Keynote address at opening of Homecoming

Story posted October 23, 2001

Homecoming
(An exhibition of sculpture, paintings and prints by Alfred Budaza, Thami Kiti, Timothy Mafenuka, Lundi Mduba, Sophie Peters, Velile Soha, Vuyile Cameron Voyiya)

For a personal view of the exhibition, see the Cape Town Diary entry by Samantha Dahan. Read the SUN article on Homecoming.

Keynote Address, By Peter E. Clarke, artist, writer and poet of Ocean View, Cape Province.
Remarks upon the opening of the art exhibition, Homecoming, Guga S'Thebe, Langa, Saturday, October 20th, 2001, 11 a.m.

Molweni.
Ladies and gentleman, good day and welcome.

Firstly, I must tell you all that I am acquainted with most of the artists exhibiting. I have known some of them since they were studying years ago at CAP [the Community Arts Project] before embarking on careers as artists. Some of them are good friends of mine, even though much younger and less experienced as artists than myself. Nkos khakulu, Vuyile for suggesting that I be invited to be the guest speaker for this event. I feel honored. Although the title of this exhibit is HOMECOMING I am going to start by referring to DEPARTURES.

In a way, the words HOMECOMING and DEPARTURE are related even though they represent the opposite ends of the same process. You cannot experience a return without first departing. One can interpret this process or theme in a variety of ways. But, I want to do so simply by telling you about the agony of a South African in exile during the bitter years of apartheid.

At the end of a visit I paid to the USA in 1976 I arranged to spend a few days in New York before my departure home visiting my friend the South African poet Wally Serote. At the time he was one of many South African exiles in New York. One day Wally said, "Vernaand gaan on Bra Dollar visit." (Tonight let's visit brother Dollar). I hadn't seen Dollar, who I knew from Cape Town, for a long time. So I agreed.

That evening, shortly after we arrived at Dollar's apartment, there was a soft knock on the door. Dollar opened the door and let a person in. This man he admitted looked in a terrible way, in a state of both physical and mental exhaustion. There was a kind of conversation, briefly, vaguely. Dollar and the man exchanged words. No the man wasn't hungry, just tired, worn out, completely worn out. Then Dollar said to the man, "Dij bieter gaan lê," (you'd better lie down) and assisted him to a couch.

The man, who had hardly noticed Wally and myself, closed his eyes and immediately seemed to sink into a stupor. I had never seen anything like this before, the absolute desperation to lie down, to rest. "Laat hom slaap," (let him sleep) Dollar said and the three of us went on softly with our conversation.

The man asleep was the young South African photographer Ernest Cole. He was also in exile, having fled from harassment by the authorities and the special branch in South Africa because of some absolutely powerful and politically revealing photographs he had taken. Cole's photographs depicting the horrors the apartheid regime was inflicting on black people had been published in book form in the USA. It was for this reason, as well as promises made by people who had gained his confidence, that Cole fled to the USA. Unfortunately, when he got to America nothing worked out as he had foreseen. As he had no identity documents he could not work. As a result of this, her was penniless. Eventually, out of desperation, he was forced to sell his cameras. He was homeless and slept in New York subways. Ernest Cole died a year or two ago in every sense a forgotten man. Years ago after this incident in New York, I wrote this poem about him.

Stateless Person, New York 1976
(for the photographer Ernest Cole)

Sadly,
what can one say
when one sees how badly
he merely wanted to lay
his head on the bed
& close his eyes.

Homeless,
a refugee,
he is a person all desperation
though he's committed no crime.
Knowing of his haunted hounded days
in another time
in a country with fascist ways
the visitors sit, softly talking,
while he sleeps,
this once-observant man
who spends the nights
in subways.

One looks at this one-time recorder
of his country's agonies
& inwardly
one weeps.

It seems that an integral element of art and culture (playing a role in the lives of artists) is that of movement/transference/acquisition/sharing & even theft. Sometimes it involves worship, sometimes celebration, even mourning.

I got to know Alex La Guma in Cape Town when we were both youngsters. Rather talented, he pained as a young man, and then became better known as a journalist, short story writer and political activist. He went into exile and eventually represented the ANC [African National Congress] in Cuba.

The Cape Town writer David Rabkin and I got to know one another because of his researches in South African literature and his interest in art. He was also politically active. My poem, DEATH IN EXILE was written in 1986 as a tribute in memory of these two men, who had been my friends, Alex La Guma who died in Havana, Cuba and David Rabkin, who was assassinated in Mozambique in 1985.

DEATH IN EXILE
(Poem written in memory of Alex La Guma who died in Havana, Cuba and David Rabkin who died in Mozambique in 1985)

Between home and exile
exists the poetry of agony.
Beyond works and lines
communication stops
while at the horizon of reality.

One sees so far.
Beyond these are
the further furtive blind reaches
of the mind.

It is so tragic this calamity,
this wastage,
pointlessness,
the fear of truth asserting itself,
humiliation,
the mess,
the having-to-go-away,
the fleeing far,
frustration,
nothingness.

Casting them out,
tormentors never seem to care or know
they plant those seeds of doubt
in minds of decent folk
from wherever truth is forced to go.
This is a time of drought.
Occasionally when or if it rains
the soul drips only drops
of precious human blood.

As I said earlier, mobility in various forms has always played an important role in the lives and creativity of artists, all kinds of visual artists, photographers, sculptors, writers and poets, musicians, singers, actors, dancers, whatever.

The movement of various people out of our country over the borders of South Africa and into the world at large is not a recent phenomenon. Long before the period of the Apartheid regime in this country with people going into involuntary and voluntary exile, there were individuals who became possessed by the urge to make their way into other areas of the world. Sometimes this was due to curiosity, but sometimes also to find themselves as individuals.

At various times during the 20th century among earlier South African visual artists who went to Europe were Ernest Mancoba, John Koenakeefe Mohl and Gerard Sekoto. They went with the intention of either working as artists and staying indefinitely in France or as in Mohl's case to study and return to his country of origin and teach.

Among others who have since traveled to Europe, America and elsewhere for similar reasons as the earlier artists have been Louis Maurice, Louis Maqhubela, Roland Alexander, Amos Langdown, Durant Sihlali, Dan Rakgoathe, Albert Adams, Selby Mvusi, David Koloane and Lucas Seage. I studied in Amsterdam, Holland in 1962-63 and visited Atelier Nord Graphic Workshop in Oslo, Norway in 1978-79.

In more recent times a number of younger artists from South Africa including from Cape Peninsula towns and townships, have traveled overseas, to attend conferences, workshops, and exhibitions or to study.

The pioneer artist and sculptor, Ernest Mancoba went to France in 1938 and Gerard Sekoto almost ten years later. Mancoba remained his entire life in Europe, only coming on a brief visit to South Africa when he was over 90 years old in order to receive an honorary doctorate. When I met Sekoto in Paris in 1963, I asked him if he'd ever return to South Africa. He said, "Man, when you've lived in Paris for so long then it's difficult to get away." He never returned.

Interestingly, when I asked the same question of South African painter Maud Sumner, who had lived in Paris even longer than Sekoto, she told me exactly the same thing. But eventually when she was old, she returned. Perhaps in her case it was easier. She happened to be a white South African.

In later years, several of the artists who went to study for various lengths of time in different places, England, France, Holland, Germany, the USA became involved on their return home in giving tuition to young people at formal and informal institutions. Significantly one of the artists in this Homecoming exhibition,Vuyile Cameron Voyiya is employed as Education Officer at the South African National Gallery in Cape Town.

Through the years several artists have been involved in collective communal projects including painting murals on township walls etc., thus providing a colourful art presence often illustrating an important social and educational message.

It is remarkable that many township artists produce art not always under ideal conditions. I admire them for that. In spite of unsuitable or even at time no workspaces, their work is often included in joint or group exhibitions in this country as well as overseas. In having proved that their work is worthy to be exhibited they deserve our respect.

Occasionally art exhibitions by township artists are arranged in venues such as Guga S' Thebe, where people who do not have easy access to art galleries in the city can still see art. In that way art experiences can be shared with the world. Quite recently, last month in fact, prints by artist Sophie Peters, who is in this show, were included in a collection of works by South African and international women artists produced at Caversham Press in Natal that formed an exhibition in the USA. The thirteen women came from different parts of this country, the USA, Ireland, Mexico and Zimbabwe. The exhibition, The Hourglass Project: A Women's Vision,. was on view in July and August at the Abernathy Arts Center Gallery in Sandy Springs, Georgia, USA.

In this year too the guest speaker at this exhibition [sic. Peter E. Clarke] has had his worked included in group exhibitions in the USA and in Canada and of course, South Africa. Standing here in the townships or where ever with our feet solidly on the ground our art works go out into the great big world. I only wish that locally our people knowing we are artists and seeing the work we produce will appreciate us and purchase the art produced by people in and of our communities. That way we, the artists, will feel respected. We will all have become part of the process known as UBUNTU. Knowing that our drawings, paintings, prints, photographs, and sculptures are in the home in our communities, the artists will indeed have come home.

I wish the participating artists well and declare this exhibition open.

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