The G20 roadshow has rolled out of town, but three things remain: a mild boost in South African patriotism, a gesture towards the possibility of a more functional Johannesburg, and a whole bunch of questions.
Most of these are about the dynamics of international consensus in an age of rabid US leadership — and rapid US decline. Does a multipolar world order mean that multilateral agreements on geopolitics, economics and climate are more likely to be implemented? Or was this just another diplomatic talk shop producing impotent declarations?
Those who were not directly involved in the G20 summit or one of its many sideshows might ask: who was there on my behalf? This is a particularly pertinent question for 1.5-billion people across Africa (apart from those of us living in the host country). And it is the premise of a timely exhibition curated by Boitumelo Makousu and Denzo Nyathi for the Latitudes Centre for the Arts.
On Behalf Of … expresses scepticism about the first G20 held on African soil, especially regarding South Africa standing in for the whole continent. This raises a “familiar question”: “What does it mean to be ‘the first’, and who truly gets to speak for Africa?” The exhibition conveys the curators’ misgivings about Africa being “spoken for, and too often, spoken over”.
The 27 artists they have chosen are thus put forward as “narrators of their own stories rather than representatives”. They will not be corralled into a pan-African project or forced into a reductive continental paradigm. As Makousu puts it, “These artists are not called upon to unify or advocate; they exist within their own realities, creating a kaleidoscope of identities, narratives and visions.”
Nyathi cites the notorious Berlin Conference of 1884/85, reminding us that European imperial powers “drew Africa’s borders without consent” and observing that decisions reshaping the continent “continue to unfold in our absence”. This may take the form of apparent G20 benevolence or the more crass Trumpian version, in which a so-called peace deal involving Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Rwanda actually facilitates a US minerals grab (Trump, of course, cannot find DRC on a map).
How to address the factors that affect daily life for many Africans, from civil and manufactured wars to gender-based violence or from endemic poverty to state corruption, without falling into tired old Afrophobic tropes? For Makousu and Nyathi, the answer is to “foreground multiplicity over singularity”. Most of the works exhibited emphasise the individuality of their African subjects rather than a collective or uniform experience.
The portraits, in particular, make for intriguing comparison. Ethiopian artist Abel Beyene’s figures at rest have their counterpoints in compatriot Blen Deresse’s Unrest series, in which those who are sitting or lying down are simultaneously discomfited and discomfiting. These subjects, in turn, are offset by the almost saintly figures in the calm ethereal blues of Ivorian Carine Mansan’s moonlit scenes and in the muted palette of Natnael Ashebir’s acrylic paintings.
There are also variations on portraiture in the spectral monoprints of Abel Bedilu, the dense referentiality and clashing visual planes of Eba Morka and the obscured faces in Aksah Seyoum’s somewhat troubling screenprints. Tanzanian artist Theresia’s untitled portrayal of humans and birds is gently parodic, while there is a more specific political satire in Mapopa Hussein Manda’s Zambian Last Supper and The Looting Machine.
Some of Africa’s “grand narratives” hover over these works, as with Exuviae I by Emmanuel Koto (depicting skulls and other clues of the legacies of colonial violence and exploitation) or the longed-for Unity captured ambiguously by Masoud Kibwana. Vita Malulu’s large-scale oil on canvas, ironically titled Peace, depicts refugees fleeing a bombed-out city en masse, only to be stopped at a barbed-wire border.
Less spectacular and more individuated evocations of place are found in the colourful geometrics of Alsadig Mahmoud’s impressionist urban scene, echoed in the textured mixed-media representations of crowded housing in Totang Motoloki’s In Memory series. And Botswana’s Pako Lesejane is granted the privilege of conveying the exhibition’s sole African “singularity”: the iconic baobab tree.
On Behalf Of … is at the Latitudes Centre for the Arts and online until January 12.
This article was first published in Business Day.
