The Road of Excess. Ingrid Winterbach
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be full of contrasts, full of concealments, ungraspable. Life is complex. Emotions are complex. Relationships. Has Eddie Knuvelder forgotten about complexity? Aaron thinks he’d still rather look a thousand times at Piero’s Flagellation or his Baptism than at anything more contemporary – the Pieros are so much more mysterious, so much fuller, more complex. Chaotic, trembling, on the edge of chaos. More impenetrable. Painting is a harrowing business, harrowing. It’s a fight to the bitter end. It’s a miracle to come up with something that’s worth the effort, that doesn’t contribute to the growing heap of rubbish and noisy excess out there in the world.
Knuvelder looked at this work, but either he didn’t want to see or he was in fact unable to see. What’s Eddie’s case? Has he been struck blind by an angel of God, or has he come so under the influence of those pig-hoofed assistants that he’s lost any remnant of good judgement, discerning eye, visual acuity. Has he allowed himself to be blinded by the prescriptions of the market, the pressure of gatekeepers, is he caught in the trap of political correctness?
If that which you do is not true, destroy it. If it is not anchored to the canvas, destroy it. In his work, this is Aaron’s bottom line.
Nowadays, he feels he’d rather look at the healing shadow in Masaccio’s fresco The Healing of a Blind Man than at most contemporary work which, under pressure from God knows what, feels itself obliged to address whole arsenals of social issues. Predictable work. Often thin and ill-considered. Visually uninteresting, too, thematically clichéd and above all, PC. There’s a stone in the pit of his stomach and something heavy and relentless in his spirit. Masaccio using light as a physical rather than a metaphysical phenomenon, daring, in this fresco, for the first time ever, to depict shadow! The first-ever painting of shadow! Just the thought of it enables Aaron to breathe more easily. The light, the clarity of space, the gravitas of the figures, the drama of the faces, the wonder of the healing, the colour – all of this gives him a sense of relief, opens up a space in his heart.
*
The next day, Jimmy Harris sits next to him in the front of the car again. This morning he’s swopped his winged sneakers for sandals. His toenails look distressingly short – will he chew them too, once he’s finished tearing his fingernails to the quick? Moeketsi Mosekedi sits silently with his camera in the back of the car. Around them, the moving landscape unfolds. Aaron’s thoughts skip, by turns, from Knuvelder to the two weasels in the car with him, to his own work, and then to the poor, recently departed Josua Reinecke. Aaron knows he can count on it that Stefaans will soon subject Josua, and probably also his poor deceased father, Samuel Reinecke, to an intense, substantial inquest, a profound post-mortem scrutiny. He will follow them right down into the underworld (typical of Stefaans – an Orpheus at large). In his early SMS messages, he was already paving the way for this theme.
As on the previous evening, Aaron feels obliged to keep the conversation going. (For the sake of that swine, Knuvelder. And for what? Out of a kind of perverse pleasure, perhaps, a masochistic self-flagellation?)
“Do you understand Afrikaans?” he asks Moeketsi over his shoulder.
Yes, says Moeketsi, he understands Afrikaans. It’s not for nothing he grew up on the platteland in Mpumalanga. Aaron recalls that phrases and fragments of various European languages make their appearance in Moeketsi’s new work.
“Is your mother still alive,” Aaron asks him.
“Yes, she’s still alive,” he says.
“Does she still live in the same place where you were born?” he asks.
“No, she doesn’t live there any more. She lives in Soweto now.”
“Do you visit her?” he asks.
“Yes, I visit her.”
“Are your parents still alive?” he asks Jimmy.
Jimmy laughs softly. His large body shakes. He’s gnawing at his thumbnail. Yes, they’re still alive. The only time his family knows him is when they need money.
Moeketsi sits quietly in the back of the car. With his head turned to the left, he watches the landscape as it rushes by. He keeps his digital camera at the ready. Seldom, if ever, does he say anything on his own account. This morning Jimmy Harris is more talkative than last night. Loud and eloquent; ready for an argument. For a long while he sits motionlessly, then without warning lifts himself out of his deep reverie and delivers a long, mostly theoretical monologue on some art issue or other or the theory underlying his own work. Aaron can feel the hairs on his neck rising and the sweat in his armpits pricking his skin. Jimmy’s addicted to theory; he gets high on it. Theory has taken the place of art. Aaron’s irritation with this man is extreme. He would love to give him a sideways smack, right on the ear. Tell him to be quiet for the rest of the trip.
The artists in this country who are making art that’s worth the effort are so few and far between he can count them on the fingers of his one hand, Jimmy claims. He’s well on his way now, with an unhealthy blush rising slowly from his neck to his pale green cheeks. He raises his hand for emphasis. From the corner of his eye, Aaron flashes a glance at the hand. Jimmy’s palm is broad, the base of his thumb unusually fleshy (anarchic energy), while his fingers are surprisingly slim, the nails bitten down to the flesh. And who, asks Aaron, does he think these artists are? The few names that Jimmy mentions, Aaron doesn’t recognise.
Moeketsi mentions the name of one, a painter.
Without ceremony, Jimmy announces: “Painting is dead in this country, my friend. There isn’t a single painter here who’s making worthwhile art. Painting in this country lags seriously behind.”
Moeketsi laughs softly and says he still paints.
“Your video work is more cutting edge,” Jimmy says.
Now Knuvelder’s the one who’s coming under fire. Knuvelder’s a pushover, Jimmy reckons. He’s not tough enough in his selection of the artists he exhibits. He’s uninformed; allows himself to be led far too much by unexamined ideas. He’s not intellectually rigorous enough. Doesn’t understand his own preferences and prejudices. (Aaron feels he and Jimmy might agree on this matter, but he suspects they occupy opposite points on the spectrum.) Knuvelder doesn’t take big enough risks. He’s afraid to stick his neck out.
Afraid of what, asks Aaron. That he’ll lose his PC buyers?
Moeketsi laughs quietly in the back of the car.
And his choice for the Berlin exhibition, Aaron queries – is that not daring enough?
It’s okay, says Jimmy.
And the two assistant curators? Aaron presses on.
Stupid, says Jimmy. Uninformed.
(At least on this matter they agree a hundred percent.)
And, Aaron asks Jimmy, does he think Knuvelder’s Berlin exhibition is important?
Yes, it’s important. Important enough. But it’s still not at the forefront, the cutting edge. It’s not yet in the hot spot. Not yet Takashi Murakami. Insufficiently multimedia. A far cry from take no prisoners. Not confrontational enough. It doesn’t challenge his own assumptions stringently. Not enough of an assault on any established high culture.
By now Harris is sporting a deep blush on his otherwise pale cheeks. With his teeth, he tears at one of the bitten-down nails.
Behind, in the back seat, Moeketsi takes pictures of the passing veld, the soft undulations of the hills and dales, the changing cloud formations.
And does his own work satisfy the very high standards he upholds? Aaron asks Jimmy.
He’s working on it, Jimmy says, he’s working on it. Carries on chewing his nails. Tearing them off. Self-mutilation.
Langlaagte, Crown Mines, Mayfair, Aaron thinks. He can imagine the light there in winter, at twilight.
In Mooi River they stop at a Wimpy for something to eat.
Aaron feels slightly unwell. The taste of anaesthetic