The Unnerving Politics In Ayanda Mabulu’s Art

When do artists express their disdain for political systems governing everyday existence with extractionist impunity and nihilistic tendencies of self-gratification and enrichment? Do artists slash their canvases in rage or somber contemplation of ends, to the means by which devastation is crafted and executed?

A first encounter with Ayanda Mabulu’s work at Kalashnikov Gallery in Braamfontein left my senses unruffled by the splattered angst, and that iconic work depicted none other than the messianic Nelson Mandela laying dead on Winnnie Mandela’s matriarchal lap. 

Her maternal posture, devastated about the loss of sites of their intimate lives, detached from their own historical significance within the hierarchy of political importance; attest to the tone of the artist’s temperament when it comes to shattering social taboos.

The gallery was then dominated by this work amidst the cluttered walls of its miniature maze of rooms that felt more like an underground bunker partitions, and among other were further examinations of the state of a nation in disarray.

And what unnerved me was the artist’s interpretations of the South African mourned stalwart, as a helpless naked lump of ageing flesh slain in a political circus depicted in the assumed meaning of other pieces staring the situation in the countries political trajectory.

 

His many works detailing the fragilities of political egos, their mangled reflections bearing infinite witness to a world in which people and their ideas are captured, stand as testaments that art can jar and rip open scabs of a sedated yet wounded menial populace, faced with indignant barbarity. 

But, there is also a seductive immediacy of a graffiti like improvisation that lingers in paintings such as the LUCKY STAR series, delivering subversive political idioms, dissecting social complexities of this country with a non-hypocritical yet indignant eye.

As it seemed to offer insight into our infamously sycophantic leaders with a distinct penchant for disgust, his works often expose dysfuctionalities of political systems and their violence as the overarching theme that characterise SA in recent years.

The near collage technique that repurpose inherited emblems of power, speaks from framed voices that are personal, yet equally shaped by collective experiences of a despondent populace watching the vulgar comedy of errors engulf the state and the continent at large.

Somewhat a hybrid of western pop art, the art is not conciliatory in any sense but a critical one, shaped by political as well as religious iconography juxtaposed with the ongoing class struggles and mass media violence.

The somewhat multiplied images, amplifying messages that challenge the populist status enjoyed by figures in power, these lucky stars undimmed by scandals are probed by the artist who dares pull the veil from their bare asses.

Within the lineage of dissident art that is politically charged, Ayanda stands as an obscurely relevant artist at the pinnacle of sobering critiques on contemporary climates marked by wars and genocides, curt leaders and exploitation of many by an elite few.

Politically charged yet playfully vulgar gaze, bearing the unseen on canvas as instruments upon which memory relies, these indispensable bodies of men and women of history are laid bare for their nativities and controversies.

Often, his work makes caricatures of struggle stalwarts pitted against the backdrop their other present incarnations, these altered icons of martyrdom (as Winnie and Nelson Mandela were viewed), are slightly vilified by their seemingly unflinching defiance of death and their uncanny stealth for corruption even at old age.

What seems to concern Ayanda is the proliferation of laudatory works that resemble propagandist images of dictators, given undue credit for heroism in the glaring face of starved orphans leering through electric wires around mansion of “liberators of the people”.

Zuma is a perfect muse of imperfection in posture and self-aggrandising actions, his popularity immortalised by his penchant for indigenising mediocre strategies under guise of traditionalism, or the “people’s way”, and Ayanda peels through the facade, exposing cracks in the somewhat enamoured posture of post-apartheid leadership.

His work undeniably presents a microcosm of black Africa as championed by the affluent who passed into their oppressors’ shoes, clones into replicas of western colonial posture without any preamble to make their “new whiteness” comfortable.

Ayanda’s visions become a vessel for the world’s untold, hidden behind decorum and protocols, the sordid betrayals of liberation ideas by men standing on the shoulders of giants whilst pissing the revolutionary tradition down clogged drains.

Each image’s inter-subjectivity cannot be understood solely through habits of subjective references and analysis, the normative recognition of semblances, but only through delving into each figure’s concealed characters. 

Pigments of moral decay and obscene displays of uncensored and callous gluttony, pseudo-machismo suited and seated on pedestals overlooking entangled realities of wealth and poverty; these theme of access and inconspicuous consumption function both symbolically and practically.

Englobing the conscious and the unconscious rebellions aroused by continued plunder by these elites, there are renditions of presidents satirised as the joker or the vampire, images that require a poetic imagination to dissect their meaning.

Resonant meanings are dispersed throughout his work, with newspaper clippings lending factuality, and commercial brands replicas outfitted to expose ulterior, not as outpours rage alone but forms of atonement for being willing victims to the domination of our collective psyche as black South Africans.

Far beyond those serenely majestic landscapes of rurality, this artist seems obsessed with inner mounds of debris left looking like calcified skins on bones exhausted by culling, each painted stroke of a sinew stretching across vast bodies decomposed by greed.

Through his work, the artist reveals diverse metamorphoses of revered personages in light of their current collapse into treachery and self-deification. The characters in his paintings elude traditional thought patterns and categories because they seem other-worldly, although each bearing recognisable resemblance to known figures.

Inspired by mythology, pop, and everyday culture, as well as cultural-historical references, Ayanda continues to carve a niche for art that unravels the seams of those gowns of power, clad by clown in castles usurped through other people’s blood.

 And this uncanny visual device also serves as a microscopic view of the persons concerned, activating their pasts, interweaving it with the present; the artist questioning the art world's rules of engagement with subjects while simultaneously challenging expectations and interpretations.

 

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