Local artist wins FNB prize for Marikana artwork
ON THE eve of the anniversary of the Marikana Massacre, where 34 mineworkers were killed six years ago, Cape Town-born artist Haroon Gunn-Salie has fittingly been announced as the 2018 recipient of the coveted FNB Art Prize.
Gunn-Salie has earned widespread praise for his latest work, Senzenina, an installation which transports the viewer to the site of the killings in Rustenburg, with an immersive soundscape presenting a schematic recreation of the minutes before and after the deaths, using archival audio and composed elements.
An extended site-specific installation of his project will be on show at the FNB JoburgArtFair in September.
The soundscape includes calls for the mineworkers to disassemble peacefully; the fortification of the surrounding area and entrapment of the workers by police; an anti-apartheid freedom song sung by the mineworkers, moments before live ammunition was discharged; and blasts from the mine.
Recalled by low-frequency sonic vibrations of the surrounding landscape emanating from an outcrop of granite boulders on the site.
Gunn-Salie now joins the ranks of previous winners such as Peju Alatise, Nolan Oswald Dennis, Turiya Magadlela, Portia Zvavahera and Kudzanai Chiurai. “I am deeply humbled and greatly encouraged to be accoladed with the FNB Art Prize as it is an opportunity to further the ongoing collaborative aspects of the Senzenina project.
“I dedicate it to deepening the work,” Gunn-Salie said.
His multidisciplinary practice uses a variety of mediums, drawing focus to forms of collaboration in contemporary art based on dialogue and exchange.
Now based between Joburg and Belo Horizonte in Brazil, Gunn-Salie said he was inspired by a desire to make a difference through active engagement and dialogue, and to subvert historical injustice and effect change.
For the Senzenina premier earlier this year, as part of the New Museum Triennial called Songs for Sabotage the soundscape was created as a seven-minute accompaniment to a sculptural graveyard of 17 life-sized ghosted figures.
The sculptures travelled from New York to London, where they are being exhibited in Regents Park as part of the Frieze Sculpture exhibition until mid-October.
“For the FNB JoburgArtFair we are extending the original composition and presenting it as a listening environment that will hopefully engage critical and reflective responses from the local audience,” he said.
Gunn-Salie would use the prize as a springboard to deeper engagement, in the hope of exhibiting the project locally in its entirety next year, he said.
Galleries participating in the FNB JoburgArtFair are given the opportunity to nominate one of their artists for consideration by the jury.
This year, Goodman Gallery nominated Gunn-Salie for the prize. Goodman Gallery curator Justin Davy said GunnSalie’s work was grounded in a sense of solidarity with the marginalised, the displaced and the dispossessed of society.
“His multifaceted practice tackles issues of historical consequence in profound and disarming ways, allowing for sedimented histories and ideas to unravel. This ability to open up space to engage difficult or unspoken issues has garnered him acclaim in all corners of the world, from the global South to the West.
“The 2018 FNB Art Prize is an important moment of recognition of the impact his work continues to have on audiences closer to home,” Davy said.
FNB chief marketing officer Faye Mfikwe said commitment to the FNB JoburgArtFair ensured that in years to come, African artists would continue to be introduced to an international audience, galleries, collectors, writers, thinkers and art lovers from across the world, further enabling growth through maintaining a platform that empowers the artist.