Q&A with our newest artist, Lawrence Lemaoana.
The message and text of this piece is quite evocative. Is it imperative the audience knows the meaning behind it in relation to the South African media, or can it left up for interpretation?
South Africa, more specifically in the urban areas, streetlight poles ritualistically hold up posters of daily newspaper headlines. These headlines function as teasers and highlight the most dramatic parts of whatever story the newspaper is attempting to sell. I was struck by their ambitions of becoming controversial haikus or poems. I needed to extract that quality for myself, as I was aware of their overreaching power in influencing the people who read them. In so doing, casting a spell in spelling out in ambiguous or open ended short lines a glimpse into the state of the country.
This process was interesting to me as it similar to another process of stating ones prognosis. This time from a willing participants, in the form of sangomas (spiritual diviners) who act as message bearers and advisors from the world of ancestors. Through red, black and white are the colours of the kangas that they wrap themselves with, the kangas are believed to be imbued with spiritual properties.
There is also a visual link that the kangas and the posters share, that is of format. They are both rectangular with graphic borders that contain written text and patterns and both mass produced and both have translatable or open ended meaning given to them. Newspapers also use red, black and white as the colour scheme albeit in less saturated hues. I have made these innocuous comparisons, cognitive of the genealogy of both materials through research, a foundation for the work.
The assemblages become open ended poems that can be read from a variety of perspectives; this means that the viewer can read them as visual motifs, and artefacts that have link into a specifically South African history that is political, spiritual and or textual. I personally engage with them as gateways, distorted mirrors or portals into parallel conceptual space.
In other words they are site specific as being made with a South African narrative in mind and yet not locked up in that specificity of space. The work has since evolved to become glimpses or fragments of my encounters pieced together to weave alternative narratives.
Can you tell us more about the art scene in Johannesburg? We'd love to hear more!
The art scene here, even if it circulates around the same traditional cultural spaces of specifically commercial galleries (such as Gallery MOMO, Goodman Gallery, Stevenson Gallery) all with their brand of contemporary artists, museums in the form Johannesburg Art Gallery, African Museum and hybrid university museums such as Wits art Museum that functions as traditional artifacts space and hosting contemporary exhibitions, there is also of course University of Johannesburg gallery that is also hosting contemporary exhibitions. Interestingly there are gentrified fortresses of culture and shopping such as the Maboneng Precinct and Neighbourgoods Market in Braamfontein, which makes of the scene as always being in flux. There are always new bodies of and new bodies of work being presented in one or other form. Projects are often funded by European intuitions such as the Goethe institute, Institute Francaise and Pro Helvetia.
For keeping up with pulse of opportunities VANSA (Visual Arts Network South Africa) has the fingers always on the pulse, alongside hosting exhibitions and doing interesting art related projects.
Johannesburg is rich with spaces of creativity, The Bag Factory remains one of the most inspiring places that blend the young up and coming artist with established artist, the veteran David Koloane and Pat Mautloa working alongside each other. August House downtown is a space that is like a revolving door as a community of artist live and work in factory like studios, Sam Hlengethwa, Mary Sibande and Nelson Makamo all reverberate their creative energies here. There is also not far from there another building called Ellies House, where again loft apartments that house artists like Nandipha Mntambo, the band Motel Mari often has gigs there. Recently Gabi Ngcobo and Dineo Bopape launched a artistic intervention and building that livened a part of the city that is not normally associated with art.
There are spaces that are on the fringe that have amazing action such as Afrikan Freedom Station which again boast as a diverse creative space for displaying artworks, book readings and other intellectual work. Here you encounter brainy people such as Khwezi Gule, Thembinkosi Goniwe amongst others.
There is a diverse and healthy range of communities that occasionally mingle in these zones.
What is your favorite object in your studio?
My increasing collection of books.
Who are some of the artists who inspire you?
Artists who use text as visual images have since inspired my work, I recently witnessed Glenn Ligon’s “Bruise/Blue” in Johannesburg and I felt a jolt of excitement pulsating through me. I was inspired the visual simplicity of the words suspended in midair, connected to each other by common color but also by the viewer having to perform the task of linking them together and breaking them apart. What became refreshing was the sea of references in the form of a text that contextualized the work, complicating easy viewing. William Pope.L’s series ‘skin set drawings’ resonate with me.
Painters such Johannes Phokela, Kerry James Marshall’s work and its inherent intelligence blows me away. I love the work of artists that attack traditional notions of power, Mary Sibande, Tatenda Magaisa, Lebo Kganye, Donna Kukama, Santu Mofokeng...
Institutional critics such as Hans Haake challenges me in ways that I enjoy.
In the last couple of years my taste in art has transformed dramatically from figurative work to more abstract and conceptual work. My teaching art, at the University of South Africa has allowed me to branch out and appreciate more ‘process work’, so concepts rather than actual physical work have become attractive to me.
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