December 9, 2009

Oh dear. Some self appointed protector of the public morals/frustrated artist/Ed Young black listee has decided to paint over the YOUNGBLACKMAN gallery window through which the citizenry of Cape Town and assorted tourists were able to view Cameron Platter’s arty porno Black up that White Arse ll. Apparently the window has been coated in white and the Ezekial 25:17 verse quoted by the Samuel Jackson character just before he kills his victims in Pulp Fiction has been scratched into the white paint:

'The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children; and I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers and you will know I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you.'

Printed in full, so we can all reflect upon it and upon our various sins.

I just googled YOUNGBLACKMAN to see if there were any pictures of the desecrated window on their website site yet, but the first selection that came up on Google read: haai ladies im a black man im seeking for a black african woman who have a big booty. im looking for a woman that love to be ... view this ad now!

Okay, so not that website. Unless that was Platter’s working script. I’ll put up a pic later if I get one.

In the meantime, I went to the Michaelis art school annual student exhibition opening last Wednesday. Lots of depressingly messy work, particularly in the Michaelis building floors two and three, but this grungy display was saved by a small corner on the top floor where Clare van Blerk restored a corner of the painting studio to its original pristine state. She scraped off years of accumulated layers of paint splashes off the floor, and laboriously sanded down the pine floor to a gleaming finish.The walls and the furniture were treated with similar care. And in a vitrine in another room, Fabian Saptouw had pulped popular art theorist Nicholas Bourriaud’s Post Production, Culture as Screenplay, How Art Reprograms the World using the pulp to make handmade paper on which he then printed Bourriaud’s text with handset type.

Two more students whose works deserves careful attention for conceptual clarity and meticulous craftsmanship: Christopher Swift (he won the Michaelis prize) and Danielle Mooney. Viewers of Mooney’s Your Sky climb a ladder which allows them to poke head and shoulders through a suspended tray of black oil, which reflects not only the view from skylights in the room but video footage, from a ceiling mounted projector, of clouds scudding by. A very pleasant way to get above it all.