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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1-54 has carefully selected 20 leading galleries from 10 countries (Belgium, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, France, Germany, Italy, Morocco, Senegal, South Africa and the United Kingdom) to exhibit at the third edition of the fair in Marrakech. The fair will showcase the work of more than 65 artists, both emerging and established, working in a wide variety of mediums and from a range of geographical locations comprising 20 countries.

1-54 Marrakech will be accompanied by 1-54 Forum, the fair’s extensive talks and events programme, which will include artist talks and panel discussions with international curators, artists and cultural producers, to be held at La Mamounia, ESAV and Le 18 in parallel to the fair. For the 2020 Marrakech edition, 1-54 Forum will be curated for the first time by independent art space, The Showroom, London. The project will be led by The Showroom’s curatorial team and takes its methodology from the organisation’s programme of engagement with its local north-west London community, Communal Knowledge. Entitled On focus: Communal Knowledge at Large, 1-54 Forum will explore the potential of that methodology to be translated to other contexts. Nurtured by the insightful contributions of local and international agents, 1-54 Forum will become a platform to interrogate multiple practices of socially engaged art, leading to the production of a new roadmap of organisational and institutional collective methodologies originated by this encounter between artists, activists, institutions and community organisers.

1-54 will also present a wide programme of bespoke events in partnership with Musée d’Art Contemporain Africain Al Madeen (MACAAL), Musée Yves Saint Laurent Marrakech, Montresso* Art Foundation, Le 18, Comptoir des Mines Galerie and Institut Français, amongst others.

> Une aventure poétique, the first retrospective exhibition by Jacques Azéma at musée Yves Saint Laurent marrakech
> HAVE YOU SEEN A HORIZON LATELY?, a group exhibition curated by Marie-Ann Yemsi at Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden (MACAAL)
> IN-DISCIPLINE #3 at Montresso* Art Foundation
> Comptoir des Mines Galerie presenting two solo exhibitions by Mohamed Arejdal and Fatiha Zemmouri in their art space in the heart of Gueliz
> Hamdoullah ça va! a group show with Mohamed Bourouissa and four young artists, presented by Sonia Perrin at DaDa
> Alter Ego Uprisings at Dar Moulay Ali, Maison de la France à Marrakech, a group show with works by artists Amina Benbouchta, Deborah Benzaquen, Soumiya Jalal, Seloua Ejjennane, curated by Elisa Ganivet

Galleries participating at 1-54 Marrakech 2020

• Afikaris
• AFRONOVA GALLERY
• Eclectica Contemporary
• galerie 127
• Galerie Cécile Fakhoury
• Galerie Nathalie Obadia
• Goodman Gallery
• GVCC
• Katharina Maria Raab
• L’Atelier 21
• Loft Art Gallery
• LouiSimone Guirandou
• Gallery MAGNIN-A
• Mashrabia Gallery of Contemporary Art
• Nil Gallery
• Primo Marella Gallery
• So Art Gallery
• UBUNTU art gallery
• VOICE gallery
• WHATIFTHEWORLD

1-54 Marrakech is located at La Mamounia:

La Mamounia Palace
Avenue Bab Jdid
Marrakech 40040
Morocco

20 – 21 February: by invitation only

Saturday 22 February
11:00 – 19:00

Sunday 23 February
11:00 – 18:00

1-54 Marrakech is free and open to all

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An increasingly large contingent within Investec Cape Town Art Fair is made up of prominent galleries from around the globe. These galleries represent exciting, established and emerging artists with a presence in museums, biennials, and important private collections around the world. International galleries returning to the Fair are:

• Perrotin (Paris)
• Galleria Minini (Brescia)
• Galerie Cécile Fakhoury (Abidjan)
• Galleria Continua (San Gimignano)
• Circle Art Gallery (Nairobi)
• Officine dell’Immagine (Milan)
• Gregor Podnar (Berlin)
• First Floor Gallery (Harare)
• Tyburn Gallery (London)
• October Gallery (London)
• Galleria Giovanni Bonelli (Milan)
• Addis Fine Art (Addis Ababa)
• Afriart Gallery (Kampala)
• ARTCO Gallery (Aachen)
• Caroline Smulders (Paris)
• THIS IS NOT A WHITE CUBE (Luanda)
• Sulger-Buel Lovell (London)
• Galerie Pascal Janssens (Ghent)
• Art First (London), MOVART (Luanda)
• THIS IS NO FANTASY (Melbourne).

There is also an influx of international galleries participating in Investec Cape Town Art Fair for the first time:

• Templon (Paris)
• MAGNIN-A (Paris)
• LOOM Gallery (Milan)
• Ayyam Gallery (Dubai)
• Retro Africa (Lagos)
• Lia Rumma (Milan)
• LKB/Gallery (Hamburg)
• Omenka Gallery (Lagos)
• Montoro12 Gallery (Rome)
• Eduardo Secci Contemporary (Florence)
• Art Twenty One (Lagos)
• Apalazzo Gallery (Brescia)
• Barbara Paci Galleria d’Arte (Pietrasanta)
• Nil Gallery (Paris)
• Cellar Contemporary (Trento)
• ELA – Espaço Luanda Arte (Luanda)
• NOMAD Gallery (Brussels)
• Sitor Senghor (Paris)
• Louis Simone Guirandou Gallery (Abidjan)
• Matter Gallery (Toronto).

Investec Cape Town Art Fair serves as the hometown fair of local galleries with a significant international presence. ICTAF 2019 will see new presentations by leading South African galleries including Goodman Gallery, Everard Read CIRCA, Stevenson, SMAC Gallery, WHATIFTHEWORLD, Gallery MOMO, SMITH, and Blank Projects. Alongside their presentations at ICTAF these galleries, each of whom are pillars of the art scene in Cape Town and South Africa at-large, will form a captivating programme of exhibition openings and events to coincide with the Fair.

Tomorrows/Today, the section of the Fair which aims to place a spotlight on emerging and under-represented artists, will be curated by Fair Curator Tumelo Mosaka. The artists presented in Tomorrows/Today are positioned to be tomorrow’s leading names in contemporary art. The presentations in the section have continued to be thought-provoking and experimental since its inception at the 2016 edition of the Fair. Tomorrows/Today reiterates the Fair’s support of artists who may otherwise be overlooked by the art market.

The second iteration of the SOLO section, will explore the effects of the digital world on artistic production and our lived realities. Each edition of SOLO aims to present a more in-depth insight into the artistic practices of a varied selection of artists than is commonly found in the commercially-driven art fair setting. The selected artists have varying aesthetics and contexts, are situated in different stages of their careers, and have unique perspectives on each edition’s thematic focus.

Artskop3437 is an official partner of Investec Cape Town Art Fair (ICTAF)

See the full exhibitor list here

© Investec Cape Town Art Fair (ICTAF) 2019

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