This year’s prestigious Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Visual Art was awarded to Kemang Wa Lehulere. This annual award includes sponsorships towards an exhibition which starts its country wide tour at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown before travelling on to Nelson Mandela Bay. This years’ exhibition titled History will break your heart opens in Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Art Museum on 28 July 2015 at 17:30 for 18:00. The exhibition will be jointly opened by practicing artist, Jennifer Ord and the Chief Curator of the Red Location Gallery, Uthando Baduza.
In History will break your heart, Kemang Wa Lehulere continues his current exploration of marginalized South African artists. In his award exhibition, he creates a dialogue between his own work and the work of veteran fine artists Ernest Mancoba, Gladys Mgudlandlu and writer Rolfes Robert Reginald Dhlomo. Wa Lehulere’s used the medium of video, installation and found artefacts (including works on paper by Mgudladlu which were purchased on auction) to tell the stories of these three artists and in doing so highlights the importance of their contribution to art and writing in South Africa. Wa Lehulere’s exhibition imparts back to these forgotten artists the deserved acknowledgement that they deserve. In his own words his exhibition as an attempt to “rewrite history”.
In the film, The Bird Lady, in nine layers of time, Wa Lehulere documents a process of trying to uncover an artwork Mgudlandlu created in a home in which she had lived in Gugulethu, Cape Town. With the assistance of an art restorer, sections of the hidden mural are slowly revealed through the layers of paint and plaster. In a review of the award exhibition by art critic, Mary Corrigall, she describes how this uncovering of the mural is a metaphor for the “difficulties entailed in cultural recuperation in the post-apartheid era, where much effort has been put into retrieving the work and lives of people who were overlooked because of their race.” Like digging through the layers of wall to reveal the missing artwork, Wa Lehulere’s exhibition digs through South African history to uncover creative voices that have been forgotten.
The Young Artist Awards were started in 1981 by the National Arts Festival to acknowledge emerging, relatively young South African artists who have displayed an outstanding talent in their artistic endeavours. These prestigious awards are presented annually to deserving artists in different disciplines, affording them national exposure and acclaim. Standard Bank took over the sponsorship of the awards in 1984 and has presented Young Artist Awards in all the major arts disciplines over their 30-year sponsorship, as well as posthumous and special recognition awards. The winners feature on the main programme of the National Arts Festival, Grahamstown and receive financial support for their Festival participation, as well as a cash prize.
The exhibition closes on 2 September 2015.
Alan Straton
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