5th Nov, 2020 19:00
Aspire X PLP | African Photography Auction 2020
23
Syowia Kyambi (Kenya 1979-)
Kaspale's Archive Intrusion / The Vortex III
archival ink print on Hahnemühle Baryta
Artwork date: 2019
Signature details: accompanied by a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist
Edition: number 1 from an edition of 3
Sold for R70,350
Estimated at R60,000 - R90,000
archival ink print on Hahnemühle Baryta
Artwork date: 2019
Signature details: accompanied by a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist
Edition: number 1 from an edition of 3
(1)
image size: 78 x 122 cm, sheet size: 88 x 132 cm, unframed
Notes:
Kaspale is a character devised to intervene in spaces charged with colonial activities. As a playful trickster who engages in social critique and satire, Kaspale calls out authority when needed and speaks up when others can’t. Kaspale wears a Kaunda suit, a symbol of prestige and political resistance during the postindependence era, bearing also connotations of servitude in our contemporary times. Made from mosquito netting, which is both protective and permeable, the suit’s materiality evokes the ine"ectual prevention of the colonisers’ penetration across the African continent. The character’s red finger paint, referencing ochre, generates the energy of power, traditionally used as UV and insect replant. The highlighted golden fingers, toes and mouth symbolize the speaker; holding the space for truth-telling.The mask Kaspale wears references a historic Makonde mask in the MARKK Museum collection, which was created by an artist in colonial Tanzania to embody mindimu, the ancestors. It is usually worn during a dance that accompanies the reintegration of initiates into society after transformative seclusion. Designed to build character and to raise awareness of the individual’s position in the community, the initiation also serves for instruction in questions of a good sense of community and intensive commitment within the social organisation. The mask’s appearance socially fully integrated person. The vortex series connects to a deeper realm of the archive. No longer able to see the zoologists’ photographs, Kaspale’s intervention has led to a space of timelessness. Travelled through the archive and into the vortex, Kaspale exists in a realm not bound by time or space; it’s neither here nor there, neither present norpast. The work was scheduled to be exhibited at the Dakar Art Biennale 2020, which is currently postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Auction: Aspire X PLP | African Photography Auction 2020, 5th Nov, 2020
A collection of pan-African works, straddling the terrain between historical and contemporary photography, were auctioned to support the digitisation of African photographic legacies by the Photography Legacy Project (PLP). Bidders participated from across Europe, the USA and UK, Asia, Australia and Africa – a testament to Aspire’s increasing global reach and collectors’ enthusiasm for African photography.
The auction included photographic luminaries such as David Goldblatt, Alf Kumalo, G.R. Naidoo, Ranjith Kally and Ian Berry, as well as more contemporary internationally acclaimed photographers like Guy Tillim, Jo Ractliffe, Syowia Kyambi and Mikhael Subotzky. The lead lot, a portfolio of 12 silver gelatin prints from the legendary photographer Ernest Cole’s seminal 1967 book House of Bondage sold for an astounding R569,000 – a new world auction record.
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