A South African in the White Cube of Kunsthalle Bern
Kay Hassan’s show at the Kunsthalle Bern is an outstanding moment in this artist’s oeuvre. It also contradicts Northern/Western viewers’ expectations of contemporary African art. There is a multiplicity of – clearly distinct – media: paper constructions in the lobby and main gallery, i.e. the central axis of the Kunsthalle; video projections in the lateral galleries on the right; and installation with eyeglasses in the lateral gallery on the left. The presentation is „tidy“, clear, almost minimalist. What does this mean? Has Kay Hassan perhaps entered a serene, „classical“ stage in his career? Has he integrated his works into the beautiful, ideal spaces of the Kunsthalle? Might we even be witnessing a decline of the critical/political potential of his work?1 I don’t think so. Kay Hassan has developed a more subtle idiom by adopting various viewpoints to approach the problems of his country in a less direct, less „radical“ way. Moreover, he has begun to address the difficult relationships between North and South. It is a style that leaves non-African viewers all the more thoughtful.
In the spacious entrance gallery the visitors are faced with masks, with facelessness. Identity is at stake when masks, both doubles and negations of (true) faces, are involved. In these „posters“ Kay Hassan not only superimposes Western-style advertising images – „global“ icons – on the touristic standard product of „tribal culture“, the mask, he also turns advertising messages into symbols of our society, adding his ironic comments, „You deserve it“, and „You enjoy it“. He mixes African and European/American identities, and he transforms them into their opposite, underscoring discontinuities caused by rampant internationalisation.
In no way does Hassan celebrate „local colour“. Rather, he places South Africa into a global context: Johannesburg is only one of many cities in the southern hemisphere that testifies to the incredible vitality and mobility of its inhabitants. And when he splices an unbearably long take from Berne’s drug scene (with the provocative title, „Sit Down and Enjoy“!) into a video, he signals that problems such as drug addiction, joblessness and homelessness are not the exclusive preserve of Africa. His installation with showcases full of thousands of second-hand pairs of eyeglasses also addresses the problematic relationship between North and South. The accumulation of these visual aids, exported by well-intentioned Europeans, not only transforms them into a work of art (as well as transforming their value!)2, they also become opaque. In other words, these eyeglasses ultimately obstruct our view on the world. In the main gallery of the Kunsthalle, Hassan’s wall-size paper constructions – figures created in rough yet brilliant collage of pieces of paper torn from advertising posters3 – are illusions. At first glance, they promise idylls, states of paradise. The technique of tearing apart and gluing together again, however, reflects the situation in which post-Apartheid South Africa finds itself, torn between destruction and reconstruction. Giant dark-brown figures on a backdrop of badly chopped-up scenery evoke the issue of land rights: although the figures dominate the land by their sheer size, they are still not an integral part of it.4
Although each piece – video projection, paper construction, show-case full of spectacles as part of the installation on far- and short-sightedness – may be viewed by itself, the attentive visitor will be able to assemble these seemingly disparate elements, but perhaps into a semantic cluster rather than into a clear message. There are related motifs, such as the eye at the centre of the large paper construction, the eyes in the Chanel make-up posters which, in the „Storybook“ video, serve as wallpaper in township interiors, and the eyes missing from the masks in the entrance gallery. There is a link between the open books in the background of the mask posters, the eyeglasses as a reading aid and the distorted projection of „Storybook“, made to look like the open pages of a book.
The structure of the Berne exhibition by Kay Hassan is characterised by dualities and multiplications, reflections that are real or only hinted at and therefore have to be completed in the viewer’s mind, by oscillations between here and there, North and South, the local and the global, between seeing and reading, various manners of perception, between the ability and the inability to see, between being at home (the green park benches from Berne in front of the video, „Sit Down and Enjoy“) and travelling (the pushcar crammed full of stage props in front of the video, „Storybook“). This structure can be identified as relational, integrating the visitors into the critical discourse and turning them into partners in a problematic web of relationships – partners who can no longer be merely neutral, even though the artist does not stipulate the degree of commitment required of them.
Bernhard Fibicher
[1] On these and similar issues, see Okwui Enwezor’s essay from a post-Apartheid perspective.
[2] For a short summary of the „cultural history“ of eyeglasses, see Konrad Tobler’s essay.
[3] See Regula Tschumi’s essay written after several, extended visits to the artist at his studio.
[4] Despite land reforms pushed through since the abolition of Apartheid in 1994, 87% of all property is still owned by whites, who represent 13% of the total population.