Athi-Patra Ruga is nervous. The South African artist is about to give a presentation
of his exhibition “Of Gods, Rainbows and Omission” to a small group at the Arts
Club, a private members club in West London which prides itself on supporting
practitioners of arts, literature and sciences since its inception in 1863. It is not
an attempt to be funny, Ruga does indeed look flustered: his eyes dart across the
room and his voice is delicate and hesitant, a complete contrast to the
confidence and alert worldliness apparent in his interviews on Youtube.
“Of Gods, Rainbows and Omissions” was the lead exhibition for the 2018 edition
of 1:54 Contemporary Art Fair at Somerset House held in October and will remain
open all through to January 2019. The top billing added to the sociopolitical heft
of his subject matter (blackness, womanhood and queer-dom), and the bold
colour and physicality of his works made for a real spectacle and talking point all
through the fair. So why therefore is Ruga nervous to give an intimate listening
session to a group of ready admirers?
He does not say but the goes on to give an hour-long overview of the exhibition
which turns out to be a unification of his body of work: “The Future White Women
Of Azania (2012-15), Queens In Exile (2015-17) and the ongoing series “The
BEATification Of Feral Benga (2017 – )”. The anchor for the evening is Zarina
Muhammad, an art critic and co-host of White Pube podcast whose breath ofquestions to Ruga reveals biographical information that illuminates Ruga’s
presentation of his work like his admission that “I did flower making, cobblery
and hat-making in fashion school” which would explain the ornamental detailing
in his works if he didn’t readily admit to it: “it’s intentional. I’m an aesthete”.
An “aesthete” he might be but the word is also a lofty way to claim what is loud
and garish palette from the low assignation given to works of surface beauty and
little depth. If there is one obvious quality to Ruga’s works and thinking, it is
depth, given the copious art and historical references, most of it self taught, he
packs into his works, during the hour-long presentation and hour-long interview.
Ruga’s lack of institutional art conventions is one he wears like a badge of honour.
There is also the added burden of being an openly gay artist: “I know from my
experience within the art industry, people would just look at the work and say
‘it’s very gay. Moving on’. And this happened to me recently”.
Discrimination based on a simple biological fact is regressive today as it’ll ever
be. But less defensible is the wilful ignorance of art education. Is Ruga
masquerading this lack as indifference? “You’re taught about the whole cannon
[but] then on the last day of your last hour of the last semester of your last year
of your PHD, you get to learn about feminist art and black art”.
—
The next day, Ruga arrives Somerset House for our interview dressed down in a
fitted grey tracksuit and carrying a small hold-all. This is his one appointment in
London, he tells me, before his flies back to South Africa later in the afternoon.
Rather than an interview in any of the gallery’s cafes, Ruga offers and in fact
proceeds to give a personal tour of his exhibition.First is “The Lands Of Azania” (2014- 2094)”, a redrawn map of the countries
along the horn of Africa tapestried into a free-hanging sloped square and bearing
repurposed names: Uganda is depicted as “Sodom” as a pointed barb to the
country’s homophobic laws; Yemen is stylised to imply “semen”; the ancient
Kingdom of Kush becomes “Bubba Kush” and is also a playful reference to the
strain of cannabis common along the Afghan-Pakistan border; “Nu Nubia” is titled
so “because Arab Spring happened and we want to imagine a new place for
them”.
“The Lands Of Azania” is one of thirteen such tapestries in the entire exhibition
which Ruga refers to as “monuments” or “interventions on a surface” made in
petit point using wool, threads and especially Lurex yarn in metallic gold and
silver which give the “monuments” a dramatic uplift that would seem overly
ornate. The gleam and glitter adorning the surface of Ruga’s work may be a draw,
the common concert is the championing of marginalised peoples and lands,
especially in a South Africa which less than three decades ago was in the grips of
apartheid. Till this day, the majority of land in the country is owned by whites
and only a complete transfer of ownership will bring about reconciliation.
“Nothing will be complete” says Ruga “until the land is back”.
—
The only work on display in the third room is a 10 minute video installation titled
“Over The Rainbow (Queen Of Exile Series)” and features Ruga resplendent in a
flowing gold dress and helmeted crown in front of a pair of mirrors framed with
light bulbs. In one scene, the images of South African political and cultural figuresthat include Steve Biko, Brenda Fassie, Winnie Mandela (but not Mandela himself)
occupy the helmeted crown. In other scenes, Ruga is slowly undressed by a group
of costumes women in a slow and ritualistic fashion. A voiceover in Ruga’s deep
bass is musing cryptically when a photo ID of an elderly woman is brought into
view: “that’s my grandmother’s dompass” blurts out Ruga. He says this with
evenness of tone and free of bitterness but the response to the passing image is
instant. Ruga’s one physical image of his grandmother is also one of the ugliest
legacies of apartheid.
Both of Ruga’s grandmothers worked as maids for white families after their
husbands left to work in the cities. “Her story is very uplifting at the end of the
day” says Ruga “but her story was never deified”. At the end of her servitude, she
was returned to the Bantustans in the Ciskei where, along with her sister, she
bought cows with her savings and began dairy farming.
Ruga was born in 1984 to a journalist father and midwife mother both of whom
were social activists pre- and post-apartheid. Ruga tells me of a time when his
mother was interrogated in a department store for having a credit card,
uncommon for a black woman. “She lost it and tore the office up” says Ruga with
relish though relieving the moment “those moments for me were so empowering
instead of embarrassing”.
The lasting impression the charged event had on young Ruga is today source
material for a personal manifesto: “I’m a womanist in the blackest sense of the
word”. Decrying the feminine rate in is one such instance and one which
Nkosinathi Mthethwa, minister for arts and culture said in June 2017 is “five
times more than the global rate”.To Ruga, this is fostered by entrenched patriarchy and the emasculation many
men experience as the number of educated and financially independent women in
South Africa keeps rising. “This is also because we don’t talk about women and
their contribution to the liberation struggle” adds Ruga.
—
The chief spectacle of “Of Gods, Rainbows and Omissions” is “At the End of the
Rainbow We Look Back” an imposing sculpture in a heroic pose made from a cast
of Ruga’s body emulating a pose by Feral Benga (1906 – 1957), the Senegalese
dancer who was courted by the Harlem Renaissance and was a famed performer
at Folies Bergere in France of the 1920s. Made by hand-appliqué, the three-
breasted figure is set on a mirror surrounded by 15 yellow light bulbs, every bit of
its body bedecked with crystals and petalled with artificial flowers in white, gold
and red. The work is meant as an act of veneration for the forgotten icon of black
male performance and is from current series titled “The Beatification Of Feral
Benga”.
The dismantling of received history and old values, and the experimentation with
source materials that is key to modernism come under Ruga’s scrutiny. Picasso’s
adoption of African masks and the distinct abstract-fragmentation it introduced
to his work in the 1900s is regarded as the birth of modernist art, an influence
the Italian painter would deny later in life. “His racism is celebrated as the birth
of modernism” says Ruga who is equally unsparing of postmodernism: “it is a
white male construct and a way to feel better about things without redressing”.I ask Ruga what exactly abstraction is. He pauses for a second and then comically
pretends to be squiggling on canvas while explaining an invented piece of work
with feigned seriousness. His comic timing is unexpected and spot on and so,
hilarious. “It [abstraction] gives me nothing to chew on” he goes on, “it is for rich
white boys or black guys trying to eat at that table ignoring that there are things I
can say explicitly”.
In total, “Of Gods, Rainbows and Omissions” is a fully realised vision of a singular
artistic imagination and a fearless subversion of histories, received or factual.
The physicality of bold colours and sizeable proportions make for unsubtle works
that could overwhelm the senses. But when considered along with the legacy of
abstention and disenfranchisement of the black and queer, women and
empowerment, they acquire undeniable agency.
“I don’t think that art can change the world, I really don’t” says Ruga leading me
out of Somerset House “but I think art can give people courage to then, with their
agency, change how they react to situations and how to basically get their power
back”.