Celebrating Kliptown in elastic plastic
Mbongeni Buthelezi’s art reflects the spirit of the people who live where the Freedom Charter was adopted, writes Eugene Goddard
PLASTIC is not something you would associate with big, beautiful works of art. Far from the classic, fine feel of acrylics and its canvas counterparts, you would not find it next to tubes of expensive oils at your local art shop. Yet for 22 years, since Mbongeni Buthelezi was forced for the first time to source material to “paint” with, he has striven to manipulate the malleability of plastic, liberating it from its litter tag by exulting in its elasticity.
His latest exhibition at Artspace (renamed Lizamore & Associates from next month), Look At Me: I’m Black and White, is proof that Buthelezi’s dedication to extracting a palette-like quality from plastic has not been in vain.
From the 26 pieces on show, it is easy to see why he is called “SA’s plastic painter”. Some even insert “pre-eminent” into that description, yet Buthelezi is entirely in a class of his own — neither foremost nor best, but peerless, as he is probably the only artist in the world whose materials consist of micronheavy roofing plastic and a heat gun. And even if there are no canvasses to compare his work with, Buthelezi’s mastery of painting with plastic and its singular appeal is supported by the speed at which investors are snapping up his pieces.
“I’ve travelled full circle,” he says. “As a student at the African Institute of Arts” — Funda Arts Centre these days — “it was difficult to get the art materials required. So I decided to experiment with other means to express myself and that’s how I decided on plastic. At the time I was also trying hard to prove a point. I didn’t have money to go and buy paints.”
Once broke but unbowed, he now feels that he is “very close to the point of perfecting this technique”. For inspiration, he has also remained committed to the location that initially lured him as a novice — Kliptown. “I would go to Bara (Baragwanath Hospital) but I found it way too clustered.”
Born and raised in rural KwaZulu-Natal, it is perhaps the down-to-earth simplicity of the historic shantytown that intrigued Buthelezi. “As students we were always encouraged to go out and do sketches: light drawings and so on.”
His first studies of Kliptown turned out to be heavy going, though. “People would come up to me and ask me who I am and what I’m doing there. Then I would have to show them how I’m working too. I felt like I was lecturing.”
He was, actually, at the time, at Funda, which is also where he was spotted by a German professor and doyen of the arts. Soon he was exhibiting alongside David Koloane and Penny Siopis at the Museum for African Art in Soho, New York, and a long period of artist-inresidence followed, mainly with Gallery Seippel in Cologne, Germany. At about the turn of century he was gaining acclaim fast, catapulted by his extraordinary necessity-is-themother-of invention method of plastic painting. He exhibited in diverse places; from Vienna to Vermont, the last being a collective that featured 60 artists from 33 countries.
“It was amazing. The last two weeks we were allowed to exhibit in our respective galleries”, solo-style. “There were artists who couldn’t speak a word of English and yet they managed. It made me think that if it can be done abroad, across extreme language barriers, we can do the same here — overcome our boundaries.”
Buthelezi had already decided to return home to his open-air studio, convinced that art will find him, like it used to when he was a student, where he found himself, in inspiring places such as Kliptown.
“I had always thought that the most important thing is to make art where you are, but a friend in Germany told me how important it is to have a studio. He said it’s got something to do with the esteem collectors have for artists who have that element of dedication for their work.”
I wanted to do something fresh. I wanted to show the humility and happiness of Kliptown’s people
Buthelezi recalls that he was asked to e-mail his colleagues in Germany. “They wanted me to send them the telephone number so they could phone me at my studio.”
His artist-in-residence phase had come to an end but, as with the sheets and strips of plastic he applies to his canvas frames that are reinforced for the weight of layer upon layer of industrially durable material, there was no reason he could not, metaphorically speaking, extend the layering. So, for inspiration, he returned to his old stomping ground. The result was Winter in Kliptown, a huge exhibition that has toured the country since 2007, adding yet more weight to his fast-growing, local collector’s appeal.
Buthelezi explains that Winter in Kliptown was decidedly historical. “I was focusing on the architecture there. I wanted people to remember it as it was before too much renovation rids it of the last roof held down by rocks. A lot of the work was in sepia. I felt the browns fitted in nicely with the historical context of Kliptown, a place guiding us South Africans by a piece of paper that was adopted there” — the Freedom Charter in 1955.
Based on the popularity of Winter in Kliptown, a Rosebank gallery owner asked Buthelezi to follow it up with a sequel, but he could not as he felt he was suffering from a kind of Kliptown fatigue. The idea, however, had already taken root.
“This time, though, I wanted to do something fresh. I wanted to show the humility and happiness of Kliptown’s people.”
Having been accepted over the years as a quasi community member, he blended in easily — “parking my car, getting out, and just watching people”.
He says Kliptown holds such a profound place in SA’s history, “and yet children are not allowed to play in the square” (where the charter was officially adopted) “because the tourists staying in the five-star hotel looking on to the square might find it off-putting. It would be a little too real to appreciate such luxury amid such squalor, the same squalor that has always been there, which people thought would be wiped away by democracy.”
Look At Me, however, shows no suffering.
There are no bleak, washedout, sepia statements. Instead, Buthelezi, as only he is able to, has captured the innocence and joy of people, particularly children, despite the reality of the rot that surrounds them.
In fact, that is not even hinted at. The only indication that these canvasses are inspired by Kliptown’s people are the canvas tags.
“I wanted to show the spirit of these people. Here they are, trapped in poverty in a place of historical significance with nothing to show for a democracy that’s almost 20 years old — and yet they are happy!”
It reminds Buthelezi of his own childhood in Newcastle, where early skill with sketching laid the foundation for dreaming about his career. Since then, he has been around, gone full circle in more ways than one, and he’s working from his fourth studio, in Johannesburg’s city centre.
Whether in Cologne or Krugersdorp, where he lives with his family, there really is only place for the heart, the place you can call home. For Buthelezi, that place is Kliptown — the geographical genesis of his art.