Many of Kemang wa Lehulere’s signature items are present in his latest show, giving it a sense of being ongoing and transmuting, writes Athi Mongezeleli Joja.
It is said that the bones of the dead become restless when buried in unknown lands. But the repatriation of the remains of anti-apartheid journalist Nat Nakasa, who lay buried in the United States for years, did not bring peace with them. It resuscitated the scars and disorganisation created by apartheid.
Kemang wa Lehulere’s solo show, To Whom It May Concern, pays homage to Nakasa’s ghost.
Kemang wa Lehulere
As if speaking to the unknown, Lehulere’s show is a visual letter, comprising video, sculpture-cum-installations, ink drawings and chalk murals. It is a volatile minefield of familiar things, impressions and characters that have become almost autographic signs of the oeuvre of the multi-award-winning artist.
I’m referring to the bones, the sharpener, the digger, music stands and faceless characters. Their reappearance survive the sterility that often comes with repetition. The resurfacing of relics gives a sense of something ongoing, transmuting and pliable, especially in his sculptural works.
To Whom It May Concern remains an interesting show, which at times can be challenging and confusing. But, as Morris argues, “art is an activity of change, of disorientation and shift … of the willingness for confusion … in service of discovering new perceptual modes”.
In this sense, the constant disjunctive overlapping and tip-toeing across plains is itself part of the work. Though the letter has arrived, there is neither the receiver nor the world to decipher its black grief.
WHAT & WHEN: To Whom It May Concern runs from January 22 to February 28, 2015
WHERE: Stevenson Gallery, 160 Sir Lowry Rd, Woodstock 7925 Cape Town
For full review see Mail & Guardian
PHOTO CREDIT: Adam McConnachie
