africanah.org

As South Africa moves into its 20th year of democracy, Kannemeyer continues to explode the idea of the ‘rainbow nation’ through the incisive satire with which he first eviscerated apartheid’s officials and bureaucrats. Exhibiting new works in his ongoing Alphabet of Democracy series, Kannemeyer observes that the criticisms are increasingly directed towards an inept government which is fixated on the past because it is ‘the only noble aspect of its existence left’ (The New Yorker, 16 December 2013).

The debates around the trauma and legacies of colonialism in Africa are another thread in Kannemeyer’s imagery, as in his book Pappa in Afrika (2010). He is currently working on a companion volume, Mamma in Afrika, and many of these new paintings and drawings will be included in the exhibition. These are often in the genre of extreme satire which can simplistically be described as ‘politically incorrect’, a term Kannemeyer regards as reductive. Transgression of our strong beliefs and the sacred stereotypes of race, sex and politics is unavoidable in order for satire to be both critical and playful about themes that often abound in contradictions that we choose not to see.

The exhibition will also see the launch of The Erotic Drawings of Anton Kannemeyer (click here to view works), a selection of ‘erotic’ works of recent years drawn from his journals, sketchbooks and the commercial work that he did for Loslyf (an Afrikaans version of Hustler, 1995-1997). The title is an obvious reference to, and subversion of, similarly titled collected works by famous artists, yet the iconoclastic assault in Kannemeyer’s work is often not erotic, but rather confrontational towards the values surrounding sex and nudity in the ‘new’ South Africa. Even though these values have changed radically in the last 20 years, Kannemeyer continues to use such imagery because it allows for raw conceptual debates about our values and double standards. As in Kannemeyer’s Bitterkomix work, the target here is mostly the white Afrikaner male. The book is beautifully produced and has a limited print run of 600 copies, bound to become a collector’s item. A selection of works will be on exhibition, offering a view of another thread through Kannemeyer’s oeuvre.

Kannemeyer (born 1967) lives and works in Cape Town. ‘The master “Boer punk”, as he’s been called, coldly holds up a mirror to the failure of good liberal intentions, mainly regarding to race and crime’ (Faye Hirsh in Art in America, January 2012). He has exhibited widely at institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia; MU, Eindhoven; MHKA, Antwerp; Tennis Palace Art Museum, Helsinki; the Studio Museum in Harlem; Philagrafika festival, Philadelphia; and the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art, New York. His work is currently included on Public Intimacy: Art and Social Life in South Africa at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco (until 8 June); the travelling exhibition Meeting Points 7; and Pop Goes the Revolution at The New Church, Cape Town (through 2014). He has published a number of books including Alphabet of Democracy and Pappa in Afrika (both Jacana, 2010).

Kannemeyer exhibits concurrently with Daniel Naudé.

The exhibition opens on Thursday 10 April, from 6 to 8pm.

The gallery is open from Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm and Saturday 10am to 1pm.