Poet probes poverty of artists
Why do some, if not the majority of artists, die paupers?
While there are likely different answers to the question, an Eastern Cape-born artist is on a mission to explore it further and document it.
Sterkspruit-born poet Bandile Magibili will see his love for poetry taking him to the Netherlands on Thursday. He will be at the European country to shoot his new documentary A life of an Artist is Almost Lived which seeks to explain why some artists die poor.
Magibili said he started shooting the documentary at the beginning of the year and he will be continuing his documentary in the Netherlands.
“The documentary is about why artists are poor and what the contributing factors to them dying poor are and also who benefits from them dying poor.
“It also provides realistic and proven solutions to fight the deliberate imbalances imposed by the system on artists,” Magibili said.
“I am going to Netherlands to shoot a scene with the people who have contributed to my arts, people from the Netherlands respect my art a lot.”
Magibili said he believed there was more to the Eastern Cape than there is anywhere else and saw no need why there is so much emigration of artists in search of greener pastures. In 2014, Magibili published 2
B BLACK, a book which profiles artists who have contributed to the arts but yet remain ostracised. The documentary will be a continuation of that book, he added.
Magibili will be accompanied by North West-based poet Mofetsi Ramathibe, who won first place in a national poetry competition that Magibili organised in November last year.
“I saved up and tried finding funding to be able to sponsor his trip. I am taking him with me to give another artist a chance to travel and see the world and also show support to his work – something that many artists are not getting in our country,” he said.
Magibili said after the completion of the documentary, he would quit arts and focus on his education.
He is doing a commerce degree at the University of Fort
Hare.
“The documentary is my last contribution to the arts. It serves as a manual to my life as an artist, from the rejection and very little support I got from the government,” said Magibili.