{"id":547,"date":"2005-02-13T09:13:46","date_gmt":"2005-02-13T07:13:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/?p=547"},"modified":"2005-02-13T09:17:59","modified_gmt":"2005-02-13T07:17:59","slug":"tshwane-university-of-technologys-fine-arts-exhibition-a-feature-on-donna-kukama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2005\/02\/13\/tshwane-university-of-technologys-fine-arts-exhibition-a-feature-on-donna-kukama\/","title":{"rendered":"Tshwane University of Technology’s fine arts exhibition: a feature on Donna Kukama"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was very impressed with the 4th year show of the Tshwane fine arts students yesterday, which took place across two galleries (Gordart and Franchise), and housed what seemed like over 75 works by about 20 artists. As a sample, I’d like to talk about Donna Kukama’s work – we had a long chat about what she’s been up to.<\/p>\n

\"donna<\/p>\n

moriri setso<\/i>, hair, saliva, and acrylic on canvas<\/div>\n

Donna’s relationship to her art is a “both\/and” rather than an “either\/or.” She is always an artist, but first, a person (who makes art). Implicit is the fact that she is a young, black female artist producing work in South Africa, but her work is never about that – and so, by default, is always about that.<\/p>\n

In this show, Donna makes work mostly rejecting, and at the same time, conversing with, the way her art is “supposed” to be. She is very interested in form, aesthetics, the body, and personal explorations that invite others in, rather than making them feel voyeuristic. She’s felt boxed in, already, by a scene that expects her to make work about<\/i> being young, black, female.<\/p>\n

So her work ironically boxes her in – literally.<\/p>\n

For example, she’s made mosiac videos out of animated tiles that show her skin “breathing” up and down, further boxed by small screens, placed in literal cardboard boxes, then held still by a leash of power cords (matchbox housing and spoonfeeding schemes<\/i>). Blind lullaby<\/i> and Blind sleep<\/i> are a video diptych that are a-sexual landscapes of her dark skin, but could easily be shadows of whiteness. With moriri setso<\/i> (pictured), she simply paints her shavings and clippings white.<\/p>\n

Is it just me, or is Donna simultaneously asking us to laugh, begging for a little credit, and giving us the finger? You go, girl. (some previous stuff I’ve written on Donna can be found by searching her name<\/a> – her first name, that is, cuz I only finally learned her surname yesterday)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was very impressed with the 4th year show of the Tshwane fine arts students yesterday, which took place across two galleries (Gordart and Franchise), and housed what seemed like over 75 works by about 20 artists. As a sample, I’d like to talk about Donna Kukama’s work – we had a long chat about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-south-african-art"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9blZT-8P","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":456,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2004\/09\/22\/dylan-thomas-graham-outlet\/","url_meta":{"origin":547,"position":0},"title":"dylan thomas graham @ outlet","author":"nathaniel","date":"22 September 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"\"I'm a traditionalist,\" says Abrie Fourie, behind a smirk that would tell even those who don't know him, that he takes pleasure in making such a false statement. Abrie's gallery, on the Tshwane arts campus in Pretoria, is fairly well known for not only contemporary, but experimental work - both\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "art"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"dylan_thomas_graham.jpg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-content\/images\/dylan_thomas_graham.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":856,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2005\/10\/22\/night-journey-an-installation-by-colleen-alborough-live-from-durban\/","url_meta":{"origin":547,"position":1},"title":"Night Journey – An installation by Colleen Alborough (live from Durban!)","author":"nathaniel","date":"22 October 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Night Journey - An installation by Colleen Alborough at KZNSA, KWAZULU NATAL SOCIETY OF ARTS Arrived in Durban yesterday evening (to help above-mentioned install her show), and the sea is already wonderfully under my skin; it's stunning. Can you believe I got up at about 5Am this morning and just\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "art"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1260,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2006\/07\/05\/angus-taylor-u-of-j-gallery-joburg\/","url_meta":{"origin":547,"position":2},"title":"Angus Taylor @ U of J Gallery, Joburg","author":"nathaniel","date":"05 July 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"The Press Release:Angus Taylor, well known South African sculptor, will exhibit a body of new work in various media, entitled \u201cDEDUCT\u201d at the UJ Art Gallery from 5 to 26 July 2006.\u00a0Taylor works from the premise that deduction gathers a valid conclusion from a more general premise to a more\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "art"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":573,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2005\/03\/20\/573\/","url_meta":{"origin":547,"position":3},"title":"hotels and better lives: sue williamson at the goodman gallery","author":"nathaniel","date":"20 March 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"dude, the lighting was bad and I boosted her image as best I could. sorry. Sue Williamson is an artist, writer, innovator, activist, and a whole heap of other great things all at once. Usually, I hate pretentious lists of nouns to describe people and what they do - readers\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "art"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":402,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2004\/08\/15\/south-african-arts-hangout-johannesburg\/","url_meta":{"origin":547,"position":4},"title":"south african arts hangout, johannesburg","author":"nathaniel","date":"15 August 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Going in reverse order from right to left, we've got Franci Cronje (media artist), Zingi Mkefa (choreographer, and journalist for THISDAY), Kathryn Smith (Standard Bank young artist of the year, who has agreed to help me hang my upcoming solo show at the Johannesburg Art Gallery!), Monna Mokoena (gallerist \/\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "art"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"monna_mokoena.jpg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-content\/images\/monna_mokoena.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1194,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2006\/06\/02\/compressionism-worldwide\/","url_meta":{"origin":547,"position":5},"title":"Compressionism WorldWide","author":"nathaniel","date":"02 June 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Brenton Maart chatting with Stern about the show, for a review in Art South Africa magazine I was at Outlet yesterday, discussing my Time and Seeing exhibition of Compressionist prints with Brenton Maart. Maart normally does the Gauteng art listings for the Mail & Guardian, but we met about this\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "art"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Compressionism in MacFormat magazine","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/06\/MacFormat.thumbnail.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}