(Self Defence Art Assemblage. Found Objects
by Peter Ford)
The
KZNSA Gallery will host Peter Ford's first solo show, Accid3nt of Place, opening on March 20.
Accid3nt of Place refers to the tradition of Dada
or Dadaism within art history - the avant-garde movement in the early 20th
Century that rejected the logic, reason and aestheticism of modern capitalist
society. Dada has become synonymous with the creative process as being
‘accidental’. Dada offered a further rejection of the conventions of high art
which stresses laborious technique and action. The exhibition title also refers
to the idea that this artist’s body of work could only have been produced in
South Africa. Artworks and the exhibition installation are an exploration of
our social and political landscape and as such are presented as a
cultural/artistic tool of resistance.
Exhibition
Curator Bren Brophy notes, “As a South African I am typically drawn to
contemporary artwork which is socially conscious, ideologically savvy and in
tune with our peculiar post-colonial historical context. I am most often
disappointed by the allure of meaningful and relevant art making only to
discover that beneath the thin exterior veneer lays a selfish and naive
artistic psyche. Emerging Durban artist Peter Ford succumbs to none of these
pitfalls. His new body of work, in spite of its obvious self-assurance offers
an honest, guttural, humble even, insight into the fraught realities that neo
colonial arts practitioners face within an often violent, displaced and
conflicted ‘African’ identity”.
Ford
speaks to these lived realities by investigating his personal responses to
South African vernacular culture. He uses found objects, the detritus of middle
class culture, combining them with his formal more traditional art making –
painting, drawing and sculptures - to produce works that at once deconstruct
and reconstruct. Ford’s abiding interest in sign writing leads him to explore
typography and text within the context of street culture and indigenous
vernacular language.
The
titles of Ford’s new works offer a
chilling glimpse into the artists personal actions and reactions to a social
reality that is often less ‘African Renaissance’ and more ‘Paradise lost’. Binners, (found wooden church crucifix
with beggars streets signs), Self Defence
Art, (assemblage with sheath for hidden steel panga, a bush cutting tool,
but also in South Africa considered a ‘traditional’ weapon).
Ford’s
formal arts training, (Btech Fine Arts, Durban University of Technology), roots
his practice in the visual language, as such his works operate on both an
aesthetic and conceptual level. They straddle both the ‘subversion’ of artistic
cannons and political correctness.
The
artist questions but does not abandon his faith in line, form, colour,
composition but rather subverts the often-perceived facile intentions of
Western European conventions of ‘high’ art’. His work resists the sentimental
temptation to be ‘meaningful’ by way of offering to correct an incorrect world.
In this way the artist gleans ... ’collects that which is lost and
forgotten’... the materials that society has abandoned to reconfigure their
meaning and significance. The gravitas of Ford’s new work lies not in the
innocence of discovery and the experimentation with non-traditional materials
but in the unrelenting determination to be authentic to both his artistic and
technical pedigree whilst also remaining true to an, at times, less than artful
harsh reality. It’s the stuff that history will remember and therein lies the
rub.
Accid3nt of Place opens at 17h30 on March 20 and
will run in the KZNSA’s Main and Mezzanine Galleries until April 9.
Eden
College Durban will also be opening their exhibition, Images of Human Rights, in KZNSA’s The Glass Box and Cafe stairs
area. This will also run until April 9.
The
KZNSA Gallery is situated at 166 Bulwer Road, Glenwood, in Durban. More
information on 031 277 1705, fax 031 201 8051 or cell 082 220 0368 or visit
www.kznsa.co.za
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