The failures of this show are not immediately in the works, but how the curators chose to conceive it. The short-circuiting and catch-phrasing stunts that have come to typify curatorial practice are slowly leading towards sterility. But if we look beyond the show’s slightly unimaginative presentation, Mlangeni’s images intimately and charmingly indicate a complexity in the Zion church, a complexity only a caring artist has.
But caught between limits of representational possibilities and the contradiction of colonial representation, here portraiture finds itself in an interesting aporia. That is between an enchanting representation, and the existential reality of knowing oneself as a problem for humanity. This performative contradiction creates problems for the lauded humanizing acts of the photograph as a general conflict in Black Chronicles IV.
Using found material to make statements about the intimacy between sexuality, religion and race Adams’ oeuvre renews our interests in topical subjects in ways that beckon us to pay attention to subtly sustained institutionalized bigotries and discontinuities.
The work of two British born artists – Michael McMillian’s Inna Joburg situated above, and Christine Checinska’ The Arrivants below – shown at the University of Johannesburg’s gallery FADA reconstruct quotidian moments that tend to vegetate into the margins of history.
Like a true sadist, Kemang Wa Lehulere’s show disavows any grand finale by always opening up “the end.” We leave the show content, filled but not certain with what exactly.