R25,000 - R40,000
Siwa Mgoboza (South African 1993 - ) LES ÊTRES D'AFRICADIA (AFTER LES DEMOISELLE D'AVIGNON)
signed, dated 2015, titled and numbered 4/10 in pencil in the margin
inkjet photographic print on natural paper
149 by 140cm; 155 by 146 by 5cm including framing
“The reason I started working in textiles was that I wanted to do something that felt authentic, realistic, and personal to me. I started looking towards myself, my culture, and this is something I wasn’t really exposed to growing up overseas. I came to south Africa when I was 18. I had no idea what it truly meant to be black or an African, and add to the complexity, being gay in Africa. The work started to feel imaginary, a space where I could exist peacefully”
– Siwa Mgoboza
Lot 315, Les Ètres d’Africadia is a liminal space where borders, race and sexuality are forgone. Mgoboza reimagines Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, mimicking the motions and gestures found within the work. The foundation of Picassos cubistic approach is widely argued to be centred around African culture and artifacts. Mgoboza symbolically ‘returns’ this largely Eurocentric narrative to Africa and in the process.
The work is a direct parallel to Mgoboza’s own upbringing, spending much of his early childhood growing up in Lima Peru and later Poland. The artist only returned to South Africa at the age of 18 to pursue his passion for art. In this way, he questions what it means to be African and the manmade conception of boarders. Mgoboza enters unfamiliar places, studying the natural human adaptation in these new spaces.
Mgoboza uses Isishweshwe cloth throughout his works, his ‘African Signifier’ (lots 313 and 314). Isishweshwe itself originates from India, brought to South Africa via the colonial trade routes. This material in many ways represents his own upbringing and feeling of displacement.
The dualities seeded throughout this artwork including the material, subject, and Mgoboza’s lived experience, boldly question culture, lineage, and identity. In so doing he stridently communicates a ‘globalised African sense of self.’ The ‘beings’ within this artwork are multicoloured, meaning they are not specific to gender, race or sexual orientation, they exist together in harmony as equals. Mgoboza further obscures existing labels by creating transcendent beings that are void of classification.
Mgboza is represented by Semaphore Gallery in Neuchatel, the Matter gallery in Toronto, the Loft gallery in Casablanca and the Box Art gallery in Verona. His work has been showcased at many art fairs, most notably 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair at Somerset House. Siwa Mgboza is a significant figure in contemporary African art culture as his work critically engages with our base understanding of what it means to be human.
Matter. [online] Matter. Available at: http://www.mattergallery.com/exhibitions/2017/9/7/siwa-mgoboza
Omid Memarian. 2019. ‘Everybody is looking for authenticity': A conversation with South African artist Siwa Mgoboza. Available at: https://globalvoices.org/2019/11/03/everybody-is-looking-for-authenticity-a-conversation-with-south-african-artist-siwa-mgoboza/
Kennedy, S. 2019. Talking #Africadia and Afropolitanism: An Interview with Artist Siwa Mgoboza. Africainwords.com. Available: https://africainwords.com/2019/02/07/talking-africadia-and-afropolitanism-an-interview-with-artist-siwa-mgoboza/
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