Participating artists: Isaac Makeleni, Ishmael Thyssen, Shepherd Mbanya, Timothy Mafenuka, Thami Kiti
Curator: Mario Pissara
Essays by: Mario Pissara, Rooksana Omar, Johan vam Zyl
Gallery: Iziko South African National Gallery, Sanlam Art Gallery
Dates: 15 August 2013 – 17 November 2013, 3 December 2013 – 7 February 2014
Website: http://asai.co.za/exhibition/against-the-grain/
Pages: 35
Against the Grain profiles five wood sculptors from the Cape – Isaac Makeleni, Ishmael Thyssen, Shepherd Mbanya, Timothy Mafenuka and Thami Kiti. Working for decades with little support and public acknowledgment, these artists have produced significant works that are skilful and imaginative, earnest and playful. They address a diversity of themes that engage with the recent and distant past as well as the contemporary present. Against the Grain questions the dominant narratives of South African woodcarving, firmly in place since the Tributaries exhibition (1985), that have failed to recognise the existence of black wood-carvers outsides of the “Venda” region. It also questions the reasons behind the low visibility of black African wood sculptors internationally, suggesting that black wood-carvers have been unduly prejudiced since the development of new discourses in contemporary African art since the 1990s.
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