As Athi-Patra Ruga claims the 2015 Standard Bank Young Artist of the Year Award for Performance Art, we look at young SA talent making waves, writes Stefanie Jason.
A day ahead of the Tuesday night announcement for the 2015 Standard Bank Young Artists of the Year winners, I ask Athi-Patra Ruga how he feels about taking the performance artist prize. “You do know that this information is embargoed until the next day, right?” he warns, alerting me of an email about the rules from the award organisers. He runs me through them briefly, before imparting his thoughts on taking the prestigious award “so early on in my career”.
“This prize is a big part of the cultural landscape of the country,” he tells me. “One that a young boy from East London dreamt to be part of and is in total awe and honour of getting it.”
Other 2015 Standard Bank Young Artists of the Year winners:
Luyanda Sibiya for Dance
Nduduzo Makhathini for Jazz
Kemang wa Lehulere for Visual Art
Musa Ngqunqwana for Music
Art Christiaan Olwagen for Theatre
As the Cape Town-based multidisciplinary artist shares his joys, the start of our phone chat reminded me that Ruga is hardly ever the star of his own show. But his genius is there, above the layers of latex, paint and electric-coloured fishnet stockings often worn during his performances. Our conversation took me back to a talk he gave at the Design Indaba this year, in which he says that “the greatest choreographer of my works is the costume”. And just like the festival of radiant party balloons that covered the artist as he strutted down Grahamstown’s streets at the National Arts Festival in 2012 (as part of his ongoing White Women of Azania series) or the following year along Johannesburg’s inner-city roads, Ruga allows his creations to take the fore.
From performance pieces to tapestries and video art, Ruga’s creations have always told the necessary stories of sexuality, race and even his ideal world, as well as various topical issues birthed pre- and post-1994 in South Africa.
“What I love doing with my performance art is always challenging the challenges we’re faced as performance artists. We have space issues [to deal with],” he says over the phone. “Whereby one can’t perform in certain places because they are reserved for someone else. So I love going into public spaces and being in the face of that power and speaking truth to that power.”
For the full report, video clip and M& G’s choice of six significant young performance artists – see Mail & Guardian
Athi-Patra Ruga’s win spotlights 10 essential performance artists
