Zwelethu Mthethwa: New Works Photographic Exhibition

The Brave Ones is a series of portraits – often, group portraits – of young men from the Shembe Church group during their annual pilgrimage to the sacred mountain of Nhlangakazi in Kwa-Zulu Natal. Although the history of the group and their rituals is fascinating in itself, Mthethwa’s interest lies rather in the peculiar costumes of the gathering, specifically the men. The portraits, set in the greenery of the Kwa-Zulu Natal landscape, depict boys of various ages wearing bizarre combinations of Western garb appropriated from various traditions and cultures.

Of this series, Mthethwa has said that, “I am not interested in the church per se… For me the young men were just amazing because of the clash of identities…where does the bowtie come from, why are they wearing the bowtie during the day…why do their shirts look like women’s blouses with frills? Where do the pith helmets fit in – do they still signify a soldier’s uniform? It’s fascinating.”

The setting of the portraits, the verdant scenery of Kwa-Zulu Natal, is significant – firstly, it is the home landscape of Mthethwa, a Zulu. Secondly, the rich colour and texture play up the influence of Mthethwa’s history of painting on his photography.

The influence of painting is also seen in The End of an Era, an exercise in “still life” photography set in Johannesburg’s hostels for migrant male labourers. These photographs depict empty interiors that seize one’s pre-conceived ideas of what the rooms in a men’s hostel might look like. Unexpectedly, these spaces are not messy, masculine cells, but neat, clean and highly domesticized spaces, along with floral print and innovative cooking solutions.

The End of an Era also addresses the on-going issue of housing in South Africa. Many of the hostels in which the photographs were shot – places that have a loaded significance in the history of the country – are in the process of being dismantled, to be replaced by improved, government-subsidised apartment blocks.

iArt Gallery is pleased to be involved in the presentation of new work by one of South Africa’s most significant contemporary artists – a key figure in the explosion of South African photography onto the world stage – on his home continent.

Since Apartheid’s fall in 1994 Zwelethu Mthethwa’s stunning portraits have powerfully framed black South Africans as dignified and defiant, even under the duress of social and economic hardship. Working in urban and rural industrial landscapes, Mthethwa documents a range of aspects in South Africa – from domestic life and the environment to landscape and labour issues. His work challenges the conventions of both Western documentary work and African commercial studio photography, marking a transition away from the visually exotic and diseased – or “Afro-pessimism,” as curator Okwui Enwezor has referred to it – and employing a fresh approach marked by colour and collaboration.

ZWELETHU MTHETHWA (born in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, 1960) received his BFA from the Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town – a then “whites-only” university; he entered under special ministerial consent. In 1989, he earned a master’s degree in imaging arts while on a Fulbright Scholarship to the Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York. Mthethwa has had over thirty-five international solo exhibitions in the United States – including the highly-acclaimed Inner Views at Studio Museum in Harlem, 2010 – France, Germany, Italy, South Africa and Switzerland. Mthethwa has also been featured in numerous prominent group exhibitions, including the 2005 Venice Biennial; Snap Judgments: New Positions in Contemporary African Photography, New York, 2006; Prospect.1 New Orleans, 2008; and Africa Remix: Contemporary Art of a Continent, which toured internationally.

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