The idea to bring these extraordinary wedding portraits together originated with Lucia Nankoe, guest curator of this FOAM exhibition, in 2014. Together with her team she spoke with descendants of bridal couples with at least one ancestor of Surinamese descent
At the beginning of 2021, the tenth ABN AMRO Art Prize was awarded to Neo Matloga. As part of the prize, his exhibition along came your eyes opened on 17 May 2022 in the Hermitage in Amsterdam. With a series of seven new works, the South African artist is taking the next step in his artistic process.
I want you to talk about your main and artistic modality, and what you see to be the symbolic and literal place you as an artist occupy, in both the western context and in your African context.
From my own personal experience, growing up, I did feel different and often out of place as a working class artistic mixed-race boy who wasn’t into football for example. Back then, I guess I wasn’t seen as traditionally masculine but I also didn’t want to ever show vulnerability in front of others either.
A writer clears his path through incessant questioning—seeking more than anything else an honest evaluation of his position and place in the subject’s affairs. Devoid of any irrelevancy and unpretentiousness, a piece of writing will consequently function as honest, and as intimate. Hence there is a sense in which “intimacy” means “clarity.”