stevenson #02 09-2019

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In the steps of Jia Baoyu

# Marc Barben joins Hylton Nel on a trip to China

Artist-potter Hylton Nel began reading The Story of the Stone, the 18th-century novel by Cao Xueqin, when he was an antique dealer living in Kent in the early 1970s and the first volume had just been translated by David Hawkes. Every five years or so another volume was published, and it took him 20-odd Nel reviewing his purchases after a day in the antique markets of Beijing years to read the full story. For his recent trip to China he took it along around his neck he’s worn for many Most of all, Nel was there to to start again from the beginning. years; he believes it is 10th century exercise his life-long passion for Described to me one evening in and bestows abundance. He also Chinese ceramics, high and low, Beijing, the narrative begins when carried an amulet in his pocket, imperial and peasant. For Nel the the edifices of heaven become remarking that ‘it feels quite nice in shapes and glazes, images and brush dilapidated. Such heavenly things, the hand’. marks, act like points in a network of course, can only be mended Asked for a reason for this of breadth of personal experience with jade. A surplus block falls to visit when applying for his visa, and depth of knowledge. In China, earth and a Taoist monk comes Nel’s answer was simply ‘TO a place described by one new friend upon it; realising its divine origin, ENJOY CHINESE CULTURE’. as an ‘Empire of Things’, Nel was he engraves the novel’s story on its As experienced, his journey was happiest in the antique markets, surface. Its protagonist, Jia Baoyu, is a multidimensional spiritual among a mass of visual and tactile born with this jade in his mouth, his pilgrimage, not least to imbue his things, which – unlike at the tale inscribed on the stone. stones with some of their homeland’s museums – he was able to feel in Shortly after leaving his home energy. It was to retrace the steps of the hand. Occasionally he’d pull out in Calitzdorp for this trip, Nel Jia Baoyu, to better understand his his ‘old man’ pendant and watch the mentioned that he was taking along character, comparing notes with trader’s expression transform from his ‘bearded old man’, a jade pendant fellow readers along the way. To confusion to veneration. he believes is from the Han Dynasty see Mr Zhang, his antique dealer in His favourite purchase? A (206bc – 220ad). It’s abraded on Beijing, and collect some treasures modern replica of the old man, the side; people would prescribe to take home. To hear the chorus bought for next to nothing, loosely medicine from powdered jade, and of cicadas surging across Shanghai, carved in an opaque white. Now he’s so an ancient object is more potent and behold the sight of lotus upon back in the hinterland, and we wait than a new thing. The fish pendant lotus in full bloom. impatiently for the kiln to fire! stevenson 2 #02 stevenson 3 #02 .info 09-2019 .info 09-2019

Pride in New York New space, new explorations

# Muholi and artist- most recently presenting Faces in 2016, and his Negro # Lerato Bereng visits friends of Stevenson and Phases 13 at our new space in Sunshine paintings featured on ’s newly the Guggenheim Parktown North – the works of What we talk about when we talk built studio in Joburg Sepuya, Ligon, Fani-Kayode and about love in 2011. lb We take joy in seeing the artist Harris have consistently woven Fani-Kayode’s work was part My first question is: why do you list for the second part of Implicit through the constellation of our of Staged Realities: The studio in do what you do, right now? nm Tensions: Mapplethorpe Now at the programming. African photography in 2004; a solo Right now I think I do what I do Guggenheim in New York. Sepuya, Ligon and Fani-Kayode presentation of black and white to not go insane. The time I took off This instalment of the institution’s recently featured in our 15-year photographs showed concurrently to do other things in life was good reflection on Robert Mapplethorpe’s retrospective, Both, and (2018). with Muholi’s first exhibition at the and necessary but it also helped legacy features Zanele Muholi, The previous year Harris exhibited gallery in 2006, and colour works me understand that I couldn’t live Catherine Opie, Paul Mpagi a video installation titled Black were shown in 2007. without my work. The fact of being Sepuya, Glenn Ligon, Rotimi Fani- Power, and contributed an acrylic- Though polemical – The New York able to feel things and make things Kayode and Lyle Ashton Harris, on-Kente-cloth work to A Painting Times’ Arthur Lubow concludes that has, I think, been highlighted for me. putting the late photographer’s Today. Sepuya’s intimate studio Mapplethorpe’s moment has passed lb opus in conversation with photographs showed as a solo – the motivating curatorial impulse What are you feeling? nm contemporary practitioners. All but project in 2015 and formed part and the subsequent conversations On a tactile level, the cow hide. one of these artists have featured of Kings County, a focus on artists reflect a cultural deepening around I didn’t understand how important, Nandipha Mntambo at her studio, September 2019 in our exhibitions, projects and working in Brooklyn, in 2014. Ligon’s the politics of desire, identity, how interesting, how integral to my publications over the years. neon installation Untitled (Bruise/ embodiment and rage. life it is. There was a period when I I’m not taking on those particular that has shaped who I believe I am, thought, ‘okay Nandipha, how many elements of whatever it is you some things need to shift. Isiuwa While Muholi has been part Blues) showed in Johannesburg and The exhibition continues until of the gallery for over a decade – on The Quiet Violence of Dreams in 5 January 2020. more cow hide sculptures can you think is happening.’ I think taking comes from a particular lineage – make?’ A lot of that was about how ownership of what I do and what her father is from a bronze-making I thought people were perceiving the it means, of the fact that the work nation – and that’s made me think Activism on the coast work, and not about the fact that is able to travel through social differently about how I got to my I hadn’t finished my exploration of and academic channels that have material, how I explained away a lot Zanele Muholi’s particular activism Meanwhile, in Port Louis, the material yet. nothing to do with me, is what being of events that helped me get to the can be seen at A4 Arts Foundation as Mauritius, the Institute of a good artist is about. You can’t just point of working in this material, their Ikhono LaseNatali exhibition Contemporary Art Indian Ocean lb At some point you were quite put shit out there and think it doesn’t how I skirted around certain travels to Cape Town. The show presents Zanele Muholi, a solo certain about the boundary of matter how it’s received. You don’t issues, whether blackness or being features interpretations of Muholi’s exhibition of the photographer’s meaning in relation to the reading have to agree with everything, but if female. When I was younger I was Somnyama Ngonyama series of work, spanning series including the of your work. How is your new life it does come to your attention, you interested in understanding how to self-portraits, commissioned from early Only Half the Picture, Beulahs, phase shifting this definition? also need to be like ‘oh okay’ – for manoeuvre away or around these 25 -based artists in order Mourning, Faces and Phases and nm I think the shift is about your own sake, for your own studio things and now I’m like, ‘actually to showcase the city’s creativity. recent Somnyama Ngonyama prints accepting the baggage that comes practice, for your own growth. there’s no way around or beyond or Curated by Bajabulile La Dlamini and wallpapers. with everything. The baggage that sideways’, you know? Sidumzo and Thobeka Bhengu, the As part of the project Muholi other people, or society, or our lived lb Are there things you are more exhibition debuted at the KwaZulu- delivered a public lecture on experience brings to everything. aware of now that impact your lb So what’s going to be happening Natal Society of the Arts earlier LGBTQI+ rights at the Institut It’s also about accepting my own understanding of your work? here in your new studio? this year. Français de Maurice, a gesture baggage regarding things that I nm I’ve always had this utopian view nm The first thing is that I need to In addition to the exhibition, towards broadening perspectives in wanted to either delete or shift. I’m that we’re all the same – and yes, find a new mould-maker. A woodcut by Sthenjwa Luthuli, an the project entails a wide- a country where homosexuality is a black woman working with this on some level we are but on others interpretation of a photographic reaching exchange with schools criminalised by law. material – there are going to be we’re not. Having my child Isiuwa – lb What’s so funny, and this is a print from Zanele Muholi’s Somnyama Ngonyama series in the Western Cape and aims to associations around the material, having made a clear decision to have metaphor, is that for the past five challenge youths to consider the Ikhono LaseNatali continues at A4 around me as a person, how I a child who is very, very black – has years or so, you’ve been talking Arts Foundation until 7 November. tenets of inclusivity, creativity Zanele Muholi at the ICAIO runs choose to live. My response to it helped me understand that although about ‘breaking the mould’. and collectivism. until 30 November. all now is: ‘Yes, I hear you, but I’ve had a particular upbringing nm I’ve been doing it slowly. stevenson 4 #02 stevenson 5 #02 .info 09-2019 .info 09-2019

16 September 28 September 14 October 25 October Last week to see Ernest Robin Rhode’s survey exhibition Last week to see Viviane Sassen’s Mame-Diarra Niang, Zanele Muholi Don’t miss Calendar Mancoba: I Shall Dance in a Memory is the Weapon – spanning commission for Visible/Invisible at and Viviane Sassen have work on these ongoing Different Society at the Centre digital animations, photographic the Palace of Versailles ENDS 20 OCT the Montevideo Biennale in a show Sept-Nov Pompidou, Paris. Artists series, drawings, sculptural curated by Alfons Hug TO 28 FEB shows including Kemang Wa Lehulere elements and performances – opens 19 October 28 October provide ‘contemporary echoes’. at Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg Meleko Mokgosi: Bread, Butter, and → Until 3 November ENDS 23 SEPT TO 9 FEB Power travels to the Smart Museum Last chance to see The Cape Town Zanele Muholi’s Somnyama of Art, University of Chicago Triennials: Then and Now at the Ngonyama/Hail the Dark 18 September 30 September TO 29 DEC Rupert Museum, Stellenbosch. Early Lioness is on view at Seattle Stevenson’s Amsterdam office Last week to see Pieter Hugo’s and recent work by Penny Siopis Art Museum 20 October hosts a selection of works La Cucaracha at Stevenson features ENDS 2 NOV Dialogue: Portia Zvavahera Until 7 November from Viviane Sassen’s Hot Cape Town ENDS 5 OCT → 7 September with drawings by Gustav Klimt Ikhono LaseNatali, Mirror, previously seen at 2 November Join us for the opening of opens at Artspace De 11 Lijnen in commissioned by Muholi, the Hepworth Wakefield in A solo show by Kemang Wa Meleko Mokgosi’s first Joburg Oudenburg, Belgium shows at A4, Cape Town Yorkshire 5–8PM; TO 16 OCT Lehulere opens at Stevenson solo exhibition, Objects of Johannesburg 10AM – 1PM Desire, Addendum, at Stevenson → Until 24 November Johannesburg 10AM – 1PM; 18 September Kemang Wa Lehulere and TO 25 OCT The 15th edition of the Lyon 6-10 November Zanele Muholi are among the artists participating in the Biennale opens with the theme Stevenson presents a focus on 58th Venice Biennale’s main Where water comes together with Pieter Hugo, Viviane Sassen and exhibition, May You Live in other water. Simphiwe Ndzube is Zanele Muholi at Paris Photo Interesting Times. Work by featured TO 5 JAN 30 September Mawande Ka Zenzile is at the Last week to see IncarNations: 19-21 September PHOTO: LERATO DUMSE 22 November South African Pavilion. African Art as Philosophy at Bozar, As part of the Festival d’Automne, 22 October Stevenson’s Amsterdam Brussels. Zanele Muholi, Nandipha Until 1 December Steven Cohen performs put your office hostsJericho , a new → Mntambo, Edson Chagas, Steven Zanele Muholi accepts the Lucie Penny Siopis’ Obscure White heart under your feet … and walk! photographic series by Robin Cohen, , Nicholas Award for Outstanding Achievement Messenger shows as part 11 September at the Centre Pompidou, Paris Rhode, opening during Hlobo and Barthélémy Toguo are in Humanitarian Photography at of Media Networks at Tate NIGHTLY AT 8.30PM Amsterdam Art Weekend The Way She Looks: A History of among the featured artists Carnegie Hall, New York Modern, London Female Gazes in African Portraiture ENDS 6 OCT 21 September 24 October – photographs from the Walther → Until 5 January Collection, including Zanele Hylton Nel is included in Graphic 1 October The Lubumbashi Biennale, curated Zanele Muholi is one of six Muholi’s Beulahs and Miss D’vine Pots at Oxford Ceramics Gallery Last week to see Paulo Nazareth’s by Sandrine Colard, opens. Portia contemporary photographers – opens at Ryerson Image Centre, TO 26 OCT first US museum solo,Melee at the Zvavahera shows work produced in conversation with the work Toronto TO 8 DEC ICA Miami ENDS 6 OCT during a residency TO 24 NOV of Robert Mapplethorpe 22 September in Implicit Tensions at the Last week to see Pieter Hugo’s work 25 October 13-15 September 2-6 October Guggenheim, New York Art Joburg takes place at the Sandton in Here We Are Today: A View of Stevenson (booth G02) presents Stevenson and Andrew Kreps Convention Centre, Johannesburg. the World in Photography & Video work by Paulo Nazareth, Simphiwe Gallery present new work by → Until 15 March FIND US AT BOOTH #1 at the Bucerius Kunst Forum, Ndzube and Zanele Muholi at Moshekwa Langa, Portia Zvavahera 28-29 November Penny Siopis and Zanele ENDS 29 SEPT and Viviane Sassen at Kreps’ Walker Hamburg Frieze London, Regent’s Park Steven Cohen performs put your Muholi have works on I Am ... 13 September Street space in Tribeca, New York heart under your feet … and walk! Contemporary Women Artists of A solo show by Wim Botha opens at 23 September 10 October at MC93 – Maison de la Culture Africa at the National Museum Feldbusch Wiesner Rudolph, Berlin Last week to see Odili Donald 25 October Solo shows by Paulo Nazareth de Seine-Saint-Denis (Bobigny) as of African Art – Smithsonian FROM 6PM; TO 19 OCT Odita’s Negative Space, Crossing Night: Regional Identities and Simon Gush open at part of the Festival d’Automne, Paris Institution, Washington DC commissioned for outdoor × Global Context opens at the Stevenson Cape Town 6–8PM; 14 September sculpture exhibition Color Field Museum of Contemporary Art → Until Fall 2021 Walkabout of Meleko Mokgosi’s at Crystal Bridges Museum of TO 23 NOV Detroit. Edson Chagas, Nicholas 28 November Pan-African Pulp, a commission Objects of Desire, Addendum at American Art ENDS 30 SEPT Hlobo, Pieter Hugo, Moshekwa A solo show by Moshekwa by Meleko Mokgosi, is on view Stevenson Johannesburg with Langa, Zanele Muholi, Robin Langa opens at Stevenson Cape at the University of Michigan Sinazo Chiya and Dineo Diphofa in 24 September Rhode, Penny Siopis and Guy Town 6 – 8PM; TO 18 JAN Museum of Art conversation 11AM Heritage Day, Tillim feature TO 19 JAN stevenson 6 #02 stevenson 7 #02 .info 09-2019 .info 09-2019 Ndzube’s Raft sets sail ‘A place I can never leave’

Simphiwe Ndzube takes part Gallery – forms part of the 14th # Steven Cohen on in the 15th edition of the Lyon Curitiba International Biennial of performing at the Israel Contemporary Art Biennale, Contemporary Art. Of this work Festival in Jerusalem opening on 18 September. Echoing Ashraf Jamal has written: the French city’s specific geography, ‘His raft is not Géricault’s R a ft i can’t communicate at all well how at the confluence of the rivers of the Medusa bearing the bodies contaminating and detoxifying Simphiwe Ndzube’s work in progress Rhône and Saône, the title of the of the dead and the living, though for the Lyon Biennale Israel was. it was sort of like being biennale is Là où les eaux se mêlent the memory of that devastating immersed in holy poison and forced (‘Where water comes together Romantic work nevertheless Curated by Tereza de Arruda to become instantly immune. or die. with other water’), taken from a accompanies it. Rather, after Biko, and Adolfo Montejo Navas, with it really is life and death at every poem by Raymond Carver. Ndzube it is the work of a black body that guidance from Ernestine White turn. it’s joburg, jews and jacarandas, contributes a new site-responsive has come back to itself, the work of regarding the inclusion of South an infinity of hard-core fur-hats in installation titled Uhambho. a life that moves both inward and African artists, this iteration of the catholic garb drag, guns, police, Further south, Ndzube’s graduate outward, listing and jostling on its Curitiba biennial is themed Open soldiers, 14-year-old girls armed work Raft – in the collection sea-legs, pumping life always into its Borders and runs from 21 September and quarrelsome ... everything of the South African National empty shell.’ to 1 March. is constructed of the same white stone (buildings, people) poor and disenfranchised sectioned-off invisible palestinians ... from the

ruling class I elicited only scowls Portrait Series Photoshoot, Lille, 14/8/2019, makeup and mixed media on tape and glares, some curses ... killer sun. i saw myself in every form ... fat, to the rafters, and the second, in gay bashers. when they grabbed me thin, young, old, rich, poor, mad, the afternoon, just before shabbat and threw me around a bit, guns out oblivious, sick, manic, zealous ...... about 200, half of the capacity we ... I went ballistic, screaming back at i swear i saw myself a thousand allow, the buzz was obviously beware. them in shock. a friend said never to times, cloned versions of the nose big walkout the first night, fewer the do that, even Hamas is polite. and ears and physiognomy ... what second ... but more than any other i watched sunrise every day, i was i could have become and might country it has been presented in. almost always alone, i ate strangely, yet well. it was like a 60s french art audience polarised, loved or hated. nuts, seeds, dates, pomegranates film noir, that aspect, all psycho much reaction to the organisers, they ... everything felt ordained and and twisted and poignant. and said, no details given. unbearably intense. the french on my everyone who wasn’t me was a jew jerusalem is now a mental place team were like tiny squeaky cartoon i knew – there were aunty Brendas, i can never leave, like the abattoir characters i had never seen before. aunty Eppas, aunty Rontzas, Uncle or ICU ... i am still burning at the they fell silent whenever I joined Reubens, Brodies, Essers, Liebmans, Wall, or facing police with guns who them. they saw my naked jewness Goodmans, versions of the lot of thought i was a terrorist bomber and i saw right through them, us ... a million ghosts alive and well waiting to happen – all dressed in like transparent plastic toys from as if the holocaust shower scenes black from head to toe with a black disneylandparis. i was always and had been played back in reverse, and backpack, black parasol and a huge never afraid, always and never lost. out they streamed, all six million of black hat like Bette Davis in Now, i did research for an intervention in them, dressed up for Shavuot and Voyager. incomprehensible to them. the future. nothing is possible but i

PHOTO: MARIO TODESCHINI celebrating stress! i very nearly got shot for ignoring will try it nonetheless. and then a life

.Wim Botha’s Mieliepap Pietà – a life-size South Africa’s first decade of democracy. It was i saw my work from the outside repeated shouted commands to stop of limping ↑ mirrored replica of Michelangelo’s Pietà – has installed at the Cathedral of St John the Divine, for the first time, i appear truly and identify myself (in Hebrew) but Cohen performs put your heart under found a new home at St George’s Cathedral in Cape a place of worship that, like St George’s, is maddened. when i made the jewish instead sped up pace cause i could Town. The work was originally commissioned by Dick recognised for its contributions to the social your feet … and walk! at the Centre Pompidou on 19-21 September, and at Enthoven for the exhibition Personal Affects: sphere. In this doubly resonant environment, the brochas and ate elu’s ashes there was see only the pavement in front of MC93 – Maison de la Culture de Seine- Power and Poetics in Contemporary South African religious and political implications of Botha’s a deafening silent roar, completely me and thought it best to ignore the Saint-Denis on 28-29 November, as Art, held in New York in 2004 to commemorate sculpture take on heightened significance. physical. the first night was packed yelling cause it seemed likely to be part of the Festival d’Automne, Paris stevenson 8 #02 .info 09-2019

Email [email protected] Reading matter # New additions to our shelves

WHAT WE’RE READING

Associate director Sisipho Ngodwana is reading Biography of Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua by Robin Law and Paul Lovejoy, the story of a former slave from Brazil, in advance of Paulo Nazareth’s solo show Pieter Hugo La Cucaracha. Gabrielle Guy Part 1, 2 and 3. in October. Also, Franz Published by Editorial RM, First instalments in an ongoing Kafka’s The Trial and The 2019. Book launch at Paris photo book project, self- Paris Review: The Writer’s Photo in November published by our designer Chapbook.

WHAT WE’RE LISTENING TO

From the press Dada Khanyisa, whose first Johannesburg solo exhibition → Nicole Martinez on Paulo Nazareth’s Melee at the ICA Miami: at Stevenson opens on 1 ‘The Brazilian-born artist’s work is grounded in activism and renowned for February 2020, says: its durational, performative nature. In Melee, his first US retrospective, the ‘My studio playlist consists of Khruangbin, Alfa Mist, extent of his Odyssean investigations are on full display. Whether traversing Kokoroko, Batsumi and SZA. the Underground Railroad in Louisiana; raiding the tombs of disappeared I can’t stop playing Samthing rebels in Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay; or tracing African influence across Soweto – Akulaleki.’ Kenya, Nigeria, and Mozambique, Nazareth’s is a starkly personal journey to understand the oppressive, exploitative nature of colonial history.’ ‘Dismantling colonial power’, Contemporary And América Latina, 8 July. http://amlatina.contemporaryand.com/editorial/paulo-nazareth-ica-miami/

→ Melvyn Minnaar on Berni Searle’s exhibition as Featured Artist at the National Arts Festival, Makhanda: ‘This year the Monument’s Gallery in the Round hosted a new video work, A Place in the Sun, commissioned by the festival. And in front of the monument the established flag poles fluttered brightly in another of her projects as addendum to her well-known Spirit of ’76 video. To say she had an eye-catching presence is an understatement. As in much of her previous work, the new art is an engagement with the unexplored obvious, land, memory, history and the rituals of the ordinary, anchored in lingering ethical questions. Hers is a finely crafted sense of the theatrical of place and personality. Buchanan Building ‘A Place in the Sun is a four-channel video installation, taking as point 160 Sir Lowry Road of departure an abandoned public swimming pool in Maitland near her 7925 Cape Town +27 21 462 1500 Cape Town studio in which the scars of its disuse triggers contemplation of what it was and is, and how the future of run-down urbanscapes can 46 7th Avenue Parktown North be meaningfully imagined. [...] The way in which memory is held in the 2193 Johannesburg commonplace, the ordinary, and where and how identity is embedded, have +27 11 403 1055 from the start powered her sense of the aesthetic.’ [email protected] ‘Contemplating the colours of what is and what was’, Business Day, 2 August. www.stevenson.info https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/life/arts-and-entertainment/2019-08-02- contemplating-the-colours-of-what-is-and-what-was/ @stevenson_za