‘Pose and Repose’: a musical haunting from the Ginsburg brothers

July 12th, 2012 — kim gurney

THE HAUNTED sounds of a bamboo saxophone drifted through the half-open door of the Bag Factory Artists’ Studios this morning in an unannounced art intervention conceived by sibling duo Jared Ginsburg and Josh Ginsburg and performed by Stompie Selibe.

Pose and Repose, approximately 10 minutes in duration, was improvised on Thursday morning in the gallery of the Bag Factory by Selibe in response to a minimalist score composed by the Ginsburg brothers. This followed weeks of long-distance collaboration between the artists, exchanging ideas between Johannesburg and Cape Town about how the play might unfold. The work forms part of the group exhibition ‘Sounding Out’, which runs at the Bag Factory until July 18 to broadly explore the intersection of contemporary music and visual art.

Selibe entered the gallery space as a ghost-like character, an echo of ‘The Brotherhood of Breath’, a famous band formed in the 1960s that fluidly comprised free jazz musicians based in London at the time. Selibe stood on a case fashioned as a plinth and performed Pose and Repose - essentially a riff on a composition in which direction relates to orientation in space and breathwork rather than musical notation. The piece began at a measured pace but picked up melody as the performer inhabited the work and made the score his own. When he considered the score complete, he picked up his plinth and exited the gallery.

Pose and Repose was facilitated by the curator but occurred unannounced as per the artists’ intent. It was documented by the gallery’s internal security cameras and the curator’s audio equipment. It forms the first in a series of new work for the Ginsburg brothers.

Imagining a new world: Neo Muyanga and ‘The Flower of Shembe’

July 8th, 2012 — kim gurney

THE IMAGINING of a new world is imperative and is a revolutionary strategy that we must apply with vigour, according to composer-librettist Neo Muyanga.

Muyanga was addressing a Wits University audience in a presentation on July 7 about his operetta The Flower of Shembe. This mythic tale about faith and destiny, loosely based on the lives of various messiahs, made its Johannesburg debut on July 6 at the Dance Factory in Newtown, after opening in Cape Town in May.

Muyanga elaborated, in response to a question about funding: “Artists always think we are especially oppressed but physicists have the same problem. The response from business is often how will it feed the hungry and [its value is] not immediately apparent.” But this was no reason to stop imagining a new world. The Flower of Shembe even embraces a sort of ‘art povera’ aesthetic with a set that includes oversize flowers created from scrap. “How much money do you need? Shouldn’t it be different from a glitzy operatic tradition? The question of funding also impacts on [our] design, which is made from organic found objects,” he added.

Muyanga said he was fascinated by the link music establishes in the world, alikening notation to a kind of journalistic shorthand. He spoke about the storyline of the operetta, demonstrating the fusion of musical principles on which it hinges, aided by members of the cast.

“It’s a story about how difficult it is to love because we are wired to self-preserve, which is a barrier to love,” Muyanga said, in response to a question by Wits academic Liz Gunner. “We live in a very cynical time - this is both frightening and wonderfully open.” Referring to battles between the ruling party and the ANC Youth League about who should be directing policy, he added: “I do wonder whether we need a messiah so our messiah asks this question. The proposal is perhaps we can be the messiah - to transcend the self-preservation sense and to give to the world.”

Questioned by Gunner about what kind of leader might be proposed, Muyanga said: “We have become wired to expect certain talented erudite individuals to have answers so we give them a mandate. I don’t know what the new proposal is. My thinking is circumscribed by the environment. The process is trying to find a clearer question that leads to another paradigm.”

And why call it an operetta, came a question from the floor. “It’s a little bit tongue in cheek,” said Muyanga. “Opera actually started as a working class tradition. We’re interested in working in different styles and aesthetics and interested in allowing people to come along with us … So we give you this definition [as an appeal] to get you in the door and do the rest of the work with you in the situation.” Elaborating about composing between different genres and how discernible they were, Muyanga added: “If you’re not tuned to it, it’s invisible but it is proposed.”

Muyanga currently exhibits characterisation sketches created for The Flower of Shembe on ‘Sounding Out’, a group exhibition at the Bag Factory Artists’ Studios, which runs until July 18.

James Webb gets the world to listen

July 5th, 2012 — kim gurney

Artist James Webb yesterday marked the vernissage of ‘Sounding Out’, a group exhibition at the Bag Factory in Fordsburg, by briefly cutting the gallery’s electricity supply.

In an artwork entitled The World Will Listen, the gallery staff tripped the main switch of the Bag Factory building at a predetermined time Wednesday evening, killing the lights and all electrical current for a period of four minutes and thirty-three seconds.

The intervention instigated by Webb was neither announced nor apologised for, as per the artist’s intent.

The World Will Listen (2005) was created by Webb during a period of rolling blackouts in the Western Cape and has previously been staged unnoticed at another gallery’s exhibition opening. The duration is the key: it echoes the well-known composition 4‘33” by John Cage of silence, whereby a musical score instructs the performer not to play for the duration of the piece.

The World Will Listen shifted the dynamics of ‘Sounding Out’ opening night. Most of the audience congregated outside to continue their conversations, where the ambient sounds of the city became apparent. Others braved the darkness until the lights resumed, some finding alternative light sources from their cellphones, and a few took it as a cue to depart. Most of the audiovisual work had to be restarted afterwards but a couple of battery-powered pieces defied the electricity cut.

Unannounced interventions form part of Webb’s practice and often concern an interest in displacement.

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