Ausstellungsdauer Duration 01. 06. - 04. 08. 2006
ZWELETHU MTHETHWA
Maidens, 2006
Diasec hinter Acryl
80 x 100 cm
Courtesy Christine König Galerie, Wien / Vienna
ZWELETHU MTHETHWA
Maidens, 2006
Diasec behind acryl glass
80 x 100 cm
Courtesy Christine König Galerie, Wien / Vienna
ZWELETHU MTHETHWA
Ausstellungsansicht
Exhibition view
FRENZI RIGLING
Ausstellungsansicht
Exhibition view
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.” (zit.n.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’s JOY OF LIFE?
Für die Ausstellung FRENZI 365 macht Frenzi Rigling das eigene Leben zum Thema. Auf 365 DIN A4 Blättern verzeichnet sie die Kleidungsstücke, die sie während eines Jahres täglich trug, vom Frühjahr 2005 bis zum Frühjahr 2006. 365 mal Rock, Bluse, Wäsche, Schuh. Je nach Jahreszeit kommen Mäntel und Jacken oder Mützen dazu. Was morgens angezogen wird, zeichnet die Künstlerin abends auf. Notate aus schwarzem Filzstift, in einfachen, schematischen Strichen, schnell und bewußt trivial. Die Umrisslinie ist das vereinheitlichende Stilelement. Sachlich, in beinahe identen Wiederholungen, listet Frenzi Rigling ihre Garderobe auf, Tag für Tag, Woche für Woche, Monat für Monat und, wie sie es vorhat, Jahr für Jahr. Während die Blatt um Blatt durchdeklinierten Motive die hehren Semper’schen Ideale von Hülle, Verhüllung und Sicherheit suggerieren, treibt Rigling ihren Sujets - angesichts unverholen zur Schau gestellter Zweckdienlichkeit – den Glamour aus. Beflissen dokumentiert sie ihre tägliche, routinierte Choreografie am Körper. Das Musterbuch als Chiffre für die Etappen des Lebens. Als streng konzeptuell strukturierte Arbeit reihen sich Riglings Kalenderblätter unter den Selbstportraits und Selbstinszenierungen von Künstlerinnen ein, die von Cindy Shermann bis Friedl Kubelka Bondy, das differenzierte Bild weiblicher Identitätssuche verhandeln.
(Brigitte Huck, Wien 2007)
For the exhibition FRENZI 365, Frenzi Rigling has made her own life her subject. On 365 DIN A4 sheets she drew the various pieces of clothing that she wore each day over a whole year, from spring 2005 to spring 2006. 365 times skirt, blouse, underwear, shoes. Depending on the season there are also coats and jackets, or hats, as well. What was to be worn the next day was drawn by the artist the evening before. Sketches made in black felt-tip pen, in simple, schematic lines, rapidly and in a deliberately trivial manner. The outline of the shape is the integrating stylistic element. Matter-of-factly, and in almost identical repetitions, Frenzi Rigling lists her wardrobe day for day, week for week, month for month and, according to her intention, year for year. Although the motifs, which are perfectly-declined on sheet after sheet, suggest the sublime Semperian ideals of enveloping, covering and security, Rigling rids her subjects of all glamour – in view of the unconcealed functionality that is being exhibited. Zealously, she documents the daily routine of her choreography of the body. The pattern book as a cipher for the stages of life. As strictly conceptually structured works, Rigling’s diary pages can be classified together with the self-portraits and self-presentations made by those artists who deal with the differentiated image of women’s search for identity, ranging from Cindy Shermann to Friedl Kubelka Bondy.
(Brigitte Huck, Vienna 2007)