An art exhibition is a confluence of creative minds and the perfect opportunity to understand the current thinking of a country’s intelligentsia.
Lebohang Kganye and Nandipha Mntambo are two of 13 female artists – from Ethiopia to Egypt to Ghana, Kenya, Uganda and South Africa – we meet showcasing their work, at the historic Constitutional Hill in Johannesburg on May 10, for the exhibition, Being her(e): Meditations on African Femininities, examining what it means to be “a female body in contemporary Africa”.
<h2>Searching for mother</h2>
Lebohang Kganye
<div id="attachment_32579" style="width: 296px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32579" class=" wp-image-32579" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Lebohang_Kganye-683x1024.jpg" alt="" width="286" height="429" />Lebohang Kganye (Photo supplied)</div>
“I am excited to be part of the exhibition, because it is not a show overseas, about Africa, but it is an exhibition in a historical space in Africa. I have no reservations about the future of women in arts across Africa, and this exhibition emphasizes that,” says South African photographer Kganye.
Her first piece of art, B(l)ack to Fairy Tales, in 2011, explored her memories of a fairy tale world by Walt Disney.
“I identified with fairy tale characters – the white skin, long hair, blue eyes, perfect figure&#8230; My black skin and location became an increasing disjuncture with the fantasies I believed in. Hence, I paint myself excessively black for B(l)ack to Fairy Tales”.
For her collection, Kganye uses photographs from her 2013 series, Ke Lefa Laka, dedicated to her mother.
<blockquote>“Her death sparked the need to trace my ancestral roots. I initially began navigating my history through geographic mapping, attempting to trace where my family originated and how we ended up in these different spaces that we all now call home. I visited the different locations where my family lived in South Africa and found old family photo albums.</blockquote>
“I began looking for pieces of my mother in the house. I found many photos and clothes which had always been there but which I had ignored over the years. There she was smiling and posing in these clothes. My re-connection with her became a visual manipulation of ‘her-our’ histories. I began inserting myself into her pictorial narrative by emulating these snaps.
“I would dress in the exact clothes that she was wearing in these 20-year-old photographs and mimic the same poses. This was my way of marrying the two memories; mine and hers. I later developed digital photomontages where I juxtaposed old photographs of my mother retrieved from the family archives with photographs of a ‘present version of her’ – she is me, I am her, and there remains in this commonality so much difference, and so much distance in space and time,” says Kganye.
In 2011, she completed an Advanced Photography course at the Market Photo Workshop in Newtown, Johannesburg, where she displays her self-portraits. She is now busy with a new collection of photographs, Reconstruction Of A Family.
<h2>The Cowhide Chick</h2>
Nandipha Mntambo
<div id="attachment_32580" style="width: 296px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32580" class="wp-image-32580" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Nandipha-profile-683x1024.jpg" alt="" width="286" height="429" />Nandipha Mntambo (Photo supplied)</div>
It’s a gloomy day in Johannesburg when we meet with South African sculptor, photographer and videographer Nandipha Mntambo at her apartment-cum-studio in New Doornfontein but around her are bursts of color. Mntambo is surrounded by her paintings and sculptures. Art has always been in her blood.
Mntambo was born in Swaziland and grew up in South Africa. She graduated with a master’s degree in Fine Art from the University of Cape Town (UCT), in 2007. Her father was a bishop, so it was a nomadic childhood.
“We moved around the country because of my father’s job and at that time it was still under apartheid because of the neighborhood that we lived in there were certain schools that didn’t accept me so I ended up studying at a Jewish school, then a Catholic and a Methodist school, the different cultures and religion had an influence on how I deal with things,” she says.
Mntambo, 35, wanted to study forensics pathology but couldn’t deal with dead bodies.
“I wanted to be a scientist; the Stellenbosch University had a good department and I was even job-shadowing but then I thought seeing dead people every day wouldn’t necessarily be the best thing for me.
“Luckily, I had a portfolio from high school, I sent it to UCT and then they accepted me into their art program. At the time, I didn’t imagine I would be a full-time practising artist. I was just happy to create work and learn more about art history,” says Mntambo.
In her work, Mntambo focuses on the human body and the organic nature of identity, using natural materials and experimenting with sculptures moulded from cowhide. For this, she is known as the ‘cowhide chick’.
She uses her own body as the mould for these sculptures and does not intend to make statements about femininity.
<blockquote>“One of the challenges I’ve had was to have a language that would help me explain to somebody that because I am a black female within a particular context, the issues of lobola, women, cows and culture are there but it’s not what my work is about,” she says.</blockquote>
One of Mntambo’s favorite materials is the skin of the cow. Her art works explore the similarities and differences between animals and humans; men and women, and attraction and repulsion.
“I was really interested in mythology when I first started and the fact that throughout many civilizations there are stories of animals and humans and how they inter-relate.”
The job wasn’t always easy.
“I work with organic material that gets insects and had to deal with cow fat. Because at first I didn’t understand the material enough, it felt like a bit of self-punishment; dealing with flies and losing studio mates. There was also a time when finances were a problem and the work wasn’t selling,” says Mntambo.
“In South Africa, we have few female black artists and sculptures. It took a long time to be accepted in certain circles in terms of how people interpret my work, and how they view me. You’re not allowed to exist as just as an artist or sculpture, you exist as a black female artist, so there all these preconceived ideas that people either put on you or their interpretation of the work. There are also strange limitations that people put on you,” she says.

The Future Of African Women In Art

Jason Masters is part of the African talent taking the comic book industry by the scruff of the neck.
“Twitter was certainly instrumental in me getting to work with Warren Ellis, one of my all-time favorite writers. Out of the blue, a couple of years back, I decided I’d push my luck and mail him; just to say I was a huge fan and really appreciated his work. That and, of course, I made it abundantly clear that I’d love to work with him in any capacity someday. He was very gracious in the way he batted my email advances away. Warren is always busy, when you’re as prolific as him people are constantly trying to convert his creations into capital, often in a very obtuse form of Hollywood alchemy.”
“So, of course my feelings weren’t hurt, it was the most ridiculous of longshots anyway. Sometime later I had just completed a comic commission for a friend of one of his most notable anarchic creations, Spider Jerusalem. Never one to miss an opportunity I tweeted the picture out tagging him in the post. That re-started the conversation of possibly working together. We chatted a bit via email about what sort of book we might do and then a few days later he sent me an email asking what I thought of James Bond.”
Masters loved James Bond. He thought Warren would be hinting at doing a Bondesque comic book. It turned out that Warren was working with Dynamite Entertainment in the process of launching the first James Bond comic in over 20 years.
“It’s part astonishing that I got to do this, and petrifying. Once the wave of joy that accompanied the idea of being in charge of all the visual aspects of 007 passed, I was left with paralyzing dread. It was a huge responsibility. Never mind just James Bond, but the M, Q or Miss Moneypenny I designed might not fit the narrative that the staunch Bond fans have. Thankfully, it was well received and the work Warren and I did has opened the doors for other Bond books,” says Masters.
The series was launched in 2015 and won acclaim.  The company has also published adaptations of franchises like RoboCop, A Game of Thrones and Sherlock Holmes.
Reinvigorating the secret agent is the biggest gig for Masters’ career.  Not bad for a man who worked as an art director for an advertising agency a few years ago.
“I’m still waiting for a pinch of either glitz or glam to be sprinkled into my life, but I get to draw and tell stories for a living. That’s way better than most,” says Masters.
Many comic fans in South Africa consider Masters a homegrown hero. One of them is Mahdi Abrahams, owner of Readers Den, a comic book store in Cape Town.
“Jason is one of the few South African artists who has landed gigs with international publishers and had the opportunity to work on high profile characters such as James Bond and Batman.”
Abrahams says Masters got his break in the international scene long before his tweet.
“[He] has managed to acquire regular work from big international publishers,” says Mahdi.
Masters is now one of the few Africans to have brought characters to life on paper, like the X-Men, Guardians of the Galaxy, Batman and Wolverine.
“There are ridiculous talents in this country, the only thing holding most of them back is actually making product. Not a lot of idealistic young artists realize the amount of work that goes into just doing one 22-page story. It can get discouraging working on something for weeks on end in your own time and not have a completed story to show for it. We need more people to just finish those original stories and share them with the world. Almost 100 percent of the artists I know that have done that have gone on to bigger and better ventures,” says Masters.
Someone who has kept a keen eye on Masters’ work is Moray Rhoda. Known as the godfather of South Africa comic books, this 47-year-old design lecturer has been fighting for more than a quarter of century promoting African talent.
“Jason has grown a lot over the past few years. I think what sets him and Sean Izaakse (another international comic artist) apart is their dedication and love for comics and the craft of creating comics. They aren’t just artists, they are full collaborators when they get involved in projects – they always add to and improve on every script they are given. Jason is definitely an inspiration to anyone who’s ever met him – not just the artists and writers, but to people in general: the passion for his work is infectious,” says Rhoda.
While he may spend his days drawing superheroes that lead extra-ordinary lives, Masters prefers the quieter side of life in Johannesburg. His day starts in a very homely way by making breakfast for his wife and seeing his daughter off to school before being consumed by the world of the fantasy in comic books.
“Honestly, 264 comic book pages later, it’s still quite unreal for me,” says Masters.
The man with a license to draw because of a tweet.

From Illustrator To International Man OfMystery

From Illustrator To International Man Of Mystery

Contemporary art created by African artists in Africa and abroad has long been recognized across the African continent – yet failed to make any international impact.
Thankfully that has spectacularly changed, and over the past few years, African art has hit a tipping point.
For instance, shimmering bottle top wall-hangings by Ghanaian sculptor El Anutsui decorated the exterior of the Royal Academy in London last year and his work New World Map sold for £541,250 ($873,400) in 2012.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-29642 alignleft" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-082-083-Touria-El-Glaoui-006-211x300.jpg" alt="" width="211" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-082-083-Touria-El-Glaoui-006-211x300.jpg 211w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-082-083-Touria-El-Glaoui-006-300x427.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-082-083-Touria-El-Glaoui-006-600x853.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-082-083-Touria-El-Glaoui-006.jpg 720w" sizes="(max-width: 211px) 100vw, 211px" />
But while renowned artists such as El Anutsui and Ibrahim El-Salahi from Sudan have broken through the international ceiling and are bought by museums in London and New York, most African artists remain invisible to the West because they don’t exhibit there.
Art entrepreneur Touria El Glaoui quickly realized when she traveled through Africa on business that she saw “amazing talent and amazing art” yet there was no international platform for those artists, only “a huge gap”.
So last year she came to London, which is at the heart of the international art market, and set up 1:54, London’s first contemporary art fair dedicated to visual art from Africa.
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Same time as Frieze Week
El Glaoui timed it to coincide with Frieze Week, a landmark on the London art calendar attended by 70,000 art buyers.
“The artists we showed were both established and more up and coming, but perhaps they didn’t have a gallery, they didn’t have representation, they hadn’t yet been collected by a museum,” she says.
Although a risk at the time, piggybacking Frieze Week proved a great success. The art, sculpture and photography on sale at 1:54 was priced between £2,000 ($3,200) and £200,000 ($322,000), and the 14 exhibiting galleries sold every single item and played host to 6,000 visitors including the great and good of the art world.
Those collectors who turned up late found all the works had been sold and actually complained ‘why didn’t you bring more work with you to sell?’ Perhaps unsurprisingly, given last year’s success, 1:54 is back in October, with 85 artists sold through 27 galleries, and this time has taken two wings of Somerset House in Central London.
So what led El Glaoui to become an art entrepreneur with a passion for helping artists from Africa build an international career?
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Learnings from dad
El Glaoui was born into a family of artists in Morocco, and her 90-year-old father is Hassan El Glaoui, one of Morocco’s most famous living figurative painters. This, and the fact that she has been dealing with galleries on behalf of her father for 15 years, gave her instant credibility in the art world.
She has learned hugely from the experiences of her father, who quickly established himself in Paris, but chose to return to Morocco to paint in 1965. He took a long time to rebuild an international reputation.
“Of course today, my father sells in the secondary market at Christies and Sotheby’s, but an international gallery would have changed where he is in terms of pricing.”
She is keen to share this insider’s knowledge of dealing with galleries and the international art market with up and coming and more established artists from Africa.
“All artists would prefer to be considered mainstream artists, and I know what’s needed for them to succeed.”
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-29641 alignleft" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-082-083-Touria-El-Glaoui-004-300x223.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="223" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-082-083-Touria-El-Glaoui-004-300x223.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-082-083-Touria-El-Glaoui-004-600x445.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-082-083-Touria-El-Glaoui-004-768x570.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-082-083-Touria-El-Glaoui-004.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
El Glaoui explains that the price which collectors are willing to pay for art is to a large extent influenced by factors such as having an agent and a gallery to promote an artist internationally, having work bought by influential museums and private collectors, and also by winning art prizes.
Linking artist with collector is critical, and so El Glaoui is excited to have recently signed a deal for 1:54 content to be exhibited on Artsy, the New York based online art gallery which links 250,000 subscribers with established galleries and artists around the world.  This will give her artists a global platform for sales and recognition.
Putting African art on the map is just what she intends to do, and El Glaoui has ambitions to replicate the Fair in other countries, the obvious next location being New York. Finally, once the 1:54 brand is well established she would like to bring the 1:54 Fair back to Africa.

Tag: Artists

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

The Future Of African Women In Art

From Illustrator To International Man Of Mystery

Putting African Art On The Map