Saturday 13 August 2011

IzikoNationalArtGallery


August7, Sunday
Iziko National Art Gallery
Feeling really ill today.  Muscle ache from a flu, It feels like there is a thick sap trapped in the discs between my spinal column. Irrespective I went. Took an early Jammie. The sun made a brilliant appearance after a brief absence of leave.
On show at the gallery is a series of photographs taken by Drum photographers in the hey days of the magazine. The focus is around the South African Indian community in the 1950s and the places they hung out like “little Chicago” in Durban. It was amazing to look at photographs again after my own absence of leave from photography. I loved looking at the photographs set up in the exhibition space. That series of photographs impacted me heavily. As a (sometimes) ignorant  South African it was really poignant to see the deep history of the Indian community. The black and white portraiture was effective in humanizing and beautifying  an often ridiculed stereotyped and marginalized community . Another series of photographs were by Rajinth Kally under the byline ,through the lens of Durban’s veteran photographer ,and were curated by Raison Naidoo. The series, photographed impoverished Indian communities, and legendary South Africans Albert Luthuli and his wife(I feel terrible for reducing her to this title) and Miriam Makeba and her then partner Sonny Pillay, the “glamour couple”( I’m desperate to be in a glamour couple with someone, out to seek my fame like these two). I loved the photograph of the Luthuli’s together at their spaza shop( who knew they had one?) and of Makeba and Pillay, the idea of the two of them going abroad to seek their destinies is one I love and hope I have the courage to take on.
Also on exhibition was the work of Vladimir Tretchikoff curated by Andrew Lamprecht (who I saw giving a very detailed tour to some elderly Capetonians). I was particularly excited to see the painting, Chinese girl, as I’d read about the artist and the muse previously. It was beautiful. Tretchikoff did some still life’s early in his career and among them are many-many paintings of chrysenthums. It got me remembering how I desperately wanted to get one tattooed on my hip. Luckily I didn’t do it, it may have been gross.
After the gallery we popped into Fat Cactus a(Mexican) restaurant just off Kloof Street. It was nice. I had nothing to eat, felt to sick to eat fajita's and quesadilla's. The waitress was a funny Afrikaans lady, very strange. I liked it.
Took the Jammie back and went to bed. Slept but remained a wake. My nose was dripping the entire time. Not pleasant.

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