Studio 83 dropped a Redirection issue and I took my time getting to it. Good thing I did, I feel I might have dropped every thing, fought with the wife, turned to a new chapter of my life after one last hug of our babies. Yeah man change is; a constant tinnitus buzz in your ear; that often times painful in some way necessity; the sun to the shadow of your frustrations; and it still just is. Oh and I haven’t even started reading the articles further then the pull quotes…
Weighing the life options for me is always a distressingly laborious task. Not for reasons you would assume, my life choices are abundant, my cup "raneth" over from the day I was born. Just picking one choice and liking it for is merits alone eludes me at every turn, there always seems to be one more nuance I can get out of the choices I make, and so I am never satisfied. I feel if I am to expand energy on a direction that I take it has got to give back and give back big. It has never been about money (well… until the first kid came) more about the sum total of what I intend to leave. That sum total is the stories I will tell my grand children… and maybe my own children if they have time for me. You see, my plan is to raise children that are independent. And you know… maybe I am taking it too far, by wishing for them to be so independent they could do a Mars mission and think nothing of the many years of isolation that it takes to get there and back. But also have no problem integrating when they do get back… so you know… take it as it is and make it work. My father went from the ox cart to the jet plane in one lifetime; there really isn’t a better story out there. But he never really gets to tell it… the choices he must have made. A world of lessons lives in those stories.
I look back on my life at any point in time and the one constant is the (excuse me) unchosen choices lying there for all the world like breadcrumbs. Maybe crumbs for our children to follow, bread crumbs for those I aspire to one day inspire, or just to remind me where not to return to. Its all the same, I shudder at what I feel must be the squandering my mom used to wag a finger about. I have been happy flipping it every now and again for no other reason but to see if taking a blind turn will lead me into a blind alley, it has yet to happen, there is always light at the end of my tunnel.
Yeah man, so flip (re)direction a la Studio 83… nice lynch pin, great time in my life as well. More choices have just come flooding in. And I again I am agonising. If its money, I am winning either way. Interesting stuff? Naturally. Interesting people? Obviously. Where to start, what to pick…
Pic Geraint Warlow
Here is one I prepared a little earlier... a late easter egg
Wet.
Easter 2010 in Jozi was overly moist in a way that only lazy dripping low flying clouds are capable of. It still wasn’t enough of a deterrent to visit the Golden Apple Maboneng. Rain really does give the city streets a warm clean smell (if the sun isn’t far behind the shower) or a melancholic grey tinge that sharpens the darkness lurking in each city’s concrete heart. Why does it even rain in cities, where seemingly the only thing that grows after the rain are the potholes? Digression…
What is African Art was the question de jour for no apparent reason. A two soul tag team went out to fraternise with the galleries strung along 6th and 7th like the most random set of hos in some arty/bourgeois red light district. Oddly many of these hos had taken the day off. I didn’t mind, but took it personally that Gallery Momo took the day off as well. It was a small comfort to read the novel “no parking” sign in the car park through the bars running along the front of the gallery’s property; “Parking only for Mercedes” or something to that effect. It was a nice touch of the playfulness I suspect can be found within the gallery, something I am sure to find out at some later date. The other message which I definitely got due to the upwardly mobile areas the Momo ho was situated in was that yes, actually if you can whip a merc come park here, and you damn well better be able to afford the wares. Why not, weed out the art freebasers like myself that just get high off the product (especially for free) and sometimes even forget to say thank you as we stagger out into the real world, high off of next level views.
So the galleries were mainly closed, David Krut’s book sellers were open, worth a brows, especially if the disposable cash is really handy, three doors down (or was it up) was some hubris on display, attached to two communists (Trotsky & Che, great name for an intellectual cafe dive thing, no?) a mirror, photography and some sort of smoky filter… best thing about the place was the sign at he door “Open” (Animals and small people allowed) I was the animal my co-soul a small person. Ha, ha, we should have turned back right there. Entirely forgettable. Then horror of horrors Goodman had also capitulated to religious/commercial holidays, no need to hate any further. JAG to the rescue, but Zoo Lake intervened in between.
Art was strewn around the Zoo Lake lawn in semi organised lines. Well, the term art is rather loosely thrown in to this piece out of politeness... first impressions and all. One was that the white art (landscapes, Cape Dutch rustic homes, Winelands vistas) were all so well famed (not the wood restraining the image) but the actual painting its self. Is the white view of South Africa so compact, so neat, so nicely walled in? It was enough to bring on a rant, one not heard by the purveyors of the framed wall paper. But you know one man’s art is another man’s god knows what. So honestly, let’s call it art as well, accessible art, the sort of art that is content to perpetuate your stereo types, give your insecurities a clean comfortable pillow to rest on. In short, the Zoo Lake art is accessible. Actually I can live with that, as long as it’s in the homes of my least favourite people and 3 star hotels trying at respectability.
And so JAG, barren as hell JAG. So barren there was a scrawl on some of the bare white walls. Apparently it was a discussion on whether the scribbles were art. Yawn, move on. George Mahashe perked it up a touch. A touch. Photography is always beautiful however the setting maybe robbed the exhibition of impact. It wasn’t an experience if the Kwa Leboa ambiance was so contained; it was a goldfish bowl of Mahashe’s life. Frankly I so longed to be there in the moment, and not take a glimpse, maybe I just think that the thousand words spoken by Mahashe’s photography needed a context, and it wasn’t to be found on the barren white walls of JAG.
An ante room was filled with every day objects that Africans used… they had now donned the mantle of art. Eh? I guess if you are an archaeologist in the future looking back at say Twitter, you could find a reason to call it art. Why not? The headrests of a range of Southern African peoples qualified. The attire of a sangoma, walking sticks and even hair combs all were now boxed as art. JAG what are you saying about these anthropological, social, and actually functional implements, tools and objects? Given enough time for change to happen and the use of an object to become obsolete… we can now have art? It is human to beautify, and so a simple headrest can be made more pleasing to the eye, but the previous owners didn’t use the headrest on special occasions just because it was better carved then they aware a decade before. Now several decades down the line…. Art happened to the headrest. W-O-W.
Shabba Kgotlaetso gets a shout out for revealing himself fully. That shutter bug isn’t interested in manufactured beauty, life head on is more his forte. He made beautiful along with all the other contributors to the WORKSHOP NAME series of images. Over all the predominance of photography, rather drained the senses, and the range was too focused on documentary imagery. You know the fact of life presented as is. I tend to do galleries to get an idea of how life could be, I already know how life is. Nandipah Mntambo is a gorgeous woman always, sometimes a mind blowing artist as well, and those hands, get out! (NEWS FLASH! This is an utter gush, deal with it.) The one image of hers dancing with an imaginary bull in full matador regalia is a moment in time… it made me wish I was the bull. The lack of dust; the intense focus; the flare of her nostrils; and actually her powerful thighs in the tight matador attire…. all the wrong conclusions drawn together to frame a perfect moment in time. Made my damn day, wish I had seen it last not as I entered JAG.
Ghandi Square is the most. A real ordeal for the senses, ordeal in that it was all so beautiful and unexpected so right yet so wrong more so after a day of disappointments jostling with pleasant surprises. One street away a building demolished out of a long row of tall buildings looking like a missing tooth. Late afternoon sun, caressing the buildings sheltering the square one last time before it dipped, painted an urban romantic tapestry. The constant busses (albeit murmuring under Easter’s calm) and foot traffic, Ko Spotong blaring its existence to the entire square, simple, loud, unapologetic, nice. Yeah ne…
Mild.
Hey, Shout out to Flo for making it all possible.
The perfect war cry to the perfect debauchery. The somewhat callous line was allegedly said by Rick James as portrayed by Dave Chappelle in one of his comedy skits where he dramatizes Charlie Murphy's embellished recollections of living in the shadow of his brother Eddie "Mr-Fuck-you-man" Murphy. Rick James lived for a little bit longer and we enjoyed him all the more for it because of Dave Chappelle’s all the way across the line hilarious skits.
Now its Lolly Jackson's turn; although his success and triumphs may be considered a tad sleazy the man did drive a Lambo and had the speeding tickets to prove it. Unfortunately his high profile life came to a violent end, the reasons are as yet unclear… however a large cross section of society commemorated the passing of his life… ok, the more giggle worthy bits. The celebration, if you will, of Lolly Jackson was carried out in an increasingly common way, by lampooning the still steaming corpse online. With a name like Lolly, or a surname like Jackson and a profession like owning Teazers, it was a match made in comedy heaven.
Almost any murder is just too much, even though in this case with the reported facts it was probably a logical conclusion to Lolly’s larger than… err life... well, life. Apparently 15 bullets fired into the victim, and a rather humble choice of getaway car from the victim’s extensive collection, followed by a call to confess to the murder (or claim the resultant notoriety, Gianni Versace anyone?) Who could blame the Twitteratti, it was news, it was fresh, it was hashtag worthy and actually it had to be dealt with somehow.
Yes the man was a father, husband and successful business man, allegedly with philanthropic intentions as well which went beyond finding a warm place for women to dance half naked for money. Now that the masses have masticated the topic enough for one night’s entertainment and strange dreams; cooler heads now have a few hours to compose the rest of the hard cold facts for a sober start to the day tomorrow.
It probably doesn’t look good for South Africa in a minor way (which will please the lazy swine who waited for the absolute last minute to get tickets for the World Cup 2010 due to a few more tickets which will probably become available due to this latest brouhaha) however Lolly wasn’t the only person to go down in a violent way today, lets not forget that.
It is a reminder of what lies out there just beyond our computer screens and the information superhighway, and an unfortunate but very relevant high profile reminder to people elected to prevent these sorts of situations that they still have a lot of work to do. So maybe Lolly’s last lapdance for 15 pieces of lead wasn’t in vain.
