Swank dress code just a plaster over a gaping societal wound
Bambo Sibiya is part of a generation of Joburgbased artists that includes Nelson Makamo and Phillemon Hlungwani — producing brooding charcoal drawings disrupted by flashes of colour. It’s an aesthetic associated with William Kentridge, but each of these artists inhabit it in their own way and for their own reasons.
The newly opened Red Room gallery in Woodstock, Cape Town, may form a platform to expose this interesting turn in Joburg’s art scene.
In Sibiya’s work, colour and pattern infiltrate charcoal drawings through his rendering of the suits his subjects wear. They shimmer, glow and pop with touches of metallic acrylic paint and lace patterns, drawing attention to the central role an immaculate suit plays in the Swenka tradition.
Zulu migrant workers on Joburg mines participated in Swenka — derived from the English word “swank” — to show off their sense of style and defy the social and economic status that was determined by their race under apartheid.
Sibiya’s exhibition, entitled Tales of Migration, captures men in swanky suits claiming their right to leisure time and an identity beyond that of a labourer. Dressing up, parading in a wellcut suit and organising competitions for the best-dressed miners was a political act.
Many artists, including choreographer Robyn Orlin, documentary photographer TJ Lemon and fashion designer Shaldon Koplan of the Naked Ape label, have been fascinated or inspired by the Swenka. Street-style photography and identity-driven art of the early noughties by Lolo Veleko and Tracey Rose owe something to the Swenka culture.
Dress as a vehicle for transcendence is what drives interest in the Swenkas, yet in Sibiya’s collection of large drawings-cum-paintings a sense of futility and frustration pervades. He establishes them as subjects from a bygone era through the medium of charcoal, evoking black-and-white photography, and through the presence of outmoded objects.
An old typewriter is on the lap of a man in the piece entitled Writers of their own History. Boom-boxes with cassette players feature in several works, alluding to the role of music in Swenka performances. Sibiya is dealing in nostalgia. It’s not just about a loss of culture, or objects from another time, but the loss of time. The work Faded Memory of a Swenka implies a desire to recapture time by restaging the past.
Sibiya’s subjects are mostly seated facing viewers in groups, as if posing for a photograph. His work Faded Memory of a Swenka II is based on a recent photograph of men and women dressed in 1920s style tennis outfits. Swenka culture is also about posing and performing for the audience.
The inactivity in Sibiya’s work implies a lack of agency; they bring to mind unemployed men sitting on pavements or benches on the side of the road.
This is substantiated through the title Watchers. Are they seated because they no longer need to prove anything?
Sibiya asks us to reconsider this tradition; particularly in relation to its role in shaping black masculinity. It is women who tend to accrue agency through dress and performance of the body. What does it mean for men when they do this, do they become objectified too? If so, how empowering might this be? He forces us to consider the feminine aspect of Swenka by covering the suits in a lace patina. This is a defining feature of this exhibition. The pattern extends beyond the garments seeping into the background, like aggressive wallpaper.
Sibiya used this work to consider the far-reaching influence of Swenka, not only as a tool of transcendence over economic, social or racial boundaries but one that extends beyond the body itself. The men he presents are not located in interiors befitting of their outfits — they inhabit the street. This is their public “face”.
Like the Swenkas of yesteryear, Sibiya knows how to generate a spectacle. The sheer scale of the artist’s drawings makes them compelling, as does the confluence of this black-and-white charcoal, livened up with vivid colours and lace patterns shot through with metallic colours. He knows how to work this “trend” in art.
Yet, despite the “surface” excitement, there is a lingering sense of betrayal or sadness. In the work Lamenting About the Misrepresentation of African History, a typewriter faces outwards and not inwards towards the subject so that he can use it. This creates the impression that the history of the Swenkas was never told by them. It also makes you wonder about what they achieved – their liberation was transitory and superficial.
Tales of Migration shows at Red Room gallery Woodstock, Cape Town, until March 5