‘The “So Called” Emerging Black Artist:’ Exhibition Review by Chepape Makgato
The “So Called” Emerging Black Artist’ is a group exhibition featuring three prominent South African artists; Professor Pitika Ntuli, Mbongeni Buthelezi and Vusi Mfupi at the Constitution Hill, Hillbrow Johannesburg. Curated by Gaisang Sathekge, this well-timed exhibition questions the ‘perpetual emergence’ of black artists in art history by pulling together artists who work within the recycling process to reinterpret discarded objects in order to give them a new life and meaning. Khehla Chepape Makgato visited the exhibition and spoke with the curator and artists involved. Photographs by Khehla Chepape Makgato. According to Sathekge, this group show “addresses the way black artists, within art historical canon, have been stereotyped and their subject matter and style understood only within the framework of terminology such as township art or ‘folk-art’ while their white counterparts dominated and continue to dominate the industry economically.” The resulting exhibition is