It was a windless, calm evening as I walked down to South African National Gallery (SANG) to attend Penny Siopis’s retrospective opening. It was good to get out. I had been spending too much time in front of my paintings. It left me feeling dead. I had to take a break. That morning I had painted the kitchen white. It was therapeutic painting it white, the thick PVA that filled the cracks.
Outside the gallery there was a calm feeling that comes with an evening walk. People were sitting on the granite that felt warm after a day of hot sun. Christian Nerf and Kathryn Smith were the two people I recognized and I talked to Kathryn about the weather. She said the speeches had already started. She took puffs of her hand made cigarette. The paper was black, the liquorice kind. I went in to see if I could hear the rest of the speeches. I passed Megnah Singh and greeted her briefly. She introduced me to Simon her new boyfriend. I knew him from another mutual friend. The conversation dried up quiet fast and Megnah walked off in another direction, I moved on.
In the next room the density of people was increasing. The level grew to blockage at the next door. There were to many people and I couldn’t really hear. I saw Rael Salley behind me and walked up to him and passed on into what used to be the iziko shop. There was no one there to talk to and Rael hadn’t followed me into the x-shop this meant the conversation was non existent and I moved on. I remembered Loren the past owner of the business housed there. She had moved to Church Street. The space felt quiet dead without her energy.
I went outdoors and chatted with Kathryn who had been joined by Kirsty Cockrill. As usual I hung around unacknowledged till I interjected something into the conversation. I did not get much response so just nodded and agreed with all the wise words being said. Kathryn said she was going inside and I went with her. I felt a bit like I was a component latched on to her. She seemed to have a docking station that Kirsty did not have. As I walked with her through the opening and I met Anja. We chatted about Pennies paintings. She had a dash of peacock blue hair. Later we talked about hair extensions.
I continued walking into the next room and saw James Nilsen Misra. I had to say hello and he introduced me to his mother who looked like him. Then we chatted about the speech and he said Kentrigde had said the idea behind the video was pivotal to the entire exhibition. I stood infront of it and tried to watch it. Then I calmed down and started to really take it in. The narrator was a middle aged/class white woman. The footage was old archival footage of a middle class white women with young virile traditional African dancers around. She was watching them. The narrative is written in text under the images. The violence of her context leads to her death. Then the teller of the story is no longer part of it, rather a floating voice. The video is no longer sequential but instead seems to skip between cultures and time periods in a non-sequential order. The minds eye begins to float outside of the body allowing a poetry to shines through. A dream like sequence unravels. It came to an end and I moved on.
The next room had a wall full of objects. I sat looking at them for a while. Loving the richness of texture and pattern of the real forms the generosity and abundance in the way they covered the entire wall. I went to Andrew Lamprecht and Raynier Matthee and greeted them. I pointed out the stuffed duck and touched it to check if it was real. The feathers felt soft on the hard leather body. There was a little conversation but my latching/docking function seemed to be over ridden so I moved on.
I walked past Pennies photographic self-portrait series. I liked those. Then I moved to the courtyard. There I spoke to Jeannette Unite. I met another student I recognized from UNISA workshops. We chatted a while. Jeanette then started a conversation with Premesh Lalu, professor of History at UWC. He was carrying a paper bag. I asked if I could look inside and found Pennie's catalogue. I paged through it, it was a substantial book. I started to see catalogues everywhere. People were asking Penny to sign their copy. Queues of catalogues and their owners were lining up for signatures. I couldn’t afford a copy so went to find myself a glass of wine instead.
The last conversation I had in the gallery was with Frankie, I knew her from Yoga with my Ex boyfriends mother. I had not realized that both her parents were artists. We spoke about different styles of yoga and what fits who and why. A friend of hers lingered and she introduced him to me. She introduced me as Reuben’s ex girlfriend. I mentioned I was an artist as well and how lovely it was that Reuben had a child and that rounded off the evening. I left the inner courtyard into the open evening air.
Vuyile Voyiya was sitting on the granite slab outside the
gallery, it was cooler now in the darkness. We talked about walking and how
important it was to exercise. He said he had walked up signal hill to listen to
Marimba players. I asked if the marimba players were near Christopher Swifts
solar powered star. It was good to see Vuyile in a relaxed social setting on a
beautiful night. It was still outside and the light reflected off the fish pond
and the city was silhouetted against the mountain in the distance. Max Wolpe
offered me a lift home and I accepted.
