Contemporary African Masks and Converse Clichés
Botswana National Museum and Art Gallery
April-August 2007
Thirty-two images of students at Maru-a-Pula School putting on an identity for a day are hung on the outside wall of the National Museum and Art Gallery. The exhibition is both documentation of contemporary repertoires of identity and commentary on national identity and belonging.
The top twelve images (excepting Rasta II) are printed 3m x 2m and hung on the walls that face Independence Avenue, one of Gaborone's main drags. They are vandalized with a razor the first night they are on display. I then take a dialogical approach and aesthetically incorporate the vandalization into the work. A local newspaper prints the headline, "Art Fights Back!"
The other twenty-one are printed 1.8m x 1.2m (approximately life-size) and mounted to the inner walls of the museum.
The images - these kids - appropriated subjectivity within a space of governmental narrative authority. That is, they took the museum.
All of the original images are now in the National Museum and Art Gallery's permanent collection.
Pirate, 2006
Ballerina, 2006
Cameraman, 2006
Justice, 2006
Pimp, 2006
Purse, 2006
Rasta I, 2006
Rasta II, 2006
The Dude, 2006
Too Hip, 2006
Tsotsi I, 2006
Tsotsi II, 2006
Let Loose, 2006
Little G, 2006
Right Here, 2006
Nurse, 2006
Schoolgirl, 2006
Balloon, 2006
Bandana, 2006
Nuclear Bomb, 2006
As A Boy, 2006
As A Girl, 2006
Bulletproof, 2006
Chuck Taylors, 2006
Ballerevil, 2006
Funeral Lady I, 2006
Funeral Lady II, 2006
Funeral Lady III, 2006
Headband, 2006
Midget, 2006
Domestic Help, 2006
Kiss, 2006
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THE DIALOGUE
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