oil on board attached to wooden pole

Exhibited: Similar work exhibited in: Johannesburg Biennale: Africus, Johannesburg, The Body Politic, 28 February to 31 April 1995.
Literature: Africus, Johannesburg Biennale, 28 February-30 April 1995. Johannesburg: Greater Johannesburg Transitional Metropolitan Council, similar work illustrated in colour on the cover. [Biennale catalogue].

(1)

80 x 39.5 x 1.5 cm

Provenance:

Private collection, Cape Town.

Notes:

Fanlo Mkhize, more commonly known by the nickname ‘Chickenman’, is recognised for his eccentric artworks and puppets made from found-materials.

During the 1980s, Mhikize started working on the lawns outside the Tatham Art Gallery in Pietermaritzburg. He entertained passers-by with his extraordinary sculptures and also made a series of ‘road signs’. Each of these roughly constructed objects contained a message – sometimes of warnings relating to road safety such as No hooting, Steep descent to the left or Beware of joggers. Other messages including Gone fishing, Abuse of power comes as no surprise, or Safe sex zone were completely unrelated and the artist also made signs to order.

In 1995, Lorna Ferguson and Christopher Till, who were then directors of the first Johannesburg Biennale, titled Africus, commissioned Mkhize to make a sign for the event. “This biennale was significant because it marked South Africa’s re-entry into the international art world after the first democratic elections in 1994 (Becker 2002: 101). It was a monumental, and momentous, series of exhibitions that ambitiously attempted to redefine the canon of South African art (Marschall 2001: 55), notably, to open it up to embrace a range of artistic practices across the country that had been overlooked and generally excluded from the mainstream. Their curatorial focus meant that many questions were raised about what constituted art in the first place, and it is therefore not surprising to learn that Ferguson commissioned Mkhize to produce one of his signature signs with the question ‘But is it art?’ The sign produced, which read, ‘Butisi tart?’ became the unofficial logo of the biennale, and was used prominently on the catalogue cover as well as on invitations, banners, posters, T-shirts, and even condom dispensers promoting the event.”[1]

1] Vorster, S & Del Castello, D. (2015). A Chicken in a Goat Coat. In J. Brenner, S. Vorster, L. De Becker and J. Wintjes Life (Ed.). Line-Knot: Six Object Biographies (pp.37-49). Johannesburg: Standard Bank Gallery. p. 43.