I miss pie, gravy and chips. It is now a distant and delicious memory from my childhood. I know that change is not only necessary but also desirable and so things move on. Perhaps this is easier to see in art and fashion than in politics but all need to be reinvigorated from time to time by new people and new ideas. The new regime, (as SA government is so often called) when it is elected in April, will hopefully be able to fulfil their election promises and artfully redirect South Africa to more noble and fertile grounds and bring a better life to all. Perhaps that way I will get some of the gravy.
My new work ‘Stand Up’ in cast bronze (Now at Strydom Gallery, George) is a socio-political work and as such is a fairly rare thing for me. I am not inclined to works of art that make such obvious statements, perhaps because I have very limited understanding of politics and even less understanding of politicians. However, every now and again I get swept up with the excitement and the possibility of political and social change and consequently make a work that is related. This work is inspired by the new optimism in America, the recent political events and the possibility of change in the looming election at home.
‘Stand Up’ owes something to the painting ‘Liberty Leading the People’ by Eugène Delacroix and contemplates an earlier revolution, a moment of hope and action in history, which was the civil uprising by the French in July 1830. The work of Eugène Delacroix inspired many subsequent works of art such as the ‘Statue of Liberty’ by the architect Frederic Bartholdi, (‘Liberty Enlightening the World’ – its official name). Sentiments surrounding these works may be romantic but they are also noble, patriotic and a call to action. If you, like I, have a suffrage and have somehow missed the gravy, stand up and vote!
Change has also come to my sense of haute couture. I have not been on the cutting edge of fashion for nearly 20 years. However, in 1992 fashion embraced me. Washed out and torn jeans and baggy jerseys became stylish and popular. I was, for once, ahead of my time as that was my mode. This style, known as Grunge, suited my student pocket more than my aesthetic values. Professor Robert Brooks, my mentor, friend and fellow grunger encapsulated much of our fashion sensibilities when he commented on an art work put up for a critique at Rhodes University by saying that it, a shoe sole print on white paper, was “the presence of an absence of a presence”.
This comment may have had educational value in that it got the students thinking, but like so many statements made by the politicians, it also demonstrated to us that you can justify just about anything, including bad art. Generally, I am in the camp of voters who think that people who want to become politicians should be banned from public office as that is evidence enough that they are unfit to hold office. I am not thinking about the politicians’ justifications and I am not expecting them to fulfil their promises. I merely hope that a stronger opposition will be a motivating force for the general good.
Although I will be not be at the opening I will have a presence at the Strydom Gallery in George from 5-30 April in the Nothing New Exhibition which is designed to run in tandem with the Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees (Klein Karoo National Arts Festival).
The title of the exhibition makes me think that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Perhaps for politics this is the case, but not so for my style as fashion has once again adopted me. On the weekends, at least, you will see me wearing my favourite brand of designer clothing. This has little to do with my wife’s ambition to change me. She was trained as a clothing designer and does have a sense of fashion and may have seen her role in our marriage as a style redeemer and me as a suitable candidate for her Pol Pot type of fashion re-education programme.
That re-education plan failed as I get my clothes from my cupboard and get dressed in the dark. The fashion for the day depends on which T-shirt is on the top of the pile. It tends to be the day before yesterday’s one as that was washed and put back on top of the pile. Occasionally someone else’s clothes have turned up in my pile and I have worn my daughter’s T-shirt and my wife’s panties. I would not have noticed except that they were both most uncomfortable.
Change has been foisted upon me by a combination of my wife throwing away the likes of my prized twenty year old Hendrix T-shirt and generous donations from my mate who works for the trendy clothing line, Volcom. The new clothing regime is a victory for my wife and she reminds me of how happy my grandmother was when she persuaded me to wear a safari suit. She told me that I looked very smart which like the politicians promise was a lie as I looked ridiculous. Part of that shopping excursion was a treat at the café where I chose pie, gravy and chips. Like that distant and delicious memory the new apparel gets my vote as it is a change I like.
