If it is true that the arts flourish in a turbulent environment, then this is nowhere more apparent than in modern South Africa. As the gaps between racial groups have widened and the political scene has polarized, so the visual arts have become more diverse and exciting. Expressive, strident, critical yet bright and lively works abound, as artists, black and white, react to the paradoxes that assail them. Clichés of "agony and ecstasy" and of geniuses "starving in a garret" producing masterpieces spring readily to mind as one ponders the contrasts of the country.
David James Brown and Sydney Kumalo are two sculptors whose works reveal much about their curious society. Urban sophistication rubs shoulders with tribal traditions, the avant-grade plastic arts with ancient crafts.
Enormous Differences
Both men now work in bronze, creating bold, figurative works that demonstrate the unmistakable influence of Africa, and invite comparison. It is interesting to note that they share a mentor. Yet their backgrounds, attitudes, and forms of expression differ enormously.
Brown was born in Johannesburg in 1951 and moved to Cape Town in 1967. There he studied at the Michaelis School of Fine Art at the University of Cape Town from 1970 to 1974. Introduced to sculpture in 1975 by Cecil Skotnes, he immediately found it to be the medium most suited to his aims and temperament.
Brown exhibited principally in group shows until 1978, when the Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg gave him a solo exhibition. The bulk of his work for ten years consisted of monumental wood and steel sculptures depicting a timeless world in which men and animals express a primeval violence and aggression. Yet these qualities were tempered with pathos, a sad sort of comic nature that Brown saw as underlying the fabric of society in general, and of South Africa in particular. The shapes showed a strong, primitive Southern African influence, yet each work carried a universal significance.
More recently, Brown has produced a startling series of bronzes, each a unique cast, titled Procession. For the first time, the works are created on a tiny scale, yet their impact is monumental and extremely powerful. More brutal, blinkered, and isolated than ever, his lumbering figures portray the horrors of the human mind caught up in the blind cruelty of warfare.
Says the artist: "My work has emerged from watching my environment, one which is both extraordinarily unnatural and painfully real. My studio stands on the edge of an area in Cape Town known as District Six. Once the vibrant heart of the city, it is now a wasteland, result of a mass removal of people and a striking testimony to South Africa's racial laws. Small groups of people live in the street, sleeping in old cars, packing crates, plastic bags, screaming and drinking. A few blocks away, a police compound is often the gathering site of riot-control vehicles and armed men in camouflage uniforms. The images that emerge from observing this strange microcosm seem to reveal not only deeds of the past and present, but portend events to come."
Brown's work is overt, harsh, and accusing to the viewer--the similarities
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