Media Flaws

Whilst reading today's Mail & Guardian I came across the letter below from Kendell Geers - directed at the chief Art writer and reviewer at the publication, Miles Keylock. What struck me about this letter and led to my scanning it on to here is mainly due to its resonance to my stance on contemporary South African art writing. Art writing in the media is pathetic, to say the least, and an attempt at saying I-went-to-varsity-for-art, constantly peppered with undergraduate theory undertones. If you're an art graduate or any graduate of any sort and decide to write for the media, best you get your head wrapped around the stark naked fact that you are writing for human beings; not yourself or past lecturers. Not that any of this reflects Geers arguments. Here's the letter:

I would like to congratulate the Mail & Guardian on the ‘Lost in Frustration’ [hover on title for link] review of my latest exhibition at the Goodman Gallery, for it sharply punctuates and embodies absolutely everything that is wrong with the South African Contemporary art world and the reason why I no longer live there. Smug in its manicured vocabulary and proud of its venomous tone, the text is in truth little more than an undergraduate exercise in hate speech and conceptual capital punishment. It reads like a Laurel and Hardy attempt to grow a brain, but they simply cannot get past their old habits of kneejerk ‘slapdick’ violence.

Miles Keylock refers to an incident at the ‘Dada South?’ symposium in which Nina Romm accused me of phallocentrism; yet, had he been present, he would have known that Romm was in fact declaring the exact opposite. Romm took offence at what she perceived to be the predominance of the female sex and the absence of the phallus in the issue of Be Contemporary that I guest edited. I do admit to having been somewhat clumsy in addressing her concerns but it was, and remains, my intention to make more effort, as a South African, to speak in less confrontational and less aggressive ways.

I suspect that Keylock has his own castration anxieties, for he raises the issue of the male member at least three times in the text, culminating in calling me a ‘dick’. Whilst all manner of evil atrocities have been committed by, through and in the service of the dick, these problems will not be solved through public castration and the emasculation of male identity. If more men loved their members, and used them with more respect they would be less inclined to think of them as ‘tools’. The rape and sexual violence that rips the country apart is only possible when men are in denial, and emotionally detach themselves from their dicks for how can you respect life (or sexuality) if you do not respect your own body?

I am so tired of the cynicism and jealous posturing that seems to define contemporary South African Art, for in effect it only begets and generates more violence and despair. It is my belief that artists must now carry the beacon of hope, light and love, leading the world out from the political deadlock that emanates from the Capitalist pit of opportunism and profit at any cost.

The shallow individualism and cynicism that Keylock accuses me of is probably more a reflection of what he wants to see and his state of mind than my own, for we can only perceive that which we are ready to open our eyes to see. The ‘Ritual Slips’ that he describes as ‘abstract binary patterns, meaningless liturgies that deflect and refract understanding’ are, for instance, composed of the words Believe, Love, Faith, Trust and so forth. He goes on to say that they were made by anonymous Ndebele crafters but, of course, such a colonialist statement begs the question: anonymous to whom? They are certainly not anonymous to me and they would not have been to him had he bothered to ask any more than he would have seen the writing on the wall had he the courage to look beyond his prejudice. Far from being anonymous, I will be donating some of the proceeds to a charity that supports and promotes these traditional crafters.

The country is drowning in rape and murder and yet when an artist dares to try send out a message of hope and transformation they get castrated by critics refusing to accept change, growth or development. Keylock says that my work has matured as if that would be a bad thing? The review reads as though it was hacked together by a music critic based on rumour and hearsay and dick-tated to by an overbearing girlfriend with a grudge against all men. For those readers willing to look past the vitriol of a septic review, I humbly offer my exhibition ‘Third World Disorder’ with the intention of transformation. The works are my sincere attempt to shift the focus and exorcise and transform the pervasive negative energy into that of hope, trust, faith and a revolution of love.

Kendell Geers

(sources: Mail & Guardian newspaper and Artthrob)