contemporary Photographers and Historical Artists.”

In other words, the crux of the matter seemed to be that Tate’s view on the increased inclusion of African Art into its collection will revolve around “historical modern artists from the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s and 80’s…and of course Photography, young contemporary photography” to quote Dercon. As to why everyone else is still sitting on the bench, Dercon asserts that “lack of knowledge and expertise is the principle problem from Tate’s perspective” and it is “easier to engage with contemporary art on an international level than historical”, hence why they feel that focussing on the historical is more “ambitious”. Couple this with the talk’s concluding video (which declared the Tate to be the model for the “Museum of the Future”) and a fairly perplexing scenario presents itself.

The question that is thus begged is “What are the photographers doing right that everyone else is doing wrong?” If one throws in the four decade block of historical artists, the alarming logical conclusion is that there is a sect that neatly perpetuates the pigeon-holing of Africa as the turmoil-ridden dark continent that everyone else can turn to and say “Hey, at least we’re not those guys.”  This may seem like the easily-assumed “autogripe” position but when Dercon enthusiastically makes reference to the fact that Okwui Enwezor is working on a photographic exhibition about apartheid or Tate’s currently exhibiting of “an amazing body of work” of Guy Tillim’s photographic series depicting the 2006 Democratic Republic of Congo elections, it doesn’t necessarily contradict that position.

In a sense this approach forces African artists to adopt a specific position (and indeed mode of production) if they wish to gain recognition. This is not unlike the horticultural pruning process of snipping the apical buds in order to fashion the growth of a tree or bush within a very specific, pre-determined range of shape, size and degree of productivity.

Granted this article is dwelling on specific aspects of Dercon’s talk that weren’t necessarily central to his discussion of audiences and the future of the museum. And indeed it is not the article’s intention to imply that it is suddenly Tate’s responsibility to single-handedly propel every last sect of African art to the forefront of the international art market. The point rather is that the projected approach to incorporating African art into the collection, as outlined by Dercon, seems to perpetuate the current trend of imposed latency that is charitably bestowed on African art acquisition on an international level. “Anyone can do contemporary art, so you guys stick to what you do best”, seems to be the implication. Focussing on modern African art is fine, but does it really have to be so Modern?

The label of ‘elitist’ has often been the bugbear of the Joburg Art Fair, this year being no exception.  Ross Douglas the director of the Art Fair was quite direct in acknowledging that ‘elitist’ was the kind of animal the art fair is. But Chris Dercon of the Tate Modern, in his talk on the idea of audience, suggested that the art zeitgeist was heading away from elitism towards an inclusive museum system.  This idea was quickly contradicted in the follow-up panel discussion when Bisi Silva of CCA in Lagos exclaimed that those who are not interested in an art event “don’t have a right to be there.”   The discussion of audience was taken further when the interlocutor of the same discussion asked how audiences could become engaged with the curatorial process.  It seemed that, for a while, no one wished to tackle the question but then Riason Naidoo, the director of the South African National Gallery, eventually offered the idea that showing artists out of the established cannon was part of the process of engaging with a South African audience.

It seems strange that Naidoo did not take this opportunity to discuss the recent Trechikoff exhibition at SANG.  For this exhibition seems to exemplify exactly the idea he was trying to articulate.  ‘Trechikoff , the Peoples Painter’ did, after all, attract the highest public attendance in SANG’s recent history.  Despite Naidoo’s laudable attempts to attract a wider audience with ‘Pierneef to the Gugulective’ it was not this but the Russian émigré that gripped the South African public.  If we are to take Trechikoff as the closest exhibition to date to fulfilling South African audience’s demands, then it should also be noted that it only attracted scorn from the critics.

Of course it may be claimed that the critics were merely voicing an elitist hegemony that sought to wrest art away from a popular audience.  But the fact remains that the closest we have come in South Africa to having large-scale audience participation with an art exhibition was ‘Trechikoff’.  It also seems true though that the ‘elitist hegemony’ may have a point about Trechikov’s over simplified and, by then, outdated art practices.  Sadly what seemed to resonate most, with regards to art and South African audiences, in Chris Dercon’s lecture was what he said about his DVD that refused to play ‘it is inside but you can’t see it’ (italics mine).

It’s 11pm and the place is empty. One of the security guards dims the lights as he leaves. The sound of closing doors echoes through the space; it’s time.

I climb out of my frame, remove the plastic flower from my mouth and stretch my aching limbs. I’m freezing and I need to find a shirt. I can hear the elephant bleating in distress from across the hall. The sound adds to a cacophony of shuffling figures and waking images. One of Angus Taylor’s giant golems has mounted Rodney Place’s suspended saddle, leaving a trail of dirt across the left wing.

Nyana V. Jackson’s nude warriors have seized and reassembled Paula Louw’s suspended revolvers and are attempting to poach Brett Murray’s gorillas, who seem to be playing with Deborah Bell’s very serious looking dog. Kentridge’s women weep quietly, clearly upset by their representation. The left wing is altogether chaotic and alarming. I move off into less hostile waters.

A cool sea breeze drifts through SMAC, I decide to take a swim. Colder than before, Ian Grose lends me his jersey and looks at me compassionately with all ten of his eyes. Around the corner Barend de Wet’s pretty balloons float to the ceiling. Ed contorts his hairy arm and flexes his stiffened hand after ages of maintaining the contemptuous position.

I’m lured to the right wing by ethereal chanting. A séance of sorts seems to be taking place; Sanell Aggenbach’s ghosts dance around Justin Brett’s charcoal-smudged monolith and Matthew Hindley’s hyena howls at a non existent moon. Slightly perturbed, I sneak away and narrowly avoid The Black Terror’s mean left hook. I walk past What if the World and notice Jan-Henri’s silver skull gaping at Daniella Mooney’s prettier, flower-adorned equivalent.

I spot Athi on a woven beach in the distance. I grab a few bottles of Pommery and walk hurriedly towards the palm scattered shore. Eager to dress up for midnight bellinis, I beg Sophie to lend me her dress. Refusing to part with her prized possession, I settle for one of Athi’s leotards and spend the remainder of the night in the haze of an eternal summer.

Dawn beckons me back to my frame. I undress and climb in, the plastic rose wedged between my teeth. With Naïve Melody playing in my head, I settle down for another day of men staring at my breasts. A hangover awaits. Thanks a lot, Pieter Hugo.

We’re standing in her garden, at the opening of her peripheral event, the Goodman Garage. All the way in Westdene.

On the weekend of the fair you wouldn’t expect to be hijacked outside the Sandton Convention Centre. But nevertheless, shuttles, slyly operated by innocent looking knaves handing out pamphlets, did just that.

This is hijack advertising of the worse kind. It works on an easy principle. Wait for a mainstream event to attract a large audience. Then, displaying acts of using devious and cunning, place a ‘shuttle’ outside the entrance offering unsuspecting visitors a lift to and from your peripheral event.

The malicious intent described in this opening gambit wasn’t real that evident however. Rather, Frances Goodman was being, well, sneaky, but also playful, and we can never blame anyone for that!

Goodman is of course, and perhaps not so coincidentally, represented by a gallery of her namesake. Her intention of hosting the Goodman Garage, literally garage sale of her remaining work that hasn’t been sold on her previous exhibitions says something about the relationship of commerce of events on the fringe as opposed to their commercial counterparts.

Among the detritus that nobody wants, there was in fact some staggering installations. Her sound piece titled ‘You II’ whose companion ‘You’, a bound book full of statements of a lover addressing the object of her affection. The voice of the lover is a woman Goodman says she met in Antwerp.

There is something macabre in this work from 2003. The voice is distinctly sad. The utterances to have the pain of a relationship where the mutuality is one sided. A withdrawn longing leaving a crevice in the pit of your soul.

If you can find these shuttles in time, hop on, take a trip. The magic of the mystery tour is worth it.

The Tate Modern is positioned in an extremely privileged position as one of, if not the most influential and powerful museums in the world, with approximately 5 million viewers a year. Coupled with the fact that the audiences in London are wanting to visit museums, and are at a point where they can sway bosses to re-evaluate the way they are structuring museums,  South Africa is left in a stark contrast. Most museums in South Africa require an entrance fee, and many South Africans are not interested in visiting them. The notion of taking the Museum outside, while interesting in theory, or the museum as everywhere is a European idea, which is not applicable in a South African context. Dercon’s statement “the Artworld is based on the control of information” still has a strong foothold on the way in which museums are run, and shows no possibility of major change in the future as long as they are not supported properly.

On a basic level, the problem lies with the issue that an active response towards creating “the social cohesion” spoken about in yesterday’s interview with Ross Douglas, needs to happen on a larger scale if Dercon’s model for a changed museum can happen in any way. One feels that there is a lot of talk about inclusivity and engagement, and these intentions are essential to developing an art-aware public, but ultimately what these phrases have become is a somewhat empty rhetoric. The art community remains a small and elitist one, and this needs to change if museums and other art institutions wish to increase the number of people viewing the work in their galleries and museums.

The organization of an annual South African art event, let alone an African one, has been troublesome. Funding and poor organization have prevented events, like Biennales, to take place consistently. But these are hardly new problems. The fact is that this fair is happening, and has managed to happen for four years, exposing the art public and the so-called ‘non-art’ public to emerging and established artists through the exhibiting of private galleries. October, a London-based gallery, has found a niche in representing African artists that have not been selected by South African galleries. The gallery is ‘instrumental’ in establishing the international careers of El Anatsui, Owusu-Ankoma and Romuald Hazoume. Although the gallery did not aim to create a stable of African artists, they found that The Joburg Art Fair allowed their artists exposure to an untapped South African/African market.

What does it mean when an English gallery manages to find success for their (African) artists overseas, only to bring them back to a so-called African art fair where they then form part of a gap in a market? This single instance reveals a common phenomenon that occurs in a variety of other commercial sectors, and is not unique to the art world. Several other galleries follow a similar track to October; Artco, Galerie Ames d’Afrique and Seippel Gallery are European-based, with interests in taking the work global. It would seem that the South African ties to African work are strangely European in a sense. Apart from Goodman and Stevenson who have brought African artists from their stable to the fair, there remains no South African gallery present this year that aims to include a collection of artists from other parts of the continent exclusively. Only one solely African gallery – not including the independent collective Migrant-C, is representing African artists: Omenka Gallery.

One can only wonder, as the only event of its kind in Africa, whether it is the fair’s responsibility to attempt to represent the continent. A fair and not a biennale, the event inadvertently finds itself wearing several hats. Albeit commercial in its focus Joburg Art Fair offers an opportunity for galleries to display their selected artists, the fair will be criticized as a “representative” enterprise as long as there are so few annual African art events.

Courtesy of Skattie, what are you wearing?

EY: Can we start at the end?

APR: Where’s my money. Hahahahahahaha.

That’s the end. On to the next show. Let’s rather do the beginning ‘cause the money’s still pending.

Courtesy of Ed young

EY: Why is your work such rubbish?

APR: I don’t know hey. I think there was this like… I think I find myself like somewhat… well… very self-indulgent. I’m all about me hey. If you see the work you see me. At the moment I’m really obsessed with people fucking up circumcisions. It’s like… Is it only Xhosa people who are fucking up circumcisions? I think Jewish people also fuck up because that’s how I started. I was just sitting around…

EY: You are not circumcised?

APR: I got circumcised… without anaesthesia. That was crazy. I ended up eating my foreskin too. Hahahahahaha. I’ll eat my foreskin. Hahaha. And, and um ja… I’m just obsessed with people fucking up circumcisions. I think I’m gonna leave the artworld and just start a support group. [Sings: You tooook my foooreskiiiin…]

I was exploring this and it seems to be a unifier. I came up with this character of Ilulwane, which started with performances that we sort of videoed. That was the beginning of the work. From there on I just went on to making pretty images like I usually do.

EY: It’s really pretty…

APR: I like pretty stuff! Disarmingly pretty so I can sommer turn you around and naai you with pretty.

EY: I’ve seen most of your shows. You’ve shown with us… We’ve seen the work develop from scratch and it has reached some kind of maturity or logical conclusion. I don’t really know why. We walked through the gallery earlier and it was kind of gallery rubbish again but it’s sort of tighter now. Why do you think that is?

APR: I think it is tighter. I feel I’ve reached a point whereby I can focus my ideas. However, at the same time I do miss that time when I was more desperate. Where you could see the desperate images because it’s validated by self-indulgence. But now it’s tighter. It becomes more coherent and more consumable. That’s what it boils down to [laughs].

EY: Where’s my money…

APR: Where’s my money… Tell the man with the money it’s time for me to get paid [laughs].

I think there is a maturity to me because there are more resources and I am in a position to sort of… do that now. Sort of sit around and explore my medium – one show here, one show there.

EY: It’s quite a different mode of working… [God-awful Neotel ringtone in background interrupts]

APR: That’s my new soundtrack [laughs]. There’s my money [laughs]. It’s the one arm bandit calling me: ‘Hello Athi [laughs]. Come spend your money’.

But I also feel that there is a responsibility that I have to technique. My work is really based on that as well.

Courtesy of Whatiftheworld

EY: When you first sort of started… Like with Bettina Malcomess’ Upstairs/Downstairs and I think you were still Jo’burg based…

APR: Ja, I was living in Jozi then.

EY: You were kind of energetic about it. You made the work with very little cash. You were running around from openings to performances and more performances. It’s a very disparate way of work from the studio work you are doing at present. Do you miss that kind of…

APR: I miss it, but I think I do sort of pacify that urge, you know. I do interventions still and they do appear. But at the moment the problems… The concerns that arose from that is how I really access, I don’t know, people. And I think that I access the white cube now and I’m doing it [laughs]. I’m doing it. I’m fucking the white cube man. I’m rocking it.

Back then there were lack of resources and everything and I had the body. Making a tapestry started out as performance as well with Miss. Congo – the video that was shown at Michael Stevenson. So it started becoming consumable. I started introducing tapestries into the mix. And you know the commercial aspect: Ok Great! 2D or something, you know. Let’s go with it. And ja, we went with it and it’s putting me into a position to sort of focus more and have more discipline about my performances, because I always want to go back to performance. And most shows start out with a series of performances and that’s where I get the vibe. Or making a character. That sort of becomes the spirit of the show.

Is that what you’re asking Ed? [laughs]

EY: You’re giving me a hell of a lot to transcribe. But I mean, we are all artists, fuck, we know how it works – what it is like making work with no cash – when it becomes more commercially viable and it raises a demand for that kind of work. It’s sort of shit, but do you think you are making more tapestries because of the commercial aspect, or do it’s just because you started enjoying that mode of production. I mean, you don’t have to answer it. It’s kind of rhetorical…

APR: I think it’s a question that warrants and answer. I have fallen in love with the process of making tapestries and also this drive for me to push myself technically.

EY: They must take you really long to make.

APR: I have staff.

And, and ja… there is also this space of discipline, also with the performances, physical performance and stuff. You’ve seen how my body has changed with some of the performances. I have done performances whereby I had to gain weight back in 2008. At the beginning of 2008 I was quite small. And then I went back to skinny again to do more Beiruth stuff for last year’s show. And now I’m just trying to go hyper masculine and not be the kid… the evil kid anymore… that I used to be [laughs].

EY: So that’s why you are doing all that stupid cycling.

APR: I’m cycling, I’m weightlifting, I’m eating protein shakes, I’m taking anabolic steroids…

EY: Drinking Black Label…

APR: [Takes a sip] Drinking Black Label because it’s also good but two can get me into to trouble. But also I like a bit of a paunch. Hahaha I like that paunch. Back then my nieces were always like: “What kinda uncle are you? You don’t have a paunch or anything.” So I kinda want to be a good uncle and start looking big and start working with that hyper-masculine thing for more works, you know. And it’s getting more physical. It’s getting more physical than climbing buildings… ha… and stuff. [Laughs]. More physical than climbing builds. Nice gym six times a week.

EY: But Athi not just with the tapestries but also in terms of the new video… What’s it called?

APR: Um… Brother Brother Nightmare.

EY: I mean the production value has increased.

APR: Because I think that I want to start talking about… surface. And just being plain glam. You know, to ad some glamour to something because I think everything is all bleeding heart and all… it’s ok to be low tech. But for me at the moment I’m flying first-class. [laughs a lot]. And you have to drive through a James Webb soundtrack [laughs].

EY: Yes so I’m sorry I made you drive through Woodstock…

APR: That’s Ok…

And it’s just really surface… because I can’t talk about camp and, and, and aspiration and all these things that I really am obsessed with and going through at the moment personally as well [laughs] without sort of like showing it in that way… you know?

Excess is like… Just an excess of material and excess of gesture and all of that.

EY: I mean It’s quite MTV…

APR: Yes yes, I wanted to do that Ed. One has to push that glam.

EY: What is it like being black?

APR: You… look… I don’t know. The new racism is saying I won’t go to that place it’s too BEE [laughs]. You know if you say BEE it’s Black Economic Empowerment… don’t you like? Yes, you thought it meant bzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. I really wanted to start interrogating this, because I think I am in that position whereby I have somehow managed to slip into Mbeki’s dream, that middle-class that’s a buffer zone [laughs] between things, you know?

EY: But do you think it’s ok to be in a position not to give a fuck and do you?

APR: I give a fuck more than I did. But some days I feel like its also something that like interrogate and sometimes I don’t give a fuck. And with this opera video that we’re going to be showing and that one is the first time that I am actually working towards slickness, still low tech but the colours are just… It’s black and white.

EY: Why do we [YOUNGBLACKMAN] always get the low-tech?

APR: Maybe next year we’re gonna turn that one around.

For me, it’s just me testing myself. I’m attracted more to things that are beautiful because there is a Trojan Horse element to it. You think ooh! It’s pretty. But when you come in you start interrogating the fact that there is no substance. You know there’s a zone but there’s no substance and I am sure it could be an ammo of mine [laughs] if I put my mind to it, and just work and not having substance. It translates as camp if you want to move tapestries [laughs a lot].

EY: You know… I don’t find your work that camp.

APR: No? Maybe it’s a new camp. It’s my kinda camp. The self-indulgent camp.

EY: A nudist BEE camp…

APR: But beyond BEE, it’s me just working with the idea of being glamoured by something… like, being totally fooled by the rocks. It’s a translation through everything… I’m a brand babe [laughs]. Do you know that saying in American Beauty: ‘To be successful you have to project and image of success’ [laughs]. That’s me you know… and it’s translates in my work. It translates in surfaceness of it. Because it was testy when I showed it to the gallery the first time they were like: ‘What? This looks like an aerobics video’, and this and this and this. And I was like, let’s open a conversation let’s start a conversation about the fact that you know, one just doesn’t  do like a performance video and it was just like: ‘Ok this is me… doing this. But it’s me…’ and then having that technique of presenting it. It’s made it more accessible. And I like accessibility. I don’t want art that separates people. I want everyone to like me.

EY: Ja well I mean Athi…

APR: I really do… Well everyone is probably like… it’s like oh, accessibility. It’s that thing we were talking about last week – accessibility for all. You know it can never be like that. No I don’t think so. I don’t want someone’s stuff like that. And it’s tough to do just stuff that’s accessible to all. I’ve come to terms with that.

EY: You do realise you are speaking out of committee here.

APR: [giggles] Oh no, no, no, no, no… [giggles] but… I’m speaking for the brand baby… speaking for the brand [laughs]. I’m the ultimate brand ambassador for myself. For me… I think that when one looks at it like that it also sort of tests like just how bourgie the attitude towards interrogating South African art is at the moment. And that video to me is sort of like… It was testy for me. It’s was ok. I’m gonna go do aerobics and shit. But it boils back to also having… the fact that I went for training while going to gym in my heels and drag on a treadmill in a gym. And then get off you know? That process to me is what translates to that. But also like those little performances that I do in my daily life. That sort of like, a sneak peak into the final work… you know? Into basically how I live my life.

EY: So what makes you weep? What makes you harder than MTV and I don’t mean your porn.

APR: It’s actually creating imagery. I think that’s what makes me weep; it’s production it’s tough to produce hey? Fuck. It’s…

EY: You know that’s not what I am asking.

APR: What Ed? My life’s focussed to do the Trojan Horse thing. To come in in the most, most, most camp and passive way and then get into you, and then sort of spew my HIV inside of you. But what does that mean? It is a reflection on basically probably a work method that I can’t really describe right now.

EY: Do you remember the night we first met?

APR: [pause] I kidnapped your ass. Tracey Rose, me and Feisal kidnapped you, Storm and Simon Gush.

EY: For fuck’s sake…

APR: [laughs] That was slick [laughs]. But that’s a part of my life I really do not want to revisit again. It’s not good for the brand. I don’t know. We were drunk. We felt bad we shouldn’t let you guys out… for a bit… in Mayfair, [laughs] Johannesburg. You guys were not going to be able to go outside actually.

EY: I went outside for a pee.

APR: Did you go outside for a pee? Did you see the three-legged dog? It was a heavy night and those nights happen…

EY: To a large extent a lot of the problems and hardships of this country become fictional and for many these are tales merely told in the media etc. And the day-to-day circumstances of many go unnoticed. I do understand that there are many complexities within our collective heritage and is what you do a slight negation?

APR: Um…I don’t think I neglect it but I think that my mere existence and me going through these emotions and everywhere and being open about them or experiencing them and seeing drama happening in this world, is a great influence is a great influence on my work. Like everything from HIV, because that relates to the body not being with the body. Like a dis-ease with the body – a kind of disembodiment. It moves on to issues of those who have and those who do not have. That’s where ideas of surface and aspiration come in as well as ideas of sexuality, but also that links back to the body, the performing body, because you perform and you want to get laid. And most of the time I make art to get laid.

These issues, they all come together and for me. I feel that dwelling with them in a very macabre way and weeping and all of that, I don’t do that. I’d rather laugh…

EY: But beside the bling and the surface shit you work is still very macabre.

APR: It’s demons… everyone has to cope with their own. I don’t want to cope with them. And there are class issues that I’m trying to cope with. Aspiration issues, poverty issues that I am trying to cope with and disease issues that I am trying to cope with… you know? And humanity… and I think that humanity for me, or even for our generation, what is always presented on TV and you know, it becomes more accessible and then it doesn’t become something that’s didactic. You clash your image with the work, and then the thing, or the blood that comes from crash is the work that I make. And then you can just take from it and work with it.

EY: I also think that the work does not sit on the walls…

APR: The work is not on the walls. It’s the brand. The brand is the work baby. Let’s keep it like that. It’s the brand and the blood.

EY: And what are your thoughts on current racial segregation issues, particularly within our generation, happening within the white cube sector of the art world? Although the contemporary SA artworld has seen a rise and at least a more stable representation of different ethnicities and cultural backings. There is still a general idea that support primarily exists with in these groupings – which becomes a problematic term in itself.

APR: I try to disregard the idea of the artworld because I approach it in a very personal way, you know? I disregard the fact that there is a world. There’s a fashion world. There is an art world. There is an interior world. That doesn’t feature in my world. The white cube historically has always been a segregated space. And the participation within it is something that is quite a process for black artists. However, my statement with that is that with participating at all cost and also owning a destiny is something very important.

I don’t know Ed. The whole race question for me… For me it really is something personal. Politics happen with the body. You’re sitting in the corner of a room – you’re an event because of what people are imparting on you, you know? They’re little prejudices. But you should just be there to break those prejudices by merely existing and demanding you’re basic human rights that the freedom [laughs] charter stated in 1955.

It’s all right.

EY: Do you want another beer?

APR: Yes, yes, let me just klap this one.

And also denialism. I’m just interested in little tiny politics and things. We were talking in the car about…

EY: Woodstock…

APR: Ja, or Obs-lavatory, or whatever. It’s like why would I not wanna go there, nê, maybe because I have prejudices against certain places, because I’m scared that I’m gonna get mugged, because I’ve been mugged in places that look like that before. And you know I get a shock. But one has to sort of be a better human being and start working on a personal level and not work on those images. The moment a person has prejudices or these things that separate, I try and break them apart by just laughing. And actually making people laugh at them as well because someone’s gonna be quiet and like, that jokes on me. And then go home and then start discovering more.

I’m just there to make images.

EY: So do you think that working with a younger gallery and not have anyone dictate your production and allowing you a certain kind of freedom. Are you willing to compromise cash for that freedom?

APR: Yes. I think I did [laughs].

EY: But when speaking to lot of young artists there is this general idea that cash is king. And I feel this makes the work contrived.

APR: You don’t do much 3D do you [laughs]? You don’t do D much.

EY: But for me your 2D stuff does not seem to have the quick buck element to them.

APR: Ja, I think I’d have problems with my soul.

I wrote this piece a couple of months ago for the Mail & Guardian:

Walking into Pieter Hugo’s Permanent Error currently on show at Michael Stevenson is an ocular experience. Not only is it visual, and with enormous photographs stretching to a metre or more it is highly visual, but also makes you physically aware of your eyes. Every image billows with thick acrid smoke; the ground is covered in fine ash. You want to rub your eyes. You can imagine the sting of burning plastic.
In the photo titled Abdulai Yahaya, Agbogbloshie Market, Accra, Ghana a boy crouches in the dust. The landscape is ashen and apocalyptic. The boy stares directly out of the picture, but it seems that no human should be there. Sweat is beaded on his forehead and runs through the dirt on his cheeks. His eyes are red-rimmed and so glassy that you can see the reflections of the people in front of him. It is emotional. You are hit by the stark reality, the bleak and circular existence of this person. His impassive gaze and crouched pose reflect an inexpressible violent hopelessness. In other photos, you begin to notice fragments of keyboards and coils of electrical wire. An old computer monitor is on fire. If computers are a site of contemporary identity, here they become eviscerated and useless. The people too are silent, abject and exhausted. In the backgrounds low fires burn, the only real colour in the images. They are the active participants.
This setting, easily imagined by a Hollywood director for a disaster movie, is real, as are the people. Sitting on the outskirts of the slum Agbogbloshie in Accra, Ghana, the area is a dump where locals ‘mine’ obsolete technology for the copper and other metals by burning out the plastics. At night, fresh containers are emptied of technological junk. These piles of old computers are shipped from Western nations, ostensibly as donations to bridge the ‘digital divide’ and provide education. Far from a positive notion of recycling, it is an easy excuse for unscrupulous waste disposal. In reality, the broken computers have little value. The irony is that this delivering of the apparatus of knowledge is literally apocalyptic in implication. The utopian ideals of digital technology, freedom, communication and ease, find the marred side of the coin in places like Agbogbloshie. The impulse to progress is haunted by its own destruction. The soil and air is poisoned and the people are destitute. Indeed, the photographs are an indictment of a culture of waste. It is a vision of the true failure of capitalism.
The title of the show Permanent Error puns on this failure. In computer speak, a permanent error is a bad sector that can only be rectified by clearing the whole disc and rewriting. Here, there is the permanent error inflicted on the landscape, the permanent error of benevolence masking abuse, and the permanent error of the health and poverty of the people living in Agbogbloshie. Also seemingly irreversible is the relationship between the West and Africa, a quagmire of history and politics. It is a relationship that is reflected in the gallery space, in which the privilege of looking (and of ownership) is awarded to the wealthy.
While the subject matter is spot-on contemporary, feeding into current fears of eco-destruction, they are not news pictures. They fall somewhere between documentary and portraiture. After the decline of the photomagazines, like Life, in the 70’s the latter is a realm of photography that is increasingly finding its space within the white cube gallery. This has been a way for concerned photographers to maintain their integrity and their income. In order for this transaction to remain viable, however, the images need a hook to attract value. In Pieter Hugo’s case, they are beautiful images. The figures are central, composed and monumental. The colours are carefully modulated, desaturated but contrasty. It accentuates the details of dirt, rich areas for our eyes to settle upon. The smoke is both threatening and appealing, an end-of-the-world sublime. In this regard they fall into a long tradition of Western art, the fascination with ruin and decay. It is a line from Hieronymous Bosch’s pictures of perdition to Dutch Masters’ vanitas paintings to the movie 2012.
In the 19th Century this fascination was condensed into an aesthetic theory, especially in industrializing England. The picturesque, slightly differently understood today, was the idea that what was beautiful in reality didn’t make great pictures.  Interesting pictures had texture, at odds with the ideals of beauty of the time, smoothness, roundness and evenness. Painters, and practitioners of the burgeoning art of photography, went to great pains to seek out the windswept tree, the craggy cliff, the anti-classical and the ruin. They found pleasing images in the broken, the torn-down and even in the poetic raggedness of the poor. The picturesque was a romantic impulse and a reaction against the rapidly technologising world. It was also a particularly classed aesthetic, in which the leisured would tour the countryside in search of the picturesque. Contemporary writing often equated the picturesque artist with the big-game hunter, capturing a rarity and fixing it to the wall. The artist’s role was to realize an ideal with impunity. In this regard it masked the class relations implicit in the landscape of the era. The land wasn’t shown as a place of labour or ownership, but as a space of aesthetic contemplation.
In a certain light Pieter Hugo’s Permanent Error is the heir to this aesthetic. It finds visual pleasure in ruin. The photographer as both tourist and hunter of the exotic is not a hard analogy to make. While it wears its political bent on its sleeve, implicitly showing suffering and labour, this too can be a form of masking capitalist privilege. It can act as a kind of palliative. Susan Sontag in her book Regarding the Pain of Others, says that sympathy, a normal reaction to visual representations of suffering, allows us to “feel we are not accomplices to what caused the suffering. Our sympathy proclaims our innocence as well as our impotence.” To set aside our sympathy is to consider our own culpability. The more visceral the photograph, the greater is our feeling of sympathy. Rather than a call to political or social action they become a cathartic spectacle. It creates a fantasy of transgression, while hiding complicity with the system.
While this reading of Hugo’s work certainly has its merits, it doesn’t entirely sit comfortably. In the work entitled Aissah Salifu, the figure stands straight, a bent piece of metal in his hand. The smoke atmospherically obscures his legs while emphasizing his handsome face. With glossy ebony skin his forehead is topped with a plaster running so vertically that it reads as decorative. He looks like a character from a Mad Max post-apocalyptic fantasy to such an extreme that the spectacle of it becomes obvious. It makes it clear that this is a posed image, taken by a photographer who has watched movies, who brings his own baggage to the photograph. The image reveals its artifice. This point is made clearer in an adjoining room, where a curve of TV screens shows looped video clips. Each shows one of the photographs, identical except for the moving background and the swaying and fidgeting. If you listen closely you can hear the shutter of Hugo’s camera. By showing the mechanisms of the poses, their forced immobility, and foregrounding the act of photographing, it becomes clear that the photographs aren’t a site of easy redemption. It admits that even the condemnation of capitalism can be recuperated into a commodity. By revealing their spectacular nature, the images challenge the spectacle, while still remaining a commodified object. The political dimension is no longer subsumed, but becomes a part of a complex relationship of meanings. It allows the images honesty. But it is even more hopeless: the circle of consumption is unbreakable, not only for those who are ground down by it but even in the images that are critical of it. There truly is the permanent error.

In Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code, the superstitious meaning of the world is guarded by an illuminati, and it takes a maverick outsider (but with special talents in understanding signs) in the service of truth to expose the singular meaning. Too bad it is a lovable fiction: in reality, in art meaning is nebulous. The relationship between a hexagram, the number six, the sixth letter of the alphabet and the F word is tenuous at best, but possibly just plain illegible.

This was an observation from hearing Geers talk and I wonder how I would have seen the show if I had gone in blind. That is the problem with looking at works by Geers: the force of his personality precedes him, which really makes it difficult to separate criticism from vitriol. Perhaps Stevie Wonder says it best: Superstition

Michael McGarry in Avant Car Guard

Ricky Gervais in the Invention of Lying