Lady Skollie Pussies, Cocks, Bananas, Vulvas and Papayas
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TEXT BY 115 LADY SKOLLIE GAVIN WADE PUSSIES, COCKS, BANANAS, VULVAS AND PAPAYAS Pussies, cocks, bananas, vulvas, papayas of school—called Model C schools. Self sabo- all shapes and sizes, all colors, black, white, tage, slavery from within, alcohol as a coping red, pink, brown and yellow. That one goes mechanism and a survival tactic are portrayed in there and that goes in there. Joy, hot sex as forms of contemporary trance within the and pain, love and suffering, pleasure and ongoing white noise of colonization that is still perspective. Lady Skollie’s artworks are alive so tangible in Joburg and across the country. with emotional, political, sexual turmoil and Her works reveal insights into her own sup- loud questioning voices, singing, grunting, pressed communities, with the example of reflecting. Gushing. Her characters writhe, the Dop system being implemented in the twist and dance, queue and hold each other 1830s, outlawed as a practice in 1960 but not up. High up. Humanity stacked and sup- enforced until the 1990s, and only made ille- porting each other, and sometimes, often, gal to practice in 2003, with a sense of what always tumbling down. But they get up again. she describes as “the approaching doom or rebirth.” In the crayon and rooibos tea stained Born in 1987 in Cape Town, Lady Skollie— work They made us sing this song together given name Laura Windvogel—currently lives, every Friday (2018), the artist reproduces the works, performs and hustles for centre stage words of a propaganda song she was forced in Johannesburg, South Africa. The artist’s to sing at school assembly circa 1997. The use of simple direct materials, ink, watercolor words translate to “Hip hip hoera hip hip and crayon, is weaponized to defy taboos and hoera hip hip hoera South Africa. Thank you talk openly about issues of sex, pleasure, con- to Old Jan van Riebeeck; we will never forget sent, human connection, violence, and abuse. you. Thank you 1652, just for this DAY.” This is Simultaneously bold and vulnerable, Skollie reinforced by a piece of propaganda made by expresses the joy and darkness of the erotic the artist at the age of 9, Untitled (1997), when and the ruptured duality of human experience. asked to imagine that she was in the boat that brought the first colonizers to South Africa. The moniker ‘Skollie’ is a common derogatory The artist was one of the few students of color term used to describe a shady character, his- and would most probably have been a slave. torically used in South Africa when a person of color was in a place deemed unsuitable by TRANSLATION (1997): the white populace. Lady Skollie embraces Loving mother and father, this shadyness combining it with an interplay Yesterday we lowered the anchor in Tablebay. of masculine and feminine energies, creating The flat mountain is very impressive a space where the disparate parts of her per- Governer van der Stel welcomed us with a sonality are reconciled. The artist explains, “I delicious banquit in the Castle. We went with just like having an alias. You feel like you can a carriage back to the harbour. In my next let- take more risks under a pseudonym… there is ter I will tell you more. a psychology behind aliases, a kind of strength that they give you.” With her recent Papsak Your loving, Propaganda series of works the artist has Laura produced images of excess against the back- ground of the Dop system, the official system (Teacher feedback: VERY BEAUTIFUL!) of paying colored farm workers in alcohol and not money. Skollie touches on assimilation In her own words: “As a colored woman my PAPSAK PROPAGANDA: When I was 5 my school took us to the farm of a white man and we stamped on grapes for hours and it was delightful but I’m sure sure but I’m delightful and it was hours stamped man and we for of a white on grapes the farm school us to took 5 my When I was PROPAGANDA: PAPSAK the classing image of FEEDING: Like 2019 (p. 114) BOTTLE #DOPSYSTEM, chenin-BLACKOUT, chardonnay, of chardo-NAAI, labourers free were we (pp. 116-117) II, 2018 (detail) PROPAGANDA PAPSAK to the bottom. top, trickling the pouring into tower, champagne flute with her own experiences of attending a white sense of heritage has always shifted with every “This work is fire, ritual, Khoisan,” Lady Skol- 121 LADY SKOLLIE lie says, referring to the Khoisan indigenous bit of new truth I discover underneath centu- people of southern Africa. “The Khoisan have ries of rot. Being colored is being suspended in this amazing thing of trance, so you know a sense of NOT KNOWING. Or KNOWING but that trance-like state and chanting and all looking away. Or looking into the bottle instead. that type of thing around a fire. For me this The bottle has shaped us so much. From the image is—it’s got a burning vagina in the mid- DOP SYSTEM to BOTTLE NEK rook (smoking dle of the shot and they are all men, so it’s drugs through the severed bottle neck)— like they are warming themselves around a the bottle is as much a part of our heritage burning vagina. Which to me is pretty much as cave drawings.” South Africa.” Lady Skollie’s work presence exists outside The artist describes the energy of Khoisan of the artworld, on the covers of lifestyle cave drawings that she has been trying to and fashion magazines. Her position as an achieve. “I know in the rest of the world the influencer in South Africa is bolstered by her word ‘colored’ is derogatory or relates to enthusiastic use of Instagram and connec- a negative history. Here it has a similar his- tion to brand culture. In Joburg it feels essen- tory, except here we still use it. [...] There are tial as an artist survival strategy to mix in with lots of different types of coloreds, but I think the commercial marauders exploiting the the main group, they are the family of the pockets-of-hip found inbetween the many Khoisan, which is like—they were Bushmen. neighborhoods where deprivation is still far They were the first inhabitants of southern from a memory. The artist’s practice extends Africa, of Africa, of the world actually.” to recording a sex talk radio show—some- These ‘cave drawings’ are scaled up in Skol- thing she regards as a necessity in order to lie’s pulsating, impressive wall paintings avoid subscribing to archaic ways of viewing that present symbols of power such as the art. In her words: “Self-expression has never Khoisan Kween Mother or educational sce- been as cheap or easy. Use it.” narios such as An ode to Trevor Makhoba’s ‘Studio Visit’ (2001) - You must enjoy your time HOODia, 2018 (p. 118) Pulling together, pushing apart (study), 2018 (Women trampling pushing apart trampling (study), 2018 (Women HOODia, 2018 (p. 118) Pulling together, hours; had fun but we for on grapes and step a wine farm us to grapes: took a child they As (p. 119) MAN) THE made some we wine for I realize now “Art is about confronting and making people, by the white people coz eventually everyone including yourself, feel uncomfortable. Art as comes home - The artists mother on the topic social commentary, art as political commen- of mixing races (2002), 2019. The latter work tary, it’s all important in the quest to evoke was the key element in the exhibition, In Mat- rage,” explains Lady Skollie. She channels ing Birds Vol. 2, curated by Gabi Ngcobo with her ideas, attitudes and work into activism: Sumayya Menezes and Zinhle Khumalo at “I am angry about a lot of things. Mostly per- The KZNSA in Durban earlier this year visu- taining to existing on this planet as a woman.” alizing the troublesome histories associated “We can’t walk anywhere in Johannesburg. As with the Immorality Acts of the Parliament of a woman, if you were walking somewhere and colonial and apartheid South Africa and how you got raped, people would be like, ‘babe, no they shape contemporary perspectives on offense but it was your fault.’ I was having sex sex, sexuality and sexual relationships. parties every three months at different places. Well, not parties where people literally have Lady Skollie’s works feel vitally at the heart sex, but sex-themed parties sponsored by a of many current difficult issues of bodily and condom company.” constitutional crisis. In BOTTLE FEEDING: Papsak Propaganda, the occurance of the For a recent Human Rights Day, Lady Skollie Dop System, the official system of paying collaborated with the Ntethelelo Foundation coloured farm labourers in liquor. Practice working with 20 girls from the Foundation’s outlawed in 2004 (2018), the condensed and youth program in Sitjwetla. She ran workshops horrific history of South Africa’s colonization to help the girls creatively connect their lived is laid bare through Khoisan heads controlled experiences within their communities to their through the Dop system. The linocut, ink and rights as stated in the constitution. And acting crayon work a whisper from Cagn, coming at a national level the artist has just produced down from the sky to talk to the people (2018) an artwork for the fifty rand coin—a 25-year shows a world view with a coiled and aggres- anniversary coin celebrating democratic vot- sive snake occupying everything but the ing in South Africa. The last line of the national margins, which are occupied by an embat- anthem—let us live and strive for freedom— tled native population, reduced to walking is formed in the official typeface of the SA wounded.