On El Anatsui and Peter Magubane's honorary doctorates at University of Cape Town

Group photo after a luncheon in El's honor hosted by the Vice Chancellor of UCT, Professor Max Price at his university residence. Seated left: Artist and UCT Professor, Bernie Searle. El seated 2nd left. Professor Price standing right; Deputy VC and art historian Professor Sandra Klopper standing 2nd right. 

It is no more fresh news that on June 15, just a week ago, El Anatsui received an honorary doctorate from University of Cape Town, the top-rated university on the African continent. This came in the heels of another doctorate last month from Harvard.

El getting his hood!
Photo: Chika Okeke-Agulu

Perhaps only a few in the South African art world also heard that the veteran photographer, Peter Magubane, was the other honoree. It was amazing to see Magubane, who has slowed a bit, deliver a moving speech about his life and work, accompanied by a well-edited film, based on his photographs, that sketch a visual history of anti-Apartheid struggle from the late 1950s through to the 1980s.

Peter Magubane takes the stage,
Photo: Chika Okeke-Agulu

In fact, that award ceremony on June 15, was also an occasion for celebrating the courage of all the school children and youths who rose in defiance of the Apartheid regime's educational policy on June 16, 1976 in Soweto (the day after the UCT graduating ceremony was the 40th anniversary and national holiday); an event burned into the world's consciousness through Sam Nzima's now legendary photograph of dying Hector Pieterson in the arms of distraught Mbuyisa Makhubo, his sister Antoinette by their side.

As the award ceremony carried on, I could not but wonder, looking at the extremely few number of black graduands, how long it might take before South African universities begin to reflect the nation's demographic: less than 10% white, and more than 70% black. In that impressive hall, seeing continuous lines of gowned white students, punctuated by the occasional black was a sobering experience. Then it struck me: no wonder the country's black youth, like in 1976, have now thrown down the gauntlet, demanding radical change in the status quo. Rhodes Must Fall. Fees Must Fall. Unfortunately, the ANC, now a sordid shadow of the political organization that spearheaded the campaign for democratic freedom in South Africa, is filled with self-serving fat cats too mired in their own cesspool to hear the anguished cry of the students and youths out in the streets and university campuses nationwide.

Anatsui at the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto

Earlier this month the much-anticipated El Anatsui retrospective organized by the Museum for African Art, New York opened at the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto. For years, I was anxious to see what Anatsui's retrospective might look like; what a museological space would make sense of his very diverse body of work, from the round wood panels of the 1970s to the ceramic sculptures of the early 1980s, from the acrylic paintings of the early 80s to the wall plaques and three dimensional wood sculptures of the 80s and 90s, and finally to the metal sculptures of the last ten years. I wondered what the works would look like in the discursive space of the retrospective exhibition, after several years of seeing them up close as Anatsui's sculpture student, and later as his studio assistant, long before I started writing about these works or presenting some of them in exhibitions.

The show organized by Lisa Binder, assistant curator at the Museum for African Art, is quite an effort and must be, for people who know Anatsui only through his stupendous metal sculptures, a revelatory experience. Here for the first time are gathered some of the artist's key early works, with many of the round wood panels, several of the ceramic sculptures, and the paintings only visitors to Anatsui's home at Nsukka knew existed. There is of course the graceful free-standing wood sculpture, Wonder Masquerade, owned by Wole Soyinka, and a few other key wood sculptures, such as When Last I Wrote to You...(which gave the exhibition its title). Surprisingly though, the Crumbling Wall, or the Wast Paper Baskets --works that show a bit more of the range of the artists metal sculptural language, beyond the bottle and milk can top sculptures--are not part of the show, nor are any of the marquee wall-bound metal sculptures of the last decade. Might this be due to loan problems?





Ok. What I have said above is the good thing about the show. I don't even want to rant about the really terrible design of the exhibition. I could, but I wont. But let me just say that whoever came up with the idea of painting the walls, platforms and pedestals with that terrible blue paint, and reddish wood highlights did a great disservice the artist's work. Not only did the color add to the already noisy space (I just can't help wondering what Daniel Libeskind, the architect of the building, thought he was doing with the harsh, messy diagonal walls that compromised the usable space of the galleries, apart from giving me momentary, unappreciated vertigo), it invaded the composition of several of the wood panels. I don't even want to think that the designers of the show wanted to really impress visitors to the work of this "African" artist--after all, are Africans not a people of color!?

So, please, please. Let this craziness just end in Toronto, and could designers of the spaces where this retrospective will travel save these works from the color abuse? Thank you.