![]() In her work we find more or less identifiable shapes, particularly ones that resemble Gillette razor blades. Is Esther Mahlangu's work more formal and decorative, or more symbolic and linked to the rite of passage to adulthood? Do the colors have a significant role? So in 2000, when I was the curator of the Lyon Biennial called Partage d'exotismes (Sharing Exoticism), I made sure that they worked together, but again critics pointed out a superiority on the part of the American artist. But he told me that it had nothing to do with the latter's background, which goes back five centuries. For example, I had suggested to a critic that you could draw a formal parallel between Esther Mahlangu and Sol LeWitt. Many people in the art world thought that this phenomenon would be over in a few months. Some loved the exhibition - or so they say today! - but at the time, the reviews were mixed. ![]() but the criticism was, shall we say, "measured". ![]() It is always difficult to know how the public feels about a work. How did the public at the time react to the work exhibited at La Villette, which was an exact replica of her Middelburg house which she had painted before the opening? We wanted to discover someone who put more investment or energy into it than others, and that turned out to be Esther Mahlangu. But our goal was to find the artist who was the most talented or who produced the most personalized works in communities where they repeated the formula. However, for the Ndébélés, a very beautiful eponymously-titled book by Margaret Courtney-Clarke had already been published on the house paintings of this group of African people, which were done during a ritual of passage into adulthood. I had also consulted many books and magazines, like National Geographic, where we sometimes found a lead. Jean-Hubert Martin: Indeed, we ventured in blindly, because there was no bibliography, even if we had made contacts with ethnologists, specifically those at the Musée de l'Homme. André Magnin travels to South Africa to discover artists about whom he has very little information, and meets Esther Mahlangu for the first time… To do this, you and a group of curators travel to five continents, in the end bringing together one hundred artists. At the end of the 1980s, you inaugurated Magiciens de la Terre, a project that may have seemed a bit crazy to a truly international scene at the Centre Pompidou, outside the circuits of Western Europe and North America. Marie Maertens : Let's place ourselves in the context of the time. One can immediately recognize the South African painter’s geometric style and dynamic color intricacies, and this new solo show in Paris seemed like a great opportunity for a conversation with the art historian as he shares his first impressions when he discovered her work. She was first introduced in France and Europe during the exhibition Les Magiciens de la Terre, which then-director Jean-Hubert Martin organized at the Centre Pompidou in 1989. Esther Mahlangu presents a series of paintings created between 20.
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