All posts tagged: Abstractions

Esther Mahlangu Retrospective Asks Whose Abstractions Count as Modern

Esther Mahlangu Retrospective Asks Whose Abstractions Count as Modern

Published by skeptic

In 1989 Esther Mahlangu (b. 1935) participated in “Magiciens de la terre” at the Pompidou Center in Paris. One of the first exhibitions to mingle artists from across the globe, it remains influential—largely for the troubling issues it raised. One critic, Rasheed Araeen, pointed out the “biases of the way in which the organizers of the exhibition selected artists—searching for the ‘authentic,’ bypassing anything truly modern in Third World cultures.” Decades later, critics and curators are still grappling with the politics of inserting artists from the Global South into the citadel of modernity. Mahlangu’s retrospective, “Then I Knew I Was Good at Painting” at Iziko National Gallery in Cape Town, takes a new approach to the old question. The curator, Nontobeko Ntombela, reframes Mahlangu’s practice squarely within the modernist tradition of artists who challenge entrenched processes of making through innovation. Mahlangu’s paintings, beadwork, tapestries, and found objects fully metabolize both the traditional and the contemporary, resulting in a kind of modernism that is uniquely African. Related Articles Ndebele Abstract, 2010. Mahlangu started painting as a …

Elias Sime Debuts New E-Waste Abstractions at Spazio Tana in Venice

Elias Sime Debuts New E-Waste Abstractions at Spazio Tana in Venice

Published by skeptic

When Elias Sime was in art school, his teachers threw his work in the trash. It was the late 1980s, the final years of Ethiopian communism, and art students were expected to produce socialist realism. But Sime was more interested in materials—in trash, as it were. Today, Sime is now known worldwide for gargantuan abstractions—a new series debuts today at Spazio Tana in Venice—comprising intricately arranged e-waste that he buys, often by the truckload, in Addis Ababa’s Mercato market—the largest open-air market in Africa. When I visited in the market in March, I saw mountains of keyboards and motherboards, and spools of coated wires sorted by color. Related Articles The sheer volume of the e-waste in Sime’s work can be a shock to Western viewers, who are used to sending off trash never to be seen again. For this reason, his work is often described as a kind of commentary on recycling. But Sime was making these for 25 years before he started showing in the Western world. For him, the work is really about …