ART EXHIBIT

"Teeth are the Only Bones That Show" by Athi Patra Ruga

Venue: What if the World... 208 Albert Rd, Woodstock. Tel: (021) 448 1438.
Gallery Hours: Tue - Fri: 10:00am - 5:00pm, Sat: 10:00am - 2:00pm
Duration: 5 Oct 2010 -

In this exhibition Athi-Patra Ruga elaborates on an already dense personal iconography informed by influences as diverse as pop culture, theology, performance, ritual, and sociopolitical concerns. He presents us with visual propositions that challenge definitions of masculinity and highlight contemporary South African issues around sexuality, wealth, race and consumerism as a framework for identity. Mixing beach balls, Lamborghinis, French baroque, BEE, Cape Flats gangsters, Louis Vuitton, and Xhosa initiation rites, Ruga blends these seemingly disparate elements into his portrait of a complex and fluid society.

Camp aesthetics form an integral part of Ruga’s frame of reference. Camp is defined as a complex affectation in dress, personal manner, style, language, and humor, all marked by exaggeration, insult, extravagance, and a satiric sense of the ludicrous and the artificiality of social convention, both gay and straight. Ruga’s Camp is a sophisticated and satirical viewpoint that forms both statement and critique.

article continues below

Ruga raises critical arguments around conventional perceptions of masculinity, particularly with reference to his own position as a Xhosa man, traditional initiation rites and the practice of circumcision. Whilst voicing an earnest protest in some respects (against unnecessary deaths due to arcane traditional practices) Ruga also offers a satirical critique of the “rite of passage” which seems to have become par for the course for many young black male South African Artists – what Ruga has called a fixation on “permanent Afro-Traditionalist themes.”

In Teeth are the only bones that show… Ruga moulds the exotic and the mythologized into surreal, often homoerotic portraits which combine traditional references particularly to the figure of the Illuwane* with modern myth and fantasy as referenced through film music and fashion. In a practice that engages multiple modes of production and conceptual approaches, Ruga creates a dynamic global position; one that whilst referencing South African issues of place and identity is not constrained to cliché and stereotype.

go to art main menu