Tuesday, 17 January 2012

Art or porn?

Steven Khoza with his work ‘Same Ndoda’, one of the sculptures on display at the Siyabonga Craft Market

iSimangaliso artists under fire from St Lucia residents

Townsfolk in St Lucia are up in arms over ‘pornographic’ art on display at the entrance to the town. But the exact same body of works has been exhibited nationally with praise and without objection. The offending works depict figures with exaggerated male and female genitalia, and any artistic symbolism seems irrelevant to those who want the artworks removed. They are on show at the Siyabonga Craft Market, where scores of people pass daily on their way to board a boat for trips on the lake. ‘People hold their hands over their daughters’ eyes, and tour guides complain,’ said a businessman who claims to be inundated with objections. ‘The folk of St Lucia are not happy about this. ‘This is not how they want to portray a family holiday destination town.

‘This exhibition should rather remain in an art gallery in a big city for the kind of people who appreciate such art, not for holiday makers with children.’ The art in question has been successfully exhibited at the Johannesburg Art Gallery, uShaka and Cop17, among others. The body of work is the culmination of a three-year iSimangaliso Art Programme supported by MTM Foundation. The sculptures of the top nine of 50 rural artists from iSimangaliso were exhibited, by invitation, at national venues under the title ‘Ugqozi lwentembende….Spirit of the Long Rope from iSimangaliso’.

‘Edgy’ art on show
‘The iSimangaliso Wetland Authority agreed with the artists that their work be brought back to the Siyabonga Centre so that locals and visitors alike would also have the opportunity to view the much heralded body of work by community talent,’ said iSimangaliso CEO, Andrew Zaloumis. ‘It is also designed to stimulate discussion about environmental issues and related human matters. ‘Local community talent, support by the hard work of staff like Coral Bijoux and creative thinkers like Andries Botha, has moved from the fringes of the art circuit to the Centre, and now stand along the best in South Africa.’ According to promotional literature on the exhibition, ‘these sculptures are an edgy and innovative representation by the Zulu artists of their culture and their environment. ‘The works embody complex debates around identity and heritage and position complex traditional and personal values within an emerging South Africa modernity, as well as making compelling arguments for these values on the global stage.

‘The artistic depiction of nudity has long been accepted as a genre or theme in art. ‘In Steven Khoza’s sculpture, nudity is similarly used to convey a message about nature, within and outside of us - its complexity, power and vulnerability. ‘The guardian’s body embraces nudity as a metaphorical question about unresolved but implicit dualities. ‘His message is that we all take responsibility for ourselves and by implication for the degradation and healing of the environment. ‘Also, despite the scale and fearsome nature of the sculpture it is naked, unprotected and vulnerable. But the local objectors view the works at face (or lower down the anatomy) value, apart from its artistic merit.

• The iSimagaliso Authority has made a concession by placing signs advising that ‘the exhibition includes artistic depictions of nudity’, and
the work has been placed in a more discreet section of the exhibition area.