Despite a Antarctic thawing 36°C Cape Town blaze from Helios, Blessing, winner of the Standard Bank Young Artist Award (for Visual Arts) in 2020, seats composed in Marco's African Place, with a glass half-full of something befitting a Friday afternoon. Adorning his signature fingerless leather glove and wrists covered with a web of eccentric accessories, a grayish brown T and pants, this gentle and mild mannered man, a Tzaneen-born painter, dreamer, and “visual dancer”, is soaking in the Mother City, leisurely, modestly, as if he’s not the creator of the captivating Replica Ever Sang, his latest 20-piece solo exhibition showing at Everard Read, V&A.
The works explore seemingly unrelated unfiltered narratives etched in the bodies of figures of grotesque form
Replica Ever Sang opened on the 4th of March and the artist kindly agreed to allow me to pick his brains, and annoyingly get him to decode all the CIA-esque encrypted signs hieroglyphically inscribed in some of his pieces. Apart from the signs, the pieces are an impressive fusion of collage and paint, photographs expressively retouched with acrylic paint. The works explore seemingly unrelated unfiltered narratives etched in the bodies of figures of grotesque form; these bodies carry the post-colonial African reality in ways that trouble narrow notions of time-as-linear. Through the imaginary, the fantastic, the works wage an unflinching critique of political regimes and show a disdain for power, while portraying the will of the people in the struggle for power and realisation of deferred dreams.
This matters to Blessing, like all the Black lives that matter to him. Explored with striking dexterity, this chaos on canvas, odd and disorientating at times, ambushing the senses, strikes at the heart of the troubles that haunt our world; images of famine, dogs’ fanged teeth, burning Black bodies, all add to the rich visual and conceptual landscape of the project which draws from, which is to say, references an expansive palette of artistic visionaries which paved the way for him.
Vusumzi Nkomo: In many of the pieces a certain inscription, text, appears: PWMAAA&J? Please decode that for me.
Blessing Ngobeni: When my son was around 7/8 (years old). When we drive through the City (Joburg), we encounter people who ask for food and money, you know, at the robot. At times you find out if you don’t have money or anything to give to them they become angry at you. My son asked me so many times, “Daddy, why is it that these people cannot understand that you have us your kids, that you are responsible for? If you don’t have it, you really don’t have it. I know you give when you have but these people get angry all the time.” So it started from that moment. So we decide to create it: ‘People Without Money Are Always Angry and Jealous’. But it’s really not a nice thing to say, so its best if it's coded then it becomes interesting.
VN: Throughout the works text features quite prominently, inscribed with paint - elsewhere as paper/print - to sort of augment/expand meaning, but in the diptych ‘Through City Window I & II’ the text is scratched out, a kind of self-censorship. Can you speak more on that?
BN: When you look at how we carry dialogue among ourselves, there are those messages we send out to someone else’s ears, but it doesn’t make them practice the things we said. By scratching out I’m saying. “We told you but these words are not getting through. As much as we still have leadership, though they are in those positions it's because we contributed but our contributions are scratched out. I’m protesting you know. So we must try by all means to parade our ideas out there and share them with those that are in need of them. So it’s not censorship.
I’m protesting you know
VN: God I misread that!
BN: (laughter) No! It’s about how the Black voice, the voices of the masses are not getting through to these people. So I’m trying to explain that as strong as these words are, somehow they are going to waste.
VN: Juxtaposition is a salient feature in the show. One such juxtaposition is the constant use of text as print, and/against painted text. The ‘print text’ has a reportage feel, an archive effect, quite authoritative, and the painted text is very cinematic, has a subtitle effect. Can you tell me more about that specific juxtaposition?
BN: I enjoyed bringing this sort of history because those events are relevant to our times. You can look at the Namibian Genocide and other horrible genocides; its proof that we are not weak, spiritually and physically, as a people. But all I wanted was to understand why we treated that way and think about us in our time and how there are similarities between that age and ours. But there are now Black people who’ve managed to get the ‘cheese’ and tend to treat other Blacks the same way. Did we inherit this or we just transformed by money and lose ourselves. So I want to find ways of reading what they did to us.
VN: The work boast of a wide political vocabulary and expressive artistic lexicon. Would you or do you consider yourself a ‘visual activist’?
BN: Well I call myself a ‘Visual Dancer’ (laughter). But that’s something I wouldn’t ignore because these are things I witness, experience. I like to think of my work as a “result of a masterpiece”. Like when two cars collide and suddenly there’s change in life; there’s death, wheelchair bound, there’s shock. So that’s the result of a masterpiece, works that speak in volumes without being planned but people go ‘wow!’ when they view it.
VN: The technique of painting over photographs, in a way that alters or transforms their meaning, something that could be read as a reference to Ntate Sam Nhlengethwa, whom you’ve cited as someone whose encounter with has had an impact in your career. Why was it important to make this specific aesthetic choice?
BN: Actually I’ve referenced, in different ways, Bra Dave (David Koloane); he features in most of my work. I love his dogs, the way he was painting them. For him, his dogs are more settled, more blurry. Mine are just dark, with fanged teeth. So with Bra Sam (Nhlengethwa), well, when I started working with collages I did not know his work. I did not know anything about him, even Bra Dave. Even Picasso (Pablo). I mean, I came from a generation that moved from prisoner to art and when I was in prison I did not do art, I only did after my work, which was consigned to this other gallery in 2008 and they said my work was stolen. So my collages started from that period, end of 2009. I remember I spent the whole year without painting. At the beginning I would use found boards instead of a canvas, I would use tiny collage there and there.
But my work has a tendency of wanting to find its own path without being compared to other artists or movements. For instance, they say I’m a Surrealist painter but the work is constantly trying to unchain itself from that historic movement.
But the reason to transform images was because people usually come and say “Hey, you used my photograph!” It happened before with my first show when I was working with Gallery MoMo in Joburg. There was a Belgium guy who used to travel in Africa and take photographs, so I used one of his pictures and I destroyed it, but I did not destroy it completely because I wanted those effects on the photo. So when we went to the opening, he was there and talking too much. I told him sh@%, “this is Africa, you remember your history of Belgium, you said Congo is yours and you chopped our people”, and he went silent.
VN: Your figures have these sharp pointed edges, for example, the fingertips and feet.What exactly is communicated by this use of line?
BN: I like the idea of becoming a child. Unfortunately I’ll never be a child again (laughter). But it is interesting that we belong in a generation where everything is exaggerated, our past, our present. Hopefully our future won’t be exaggerated hence we’re writing this history right now. But I found that this technique creates a certain form, a certain shape. I love seeing my characters in different shapes. It’s about how we move as humans, our paths are not always straight. By creating those straight lines I’m interested in the freedom of moving around and moving the way we want, moving straight, turning in the corner, and I must paint the way I want without being questioned.
VN: The work is visually and conceptually dense, disorientating and overwhelming the viewer/reader, bringing across a stream of seemingly unrelated and incoherent narratives at times. Why is it important for you to bombard the viewer with these narratives all at once?
BN: I always tell people about ‘Beauty, Hate, the Ugly, the Brutal’ part of my work; what makes you feel comfortable and uncomfortable when you look at it and how do you pick what you think you like and leave what you think you don’t like. You must discover what you like in the work. So I bring various elements into my work; be they images of Namibian genocide, images of Congo river, images of Sophiatown, Marikana, where all these feelings and treatment they applied to each and every African.
By creating those straight lines I’m interested in the freedom of moving around and moving the way we want
VN: You also invite us to revisit and wallow in the horror of slavery, as an ongoing, unending violence against the Black body and mind. Why was it important for you to undertake this historical exposition?
BN: For me, irregardless of the period we live in, our past never escapes us. Our educational system teaches us how to cater for the Other, not ourselves. And that I call an academic slaveship, and it doesn’t suggest anything new for us.
VN: You further explore ‘healing’ as a political category, a dialectical move from suffering. Can you share why healing occupies such a central place in your career development and projects?
BN: I think for me it's very personal. I never knew people would find it as something that heals them. But my feeling was right when I was like, “You know what, this is where I find happiness.” I see a blank canvas and I create a dialogue between me and the canvas and by creating that dialogue, in some way, I’m releasing that I feel is important for me. The dialogue I create there is able to heal others.
VN: Animals, specifically black birds, feature constantly in the work. Tell me more about these birds, their role in the meaning making of the pieces?
BN: I really like putting those birds. Firstly I’m trying to portray how birds live; they are free, they can fly anywhere without being questioned and that is a sense of freedom that I wish for my people. But there are birds such as crows, vultures; in villages where there are cows and they happen to disappear and somehow it dies somewhere in the forest. But for you to know, if you suspect that it might be dead, you don't have to look for it. You can wait for the vultures, you can see them hovering in numbers and then descend to the ground. They are good dreamers; they dream about meat, they dream about danger. Crows are associated with witchcraft, something that I don’t believe. They are intelligent. People also associate them with sorceries.
VN: The supernatural.
BN: Yes. The supernatural.
VN: I thought of Hitchcock (Alfred) and his film The Birds (1963), a horror-thriller set in some island, birds attack and kill people blah blah. So I immediately thought it might be a reference to Hitchcock! (laughter)
BN: (laughter) Well it might! That’s why I say my work is like a gate that opens so many avenues for others. I never knew Picasso, I never knew Basquiat, fine arts critics walked into my space and started telling me about these people and I was like, “let me go and search and learn about these people!” (laughter) I learnt about Andre Breton, the founder of the Surrealist movement, and Dadaism, and so on. That’s what my work does; it opens ideas for other people.
VN: There’s a collaboration at the level of meaning making between you the creator, and us the people viewing, engaging with the work
BN: It’s part of the necessary activity when you can walk into a gallery and start reading the work and be touched. Even you writers, you don’t just write; there must be that thing that touches you
VN: Multiple narratives are inscribed and juxtaposed in the bodies of your figures, in a way that juxtaposes the post-apartheid reality with the continental post-colonial reality. Why was it necessary for you to upset what is often referred to as ‘South African exceptionalism’?
BN: There was an excitement that came with the exchange of power from whites to Blacks. At some point it was a living dream and eventually it all faded. We hoped that when Blacks take over certain things will change, only to realise we were lying to ourselves, the country is still ran the same old way; whites have a better chance at life than Blacks. And this is also evident in the workplace.
VN: As a transgressive body of work, the project expands on what you elsewhere call an interrogation of the “voices of thieves”. Whose voice did you seek to crystalize and prioritize with this work?
BN: With “voices of thieves” I was looking at the idea of writing books, professors that come into our universities, who steal our experiences, narratives about our traditions, how we live, and they steal our ideas. Only to come back and sell them to us. Same as our natural resources, precious stones. They leave cheaply and come back expensive. Even our art was stolen from us.
But with this project I wanted to prioritize so many voices. Those that never give up, who still create and participate in shaping this country.
There was an excitement that came with the exchange of power from whites to Blacks
VN: What can you tell me about the curatorial practice of the show?
BN: Well I was not there when they put up the work, but I’m glad that whoever curated the show played a great role. If you saw the After Berlin Meeting (I & II & III) works, they are seperated, they are not in one space as I thought they would be, which is a good thing because now it suggests that the After Berlin Meeting affects each and every work that is in the space because when you walk you see this other work and After Berlin is next to it, and you walk around, you go up and After Berlin shows up; it keeps reminding you that “Hey, don’t forget the Berlin meeting is the one that places us in this situation that we are in today where we don’t even have access to our own precious stones”.
The show runs til' the 25th of March.