Mixed Messages
16.10.19 - 10.11.19
To appreciate BKhz’s new group exhibition, you must be prepared to savour language in its complexities. Eleven artists working in different media addressing disparate topics that demonstrate their diverse considerations of the role of language in their works. Through BKhz’s curatorial choice of these artists and the method through which they employ text in their work it’s apparent how this could begin to facilitate for a "mixing of messages". This exhibition illuminates how language is uniquely elevated in the search for new, different, and effective forms of artistic expression and communication.
The texts in the selected works range from being straight-forward in meaning to short, abstract and humorous philosophical musings about identity, religion, sexuality and politics. Too often, the language that has a monopoly of the
imagination is English, but in this show, a range of South African languages – Xhosa, Zulu, etc - are evoked for their philosophical ruminations about life and humanity. Placing words and images in the same perceptual space is not as
easy as it looks.
There are moments amongst some of the contributors of a clear rejection to the easy prescribed meanings of language, as they create their own invented languages that blur the line. Mixed Messages is an exhibition by artists making work
through the merging of ideas, methods and materials across mediums. Thinking through the multiple uses of text and to explore their themes, and how this could encourage for conversation which is rich with complications, allowing for a variety of contributions that have the potential of complexifying ideas present in one artwork in relation to another.
Featuring work by: Banele Khoza, Ed Young, Katlego Tlabela, Brett Seiler, Nelson Makamo, Oratile Papi Konopi, Vuyolwethu Ndakisa, Lwando Dlamini, Heidi Fourie, Saneliswe Nkonyane, Mitchell Gilbert Messina