INTERVIEW
Searching for an Identity
Cape Town Today speaks to
rising young artist Sanell Aggenbach about "Blank" her new
exhibit on display at the Association For Visual Arts
until 7 June 2003.
Sanell Aggenbach has not only
been a full time art lecturer since the age of 25, but is
also a prolific artist. Trained as a painter, Aggenbach
embarked upon her fourth solo exhibit searching for new
challenges and swapped the comfort of her paintbrushes for
the unfamiliar territory of tapestry wool. Seven months
later “Blank” was born. “Blank” also marks a shift from
purely decorative art to social commentary and is a
subtle, thought provoking look at the Afrikaner identity
in a democratic South Africa.
“Afrikaner people knew who
they were up until 1994, but who are we now?” Aggenbach
asks.
The title is a cunning
wordplay on the linguistic meanings of the word “blank”.
In Afrikaans it refers to white, in English it means
empty. “The main reason for the title is that it reflects
the disenchantment of South African youth” Aggenbach says,
“That we don’t want to be associated with our past, we
don’t have any positive role models. We’re like a lost
herd.”
“But it’s also quite hopeful”
She adds, “We can start over. We’ve got a nice generation
gap where we don’t have to be associated with our past. We
can reinvent ourselves.”
The concept of the lost herd
is clearly illustrated in “The Collective”, the dominant
artwork in Blank – an installation of 13 life-sized black
sheep staring at a blank tapestry. Black represents a
sense of guilt for the past, the number 13 for its ominous
undertones.
The other main artwork is
entitled “Pride”- because Afrikaners have always had a
sense of pride in the volk, Aggenbach feels. Here she
makes intelligent use of diametrically opposed tapestries
– on the one wall she has a complete landscape in shades
of gray inspired by Pierneef and Hugo Naudé. The faded
grey tones represent the past. “This tapestry represents
the Afrikaner culture of the past. Opposing it is a broken
mirror image of the same landscape. This represents how we
see our heritage as adults” Aggenbach says.
Aggenbach believes that
Afrikaners are faced with two choices: To be associated
with the past, or reinvent themselves and move forward.
Perhaps this is a choice
South Africans of all cultures are faced with.
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