For our next iteration in the series of on-the-ground reports from the 56th Venice Biennale, Amal Alkhaja, an Emirati Visual Arts graduate from Zayed University who is currently working with the education team at Sharjah Art Foundation, brings us this first person account of her experience of the South Africa Pavilion.
Alkhaja is one of many interns who each travel to Venice for one month to act as custodians and docents of the UAE’s National Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. This series has only been achieved thanks to the co-operation of the wonderful team at the National Pavilion.
Amal says:
Curated by Christopher Till and Jeremy Rose and under the title What remains is tomorrow, the South Africa Pavilion at la Biennale di Venezia exhibits an array of works by 14 artists who are deeply invested in local iterations of power, freedom, and civil liberty. The artists showing are: Willem Boshoff, Haroon Gunn-Salie, Angus Gibson, Mark Lewis, Gerald Machona, Mohau Modisakeng, Nandipha Mntambo, Brett Murray, Serge Alain Nitegeka, Jo Ractliffe, Robin Rhode, Warrick Sony, Diane Victor and Jeremy Wafe.
As I entered the exhibition, the first artwork that caught my attention was a text piece engraved in ink on a metallic panel titled Racist in South Africa (2011) by Willem Boshoff. The text lists all the things he disapproves of that happen in South Africa. The list describes his loathing for the corruption in South Africa, the bribe-taking police, bad education, the protection of criminals and the lost rights of victims. He states: "I find it insufferable that my country is the rape capital of the world" and in his artist statement, Boshoff mentions that a South African girl has a better chance in getting raped than in learning how to read or write.
The work of Boshoff sets the tone for the rest of the artworks in the pavilion. Next to the metallic text panel is a video installation titled Inzilo by Mohau Modisakeng. The installation shows the artist performing a ritual of inzilo or "mourning". In slow motion, he enacts the mourning ritual by sitting, standing, and rotating slightly. He slaps his hands together to release an ashy material into the air, and then slowly starts to peel off a layer of the material from his arm, which can be interpreted as shedding of skin.
* To read more about the pavilion: www.thesouthafricanpavilion.co.za
* Keep up with Amal Alkhaja on Instagram on @veniceinterns as well as on her personal account: @amalAlkhaja and on hashtags #veniceinterns and @uaeinvenice.
