Mandl’akhe 16 (1) a
We were always fascinated by graffiti and other street- related ‘sub-cultures’. I loved the idea of expressing creativity in and on what seems like a very unforgiving environment. The city as a metaphor in contemporary society is heavy, with its tall buildings, billboards, highways, shopping malls, street vagrants, hustlers, drug dealers and overweight police officers it’s a noxious but functional place we all call home. Our art making for this exhibition stems from this ridged texture.
We focused on the ‘Freedom of Speech’ clause in the ‘Bill of Rights’ and took a very critical stance on how it was manipulated and distorted over the past few years into this abstract version we have today. The current government is distorting and the constitution and fooling the populace with boring rhetoric keeping our minds busy with rubbish while there is something sinister going on behind the curtain.
We wanted to make our point by using the street (art) texture by collaging and integrating it with a formal (standard) art making. The collaboration is centred around ‘street art’ we had a look at different elements and styles then started experimenting on ‘street pole add posters’. We used its bold ambiguous text as a starting point and through much experimentation we felt we needed to be more direct and needed a main -character as a kind of vantage point. We selected the tragic figure ‘Andries Tatane’ his story and ill-fated ending epitomises everything that’s wrong in contemporary South Africa. The numbers -16 (1) a- in the titles is reference to the Bill of Rights ‘Freedom of Expression’ clause.
A 2013 Protest 16 (1) a
All animals/humans are equal, sometimes ..16 (1) a
Disa-STAR 16 (1) a
The Unnecessary Martyr – Andries Tatatane #1 16 (1) a
The Unnecessary Martyr – Andries Tatatane#2 16 (1) a
The Unnecessary Martyr – Andries Tatatane#3 16 (1) a
Afrika Rea Bolela. A collaboration between Wesley Pepper and Mol,
