25th Mar, 2018 18:00
Historic, Modern & Contemporary Art
138
Athi-Patra Ruga (South Africa 1984-)
Uzukile the Elder
wool, thread, artificial flowers and spray paint on tapestry canvas
Artwork date: 2013
Exhibited: Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, Art/ Afrique, Being There: South Africa – A Contemporary Art Scene, 26 April to 4 September 2017. WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town, The Future White Women of Azania Saga, 27 November 2013 to 1 January 2014.
Literature: Athi-Patra Ruga: The Future White Women of Azania. (2014). Cape Town: WHATIFTHEWORLD, colour illustration on p.110.
wool, thread, artificial flowers and spray paint on tapestry canvas
Artwork date: 2013
Exhibited: Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, Art/ Afrique, Being There: South Africa – A Contemporary Art Scene, 26 April to 4 September 2017. WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town, The Future White Women of Azania Saga, 27 November 2013 to 1 January 2014.
Literature: Athi-Patra Ruga: The Future White Women of Azania. (2014). Cape Town: WHATIFTHEWORLD, colour illustration on p.110.
(1)
200 x 190 cm
Notes:
Uzukile the Elder (2013) is an embroidery from Athi Patra Ruga’s garish tableau The Future White Women of Azania Saga, which plays on the idea of a utopian post-apartheid fantasy space. Interestingly, Ruga’s figures don’t appear racially white but voguishly black, affluent, sometimes anonymous and ambiguous characters immersed in colour, and running around the jungle. Whilst feared by many as a mythology of racial hatred, Azania (land of the black) arguably represents a society of radical equality and multiplicities.In Uzukile this utopian desire is more palpable, and sometimes mischievously so. With a less theatrical palette, its dominant blackness (made of fake black roses) isn’t without character nor is it simply a flat or negative space where blotches of colour rule. It’s a dynamic, living and fully charged textured topography.Employing different mediums and symbolisms, from artificial flowers, wool, thread and so on, this self-portrait of an androgynous figure first appears to invite us to imagine black sexuality in Azania, differently. Secondly, if we pay closer attention to the figure, to its cast out hands and a halo-like ball around the head – it subtly repeats a religious iconography. Is this the black Christ? What is implied in this harmonious tension between religious symbolism (Christianity is central to black nationalist thought) and sexual freedom?Thus, it would easy to cast aspersions on this conciliatory gesture as a type of sacrilege, as it might be simplistic to think of Azania as a restoration of racial categories. But is it also possible to read Uzukile The Elder as a piece suggestive of biblical, innocuous or perhaps even prurient curiosities? Athi-Patra Ruga, in a unique way, forces us to differently repeat imaginaries of the past and enjoins us to think of how they constantly queer the future.
Athi Mongezeleli Joja
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Auction: Historic, Modern & Contemporary Art, 25th Mar, 2018
Aspire Art Auctions brought a unique offering to their second auction in the Cape allowing buyers to add quality and rarity to their collections.
Headlining the success of the auction was as a rare intaglio by Alexis Preller, Gold Angel (Arêté), which sold for R4 638 400. The piece was part of Preller’s last body of work shown at the Goodman Gallery in 1975, and took its place alongside the sale of his mid-period work, the exquisite small study Still life with Vase and Carved Head, which sold for R811 720. Other auction highlights included work by contemporary artists Robert Hodgins, Athi-Patra Ruga, Zander Blom, and Penny Siopis and sculpture by Deborah Bell, Willem Boshoff, Wim Botha, and Amadlozi alumnus Sydney Kumalo.
Viewing
Friday 23 March 2018 | 10 am – 5 pm
Saturday 24 March 2018 | 10 am – 5 pm
Sunday 25 March 2018 | 10 am – 3 pm
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