South African artist Athi-Patra Ruga’s current exhibition at WHATIFTHEWORLD presents work in two techniques often associated with the aesthetics of church and home.

Part one, Interior/Exterior, includes five panels made in stained glass, an apprenticeship Ruga began relatively recently, first exhibiting the medium in 2013. Part two, Dramatis Personae, uses the textile technique of petit point, a mainstay of the artist’s practice for the past fifteen years, in four new works accompanied by one photographic portrait. Across media, Ruga’s aesthetic of strong primary colours defines portraits informed by his complex myth-making of identities historically uncelebrated.

Stitch and glass are far from Ruga’s only materials – performance, photography, video and printmaking make appearances in his earlier work. But here, he communicates content that has become familiar to performance and photography in the materials of craft. Viewers may recognise characters from earlier works such as The BEATification of Feral Benga (2017-), a performance tribute to the Senegalese cabaret dancer Francois “Feral” Benga who worked at the Folies Bergère in Paris during the 1920s. In stained glass Ruga clads the figure in A Sight/Site For Contemplation (2020) with a plume boa. In its backwards glance, the work offers the only gaze of the whole exhibition that is overtly directed at the viewer.

In fact, each of the faces in the stained glass series have a solemnity which suggest – despite the potential for voyeurism – that the subject is far more preoccupied with thoughts of their own. Literally pierced as the title suggests, Yellow Bone (2020) – a vernacular reference to mixed black ethnicity – sits in profile. Sections of stained glass detail the musculature of thigh and arm, while the torso and head are covered in a continuous pattern of painted lace. The (presumably) leather cuffed and harnessed Swazi Youth After (2019) and spandex suited The Speller, The Killer (2020) both look beyond the viewer to points on their lower right.

In contrast, Castrato As [the] Revolution (2020) is credited as Ruga’s imagined self-portrait. Erect penis in hand, his eyes of are concealed behind censor’s tape. “By blackening out his eyes,” the exhibition catalogue offers, “Ruga as a draftsman performs a theatrical self-erasure or self-censorship as a poignant mimicry of the violence enforced by the state, religious and political stakeholders, historians, critics, and gate-keepers.” Collectively, the group suggest little interest in who may be watching them.

Stitch is used to construct the works in Part Two, with one exception: the character Inyanga Yenkanga (2020) who appears in both a photographic portrait and textile.¹ Dramatis Personae revolves around a complex narrative of characters based in Azania, the ancient Greek name for southeast Africa.

The works are part of Ruga’s ongoing Lunar Songbook Cycle, which the exhibition catalogue describes as a “trans-media body of work informed by Southern African astronomy and a more ecological way of recounting time”. Characters emerge from a mix of literary equivalents originally published by Lovedale Press, a printing press in the Eastern Cape started in 1823, and ancient Greek myths. In the exhibition catalogue, Ruga’s inspirations are recounted in a text credited as a collaboration between Lindsey Raymond and the artist. Reading this information is not only crucial to understanding the series but – I would argue – a further formal outcome of the research and invention Ruga employs as an artist.

I will risk stating the painfully obvious: the stained glass portraits of Part One are male; the textile portraits of Part Two are female. Even to write this observation feels like a failure of the first test of understanding nonbinary identities that have, until recently, enjoyed limited representation in craft materials. But reworking to make anew, rather than wholesale avoidance of historical associations seems to be a place Ruga occupies with intention.

Ruga’s narratives of ultimately triumphant female protagonists draw storylines both from Greek mythology and characters from the Lovedale Press books; as alternatives to the biblical narratives of stained glass Ruga’s glass panels instead hold identities the exhibition catalogue acknowledges to be “unrecorded, misrepresented, and forgotten in history”.

Ruga’s portraits celebrate identities previously denied. While unplanned, in this exhibition – adapted online because of the pandemic – stained glass is well served by the backlighting of online viewing; textiles fair less favourably in photographic documentation and here is no exception.

While the coloured light cast by the stained glass intended to reach my body in the gallery is impossible to replicate online, with the support of the comprehensive exhibition catalogue it remains feasible to access a good portion of Ruga’s work through our computer screens. That in itself feels apt. This is an exhibition far more interested in what is possible, than dwelling on what is not.

Interior/Exterior ⁄ Dramatis Personae – a Saga in Two Parts

Athi-Patra Ruga

WHATIFTHEWORLD

2 July – 5 September, 2020

Cape Town

South Africa

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The use of materiality to shape the aesthetic experience

The group exhibition explores different issues and ideas such as climate and environmental issues; pollution; waste; xenophobia; poverty; beauty; gender; and politics – using certain materials to provide insight into their reality. The exhibition opened on Friday 14 February 2020, it unpacks how artists have used the materials, whether directly or indirectly, to raise questions about larger societal concerns. The selection of artists may explore a wide range of issues; however, the thread that connects them all is that of using materiality to guide the aesthetic experience. Artists featured in the exhibition include Athi Patra-Ruga, Patrick Bongoy, Jodi Paulsen, Billie Zangewa, Bert Pauw, Bronwyn Katz, Cyrus Kabiru and Gabrielle Kruger – to name just a few. These artists explore what is important to them with autonomy and authority, but without losing the material traditions that have been such an important part of their nation’s artistic or historical legacy.

The materials being used often have an inherent history, which can offer a powerful starting point and make for a more meaningful process. These mostly upcoming or established artists provide a glimpse into the vibrant South African art scene as well as the visual production from the rest of the African continent. This swathe of contemporary artists from across the continent are exploring ‘the material’ in new and exciting ways. The works encapsulate a very wide scope of materials, showing that ‘materiality’ is a rich subject; materials range from cow-hides to plastic bags, from bra-straps to pantyhose, from fake nails to computer parts. Matereality, curated by Andrea Lewis, Iziko Curator of Prints and Drawings.

About Iziko Museums of South Africa (Iziko)

Iziko operates 11 national museums, the Planetarium and Digital Dome, the Social History Centre and three collection-specific libraries in Cape Town. The museums that make up Iziko have their own history and character, presenting extensive art, social and natural history collections that reflect the diversity of African heritage. Iziko is a public entity and public benefit organisation that brings together these museums under a single governance and leadership structure. They are unfortunately currently closed due to covid-19.

Matereality

Iziko South African National Gallery

From February 14th to –

25 Queen Victoria St, Gardens, Cape Town, 8001

South Africa

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The Zeitz MOCAA Collection houses a unique and extensive body of works by some of the continent and its diaspora’s most exciting established and emerging artists. The exhibition, which includes a selection of these works, will open on 7 November 2019, taking up all gallery spaces on Level 4. This forms part of a recent reimagining of the museum’s galleries and spatial organisation, with exhibitions in this space changing annually.

Titled Two Together, the show is built around major themes explored by artists from Africa and its diaspora represented in the collection, and each gallery contains a pair: either two objects, or multiple works by two artists, or two major themes – either in dialogue, as counterpoints or in complementary ways. As couples do, in comedic duos or in romance, the exhibition embrace a rigorous engagement between objects and ideas.

“We wanted to explore what happens when two things come together,” explained Senior Curator, Storm Janse van Rensburg. “Two photographers can subvert a gaze, whileprobing issues around representation, presence, omission, authorship and voyeurism. Speaking from contrasting geopolitical vantage points, two can highlight the perpetual and impeding undertone of violence still manifesting in present-day psyche. The numerous lines between collective memory, imagination and folklore are blurred when two artists use material to make visible intangible heritage.”

“This exhibition presents works from the Zeitz MOCAA Collection in a new way. Whilst some works will be familiar to regular visitors to the museum, the curation of the exhibition allows them all to be experienced anew.” 

Koyo Kouoh, Executive Director and Chief Curator at Zeitz MOCAA.

The exhibition includes a diptych by Isaac Julien, as well as pairings of and conversations between works by Zanele Muholi and Mouna Karray; Njideka Akunyili Crosby and Joël Andrianomearisoa; Nicholas Hlobo and Taiye Idahor; Sethembile Msezane and Glenn Ligon; Leonce Raphael Agbodjélou and Athi-Patra Ruga, as well as Mishack Masamvu and Lungiswa Gqunta.

“It feels like a fresh and exciting way to relook at our permanent collection. The goal of the museum has always been to build a cohesive collection that is as representative as possible of Africa and the diaspora, with strong political, social, environmental and personal messaging. This is demonstrated in this exhibition,” says Koyo Kouoh.

Two Together

7 November 2019 – 25 October 2020

Curators : Storm Janse Van Resnburg, Tandazani Dhlakama, Sakhi Gcina, Tammy Langtry, Precious Mhone

Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA)

Level 4, Collections Galleries

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