Santu Mofokeng – the german contribution in the french pavilion Venice 2013

Santu Mofokeng, installation view the German contribution in the French pavilion Venice 2013, courtesy of the artist and Marker/Lunetta Bartz, Johannesburg. © Roman Mensing in cooperation with Thorsten Arendt, artdoc.de. We see (from left to right):

Santu Mofokeng, Inside Motouleng Cave, Free State (South Africa), around 2008,

Santu Mofokeng, Mautse Cave, Free State (South Africa), 1996,

Santu Mofokeng, Tattoos, Mautse Cave, Free State (South Africa), around 2000,

Santu Mofokeng, Inside Motouleng Cave, Free State (South Africa), around 2008,

Santu Mofokeng, Sacral Chickens, Motouleng Cave, Free State (South Africa), 2004,

Santu Mofokeng, Gynacological place, Motouleng Cave, Free State (South Africa), around 2008,

Santu Mofokeng, Elephant Rock, Motouleng Cave, Free State (South Africa), 1996.

 ”Santu Mofokeng’s photographic series he developed for the German contribution in the French Pavilion similarly reveal collisions between transnational developments, ancient traditions, and personal fates. Mofokeng started out as a street photographer in Soweto in the 1970s and subsequently documented the battles South Africa’s black people waged against apartheid as well as their everyday life in the townships; he is now regarded as one of the country’s preeminent and most respected black artists and photographers. Since 1996, he has worked on the photographic essay Chasing Shadows,

which shows the religious rituals of the black South African people and the sites where they were practiced during apartheid, most prominently among them the caves at Motouleng and Mautse. Mofokeng examines the interrelations between landscape, spirituality, and memory,
exploring the idea of the traumatized landscape in which personal narratives as well as larger histories have become inscribed. For his contribution for Venice, Ancestors / Fearing the Shadows, Mofokeng complements this work in progress with a new series; it documents how the spiritually charged landscapes of Mpumalanga Province in northeastern South Africa fall victim to the appropriation of land by mining corporations and are desecrated, a growing development all over the world. In Via Intolleranza II, Christoph Schlingensief lamented the fact that 95 percent of the images of Africans we Europeans know are made by white people. Santu Mofokeng’s photographs show the perspectives of those who experienced everyday life under apartheid and their view onto the landscapes they have imbued with spiritual meaning and their renewed defilement today.” Susanne Gaensheimer in the foreword of the official publication of the German Pavilion at the Biennale di Venezia 2013

 

Santu Mofokeng, installation view the German contribution in the French pavilion Venice 2013, courtesy of the artist and Marker/Lunetta Bartz, Johannesburg. © Roman Mensing in cooperation with Thorsten Arendt, artdoc.de. We see (from left to right): 

Santu Mofokeng, Denied Access to Graves, 2012, 

Santu Mofokeng, Driefontein Mine with Graves, Mpumalanga (South Africa), 2012, 

Santu Mofokeng, Commondale Plantation with Graves, Piet Retief (South Africa), 2012,

Santu Mofokeng, Commondale Community Farm, Piet Retief (South Africa), 2012, 

Santu Mofokeng, Commondale Graves, Piet Retief (South Africa), 2012, 

Santu Mofokeng, Driefontein Mine, Mpumalanga (South Africa), 2012, 

Santu Mofokeng, Relocated Gravestones, Bohlokong, Bethlehem, Free State (South Africa), 1992.

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