The local artist Richardt Strydom’s exhibition BLEEK, a semi-retrospective show of photographic and audiovisual work from 2010 to 2014, opened on 27 March 2014 to an enthusiastic crowd at the North-West University (NWU) Gallery. The selection of works from continuing series by Strydom explore the different ways of approaching white masculinity. The show, however, does not attempt to offer answers, but instead poses questions. Strydom, a senior lecturer at the Graphic Department of the NWU, is also the curator of the show, with the organization of the work central to the experience. The exhibition will be on until 2 May, before touring around the country.
Strydom’s exhibition BLEEK
The exhibition was opened by Dr Christi van der Westhuizen, a post-doctoral research fellow at the Institute for Humanities in Africa (HUMA), University of Cape Town (UCT). Van der Westhuizen has worked as a journalist, starting at the independent anti-apartheid weekly Vrye Weekblad, and writes a regular column in Beeld. Her books include White Power & the Rise and Fall of the National Party (2007), with Van der Westhuizen an appropriate speaker to open a show that investigates the problems around the construction of whiteness and identity. According to Van der Westhuizen the title Bleek, Afrikaans for pale, references different aspects addressed in the works on show, from the main focus on different approaches to “whiteness”, to “sickness” (in our society) to something that is “beyond pale” (the exhibition).
Strydom is known for his uncompromising look at white Afrikaner male identities, but in reaction to his doctoral studies, Strydom pointed out that he is moving away from focusing only on Afrikaner masculinity towards a broader search into the performance of white male identities in South Africa. According to Van der Westhuizen, it is not a nostalgic look at the South African past and stands in contrast to a trend of selective and nostalgic engagement with the past. The works highlight this inability to move beyond the inherited hierarchical power structure.
The starting point of the different series represented in the exhibition is encapsulated in the idea that the victim and perpetrator is the same person because of a certain cultural background or heritage. This is illustrated in one of the first works created on the theme, Violator II (2010). It is a confrontational body of work, evident from the first work the viewer is confronted with on entering the exhibition, Dubula #1, a self-portrait from the larger Awudubhule Ibhunu (Kill the Boer) series. The portraits of young white men are confrontational in nature with a direct gaze into camera lens common. The overall feeling of the exhibition is one of discomfort, from the first work seen on entering, to the last work revisited on leaving the gallery.
Strydom. 2014. Dubula #1.
The photos are manipulated with scars and other marks, such as tattoos, edited in. The scarring becomes a symbol for psychological marks or scars, making the suffering visible. The issue of violence and vulnerability is central to the work with violence inherent in the construction of Afrikaner masculinity. In the tradition of the grotesque, the White Masks series is a more obvious continuation of the theme of making suffering visible, with the manipulated scars, symbolic of psychological scarring, as masks obliterating the model’s identity.
The models used play an imported role in the creation of the work. Many of the models are recognizable South African poets and musicians, icons such as the poets Danie Marais and Loftus Marais and singer Francois van Coke. Strydom usually works with people he knows in a private setting, with the gallery as a public space. An interaction is created between model and artist and model and viewer. Especially in the newer works the question is raised whether the model is given the right to speak for himself or tell his own story. The artist also uses himself as a model. The use of the self is an important element, with the artist not as a outsider hiding behind the camera, but as someone willing to show his own vulnerability.
Vulnerability is usually not associated with masculinity. Strydom plays with the balance between vulnerability and violence. On the one hand the work is confrontational, but on the other hand the vulnerability of the model is emphasized. Strydom’s exhibition BLEEK is an uncompromising look at the problematic issue of white male identities in South Africa. As a doctor investigates what is wrong with a patient, Strydom’s art is an investigation of a society in which something has gone seriously wrong.
Strydom. 2014. Drome is ook vrese. Discomfort and vulnerability.
Written by Rina de Klerk
Walkabout South African art 