Category: Spring

Intraparadox: Interview with Lebohang Kganye

On the 30 August 2018 at the Pretoria Art Museum I had the privilege of interviewing Lebohang Khanye on her solo exhibition Mohlokomedi wa Torai. The body of work that she has produced for this project gives two matriarchical perspective of her family narratives from where Ke Sa Le Teng her SASOL New Signatures winning video installation left of

Mohlokomedi wa Tora

»On the 30 August 2018 at the Pretoria Art Museum I had the privilege of interviewing Lebohang Kganye on her solo exhibition Mohlokomedi wa Torai. The body of work that she has produced for this project gives two matriarchical perspective of her family narratives from where Ke Sa Le Teng her SASOL New Signatures winning video installation left of.

Mohlokomedi wa Tora Installation 1

Mmutle Arthur Kgokong: Thank you Lebohang for agreeing to talk to me once more. Uhm, it is a very interesting exhibition from the winning work last year. When I first saw that it is an installation I was struck by the fact that you have included your old man in this exhibition to give us that familiar element in your work. I just wanna ask you, you know, how has it been for your to create a new body of work for this solo project? Having won the prize last year, how did you produce this work?

Lebohang Kganye: I think it is daunting, I think even when I won it, I have been thinking about working in a particular way or experimenting with something very particular which was installation. I have already done it but I have never really resolved it, I have been doing it for the animation pieces and for the photography element uhm people should experience the work in that was, but I have never resolved it how to… because it was temporal, because it was softer cardboard. How to make it stand. Or be more permanent if you can say so was not really resolved. So this was great because it allowed me the time I had a good budget to kinda figure out and experiment with that. So I think it was great because I already had an idea of what I wanted to do was an installation, even though I wanted it to move, and this and this and that, but it was just such a great starting point and I am extremely excited about how this part of it is resolved

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What happens if you press share/what happens if you publish

Keep in mind that we live in the age of a litmus flare-up fame where the nano second between hitting click to publish and the thought to publish something for the world to marvel at demands us to pause and review the tumultuous effects of our actions.

•A part of a larger amount which is divided among or contributed by a number of people

IT is not really rocket science that we live in a world that is so interconnected that more people know more about you than you can imagine. If we could allow some semblance we can always think about the internet as an inner-verse. An internal world to this one but a world that permeates our physical constructs and to a certain extend holds it in checks and balances as far as certain aspects of our modern society is concerned. i.e all the activities we do on the net both good and bad stuff

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Birth – for the old folks arcade gamers of Phelindaba

In Phelindaba the Old Café are gone. Washed away by the caressing seeping water at the shores of nostalgia’s grey silver laser that burns the things we abhor or hold dear deep within the creases of our brains and bosom, a tug at the heart here and the disturbance of balance there, for a thrill worth Two Bob, Wola!

 *The beginning of this something

I have never had an interest in gambling. My ignorance extends from as far afield as the casual game of cards to a game of Dice. I knew a Knoxman while still at high school. Here was a man whose ways were outlawed from his garb to his disdain for protocol. Despite our school’s rules and regulations his feet were always kicked into a pair of All-Star Converse with some Grey Dickies spilling over them instead of the conventional Toughies and Grey Flannels. Occasionally he’d swap the Converse for a pair of Florsheims, always looked dapper the pantsula way that gent; I suspected that the game of chance, his mind always drifted towards during the course of the day, had something to do with money-Kachin that jingled in his back pocked whenever he chested into class or chested out either at change period or our breaks or when he decided that that was the day for him and He would rather go off to start his skool sa ma’dice some where in the school’s premises, especially those undiscoverable corners where only our School Principal braved to check in during his rounds. Mr. Knoxman forced issues with his kickers and overall attire until the teachers tolerated him

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Intraparadox: Interview with Elizabeth Balcomb

Tradition, absolutely I think that’s happening on a global level from what I can see when I look at the Venice Biennial – pieces that were there, I am excited by the fact that art moves and goes into new directions and I think it is great and South Africa, and so called African Art is huge in the world out there at the moment right now and it’s a great opportunity for us to go for it galleries are just waiting for good art to come out of Africa and it’ll be great if there was support in the South Africa of the arts, I don’t think, jeepers, enough is done around that theme. Artists needs support. I just feel that there is so much talent in South Africa and talent is not flipping race orientated you get born into it and I just [think] that hey the possibilities for studying art and entering competitions is all happening and we hear endless talk about job creation there is flipping job creation right there with people with their talents and artists start employing people to start helping them with their work’ Elizabeth Balcomb

Auguries of Innocence

4 September at 09:40, Pretoria Art Museum

 Elizabeth Balcomb standing next to 'Son of Man, 2015' (3)

SELF PRESERVATION

Mmutle Arthur Kgokong: I hope you are ok this morning

Elizabeth Balcomb: I’m good very good, yes, yes

Mmutle AK: You slept in Pretoria or in Johannesburg? (laughs)

Elizabeth B: No in Pretoria, geeze just up the road, very closed. I’m fresh

MAK: …yah well I am glad that you are…

EB: close, close

MAK: fresh, you know, after last night’s busy evening.

EB: yes-yes

MAK: And thank you for agreeing to speak to me Elizabeth. Ehhm, I just want us to start right at the beginning. Where were you born, and you know, what was it like growing up where you were born?

EB: Alight, I was born in Westerneria, but ehhm when I was not even three months old my parents moved to Howick in KZN, ya, and then we moved to Pietermaritzburg after, …my father was a minister of a church, but this was during apartheid days, and he was part of the underground [movement] to overthrow the government and in his church he wanted black people to come…and and just start changing South Africa but [the church] elders kicked him out as a result and so we had to leave Howick and moved to Pietermaritzburg and he started lecturing Theology and so yah that was very part of my life was that experience, Yah…

MAK: So (interrupts)

EB: but, about, I wanted to be …no, I was told the moment I started drawing pictures that I was talented and I had always had that encouragement my whole life and when I was about eleven years old I saw a sculpture and I wanted to start sculpting from about that age

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ShowMax Deluxe is Naspers’ leap frog

With ShowMax Premium what we have here is a binging spectacle. Blessed are those who have time and money for a monumental content consumption.

*ShowMax Deluxe does not exist, it is a proposed concept

{UPON} its announcement to enter the fray of subscription video on demand (SVOD) at the over the top (OTT) content market ShowMax’s pre-narrative was told from two divergent but parallel strands. Naspers was pregnant with a subscription video on demand service. Upon its launch, it would offer subscription video on demand service via streaming – which was nothing new considering what was going on. Parallel to that narrative strand, a story was told of how it would compete with MultiChoice’s DStv, a satellite based pay television service. That narrative strand has pretty much remained the same following its activation a couple of weeks ago

Image Source: http://www.moneyweb.co.za/news/companies-and-deals/naspers-turns-attention-from-china-to-leapfrog-netflix-in-africa/
Image Source: http://www.moneyweb.co.za/news/companies-and-deals/naspers-turns-attention-from-china-to-leapfrog-netflix-in-africa/

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Evanescent Friendship

If one finds themselves surrounded by a relationship that is real and endearing one is at the epicenter of love unconditional or what we have come to call friendship, we may suspect – that when it was invented, friendship was meant to be love without unreasonable expectations, but care that withdraws the minute it see itself overflowing to give space to those it honors. But most importantly a real constant presence besides us.

*Soon passing out of sight, memory or existence

 

ΤΗΣ day I found friendship was the day Desmond and I were caught by surprise by a low flying airplane while playing on a mound of sand at my grandmother’s backyard one summer’s day. Having being forced earlier to drink castor oil by our mothers who happened to be affectionate friends, we messed our pants when we scurried away in a fright-flight away from the big iron monstrosity that streak-hovered passed us like a big gong bell.

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The Evanescent POST

During a walk with a friend to nowhere about a month ago something snapped when my local post office’ non appetizing architectural form reared itself in the suburbanscape. I dropped a one liner of interruption during their turn in our conversation ‘you know the post office is on strike?’ I said hoping that I would solicit an ounce of sympathy. I should’ve known better

*The official service or system that delivers letters and parcels

I have been waiting ages for some items I have ordered oversee. Actually for special effects purposes this opening line stretches the period immensely. But it does feel like a long time ago compared to the previous times when I had ordered books or electronics devises from oversee and used my post box address. Usually the items will reach me in or within a month’s time. The whole waiting period back then had been normalized. What is a month if you know for sure that you will receive your items? And you find solace in the thought that your nosy neighbors won’t have an opportunity to claw and sniff at your parcel with curiosity at your apartment block before you marvel at it with bated breath prior to its ceremonious unwrapping.

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