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Stevenson is pleased to present INTAKA ENDALA EPHEZU’ KOMKHOMBE OMHLOPHE, a solo exhibition by Paulo Nazareth. Comprising sculpture, installation, drawing, photography and painting, using both naturally occurring and artificial materials, INTAKA ENDALA EPHEZU’ KOMKHOMBE OMHLOPHE spotlights the interplay of paradoxes between the immediate needs of life and the assumed requirements of a modernity governed by global white supremacy.
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The title of this exhibition translates from isiXhosa as ‘an old bird on top of a white rhinoceros’, an idiom that speaks about symbiosis, questioning what is perceived as valuable and what is designated parasitic. In exploring this notion Nazareth uses the maize crop as a foundational metaphor. Black and white species of this crop, first exhibited in the group exhibition my whole body changed into something else and cultivated at the gallery, are installed alongside glass replicas of the plant to highlight the tension of value between the real and the representational. Nazareth writes:
Our society is shaped by both culture and nature. The maize we know today is not natural; transgenic crops have existed for thousands of years, but this practice was only weaponised more recently. Maize became food for constructing labour relations as we know them today. When the enslaved went on hunger strike they were made to eat maize soup or corn porridge by force. I talk about yellow corn because of the ‘yellow fear’, the anti-Asian outlook in the Americas and the West that came from trade between Brazil and Japan in the 1800s. The yellow is about commercial racism.
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In INTAKA ENDALA EPHEZU’ KOMKHOMBE OMHLOPHE, Nazareth introduces new images into his repertoire, including the pink flamingo. Integrated into the artist’s lexicon this bird is offered as an emblem of safety. Known for moving only when threatened, its assured presence in INTAKA ESEFESTILENI, a pyramidal installation constructed with polenta corn and wild bird seed, is offered as a totem of safe harbour for the marginal and migratory.
This is Nazareth’s second solo exhibition with Stevenson, following PHAMBI KWENDLOVU in Cape Town in 2019, and is his first in the gallery’s Johannesburg space.
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Paulo Nazareth: INTAKA ENDALA EPHEZU' KOMKHOMBE OMHLOPHE
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