EXHIBITIONS: Opening speech on the Introduction to Avashoni Mainganye Retrospective Exhibition at Polokwane Art Museum as part of the 9th Annual Polokwane Literary Fair 2021 by Khehla Chepape Makgato

Good evening everyone!

It is a great honour to welcome you all to the launch of a retrospective exhibition of a South African multi-talented cultural worker today at the Polokwane Art Museum presence of such an incredible audience. I particularly like to welcome the family of Avashoni Mainganye, fellow workers in the cultural sector, consumers of our work and the curator of the museum Mr Mokgabudi Amos Letsoalo and his team. I'd like to further extent my heartfelt gratitude to Mr Malose Lekganyane and his team at Polokwane Literary Fair for inclusion of the exhibition item on their 9th Annual festival. I am most grateful that you all made it to this auspicious occasion as we celebrate and honour one of our humble elders in the visual arts landscape from the province.

Avashoni Mainganye busy with his sculpture at Polokwane Art Museum in November 2021. Pic: Khehla Chepape Makgato

We are here tonight to honour Avhashoni Ntsengeni Mainganye whose clan name is Mundalamo; this clan was the custodians of a sacred drum of the Va Venda.  Before I go further with my speech about this great man, may you kindly allow me to highlight few important facts about Morena Mainganye, afford me this moment to briefly unpack his two names. I am enticed to give them artistic expressions in relation to who he has become over the years. Without any protest, Bra Shoni is a custodian of the VhaVenda artists and their heritage, a similar role his people used to carry when it comes to the sacred drum.

In the African context, naming a child is a sacred occasion equivalent to that of wedding, koma, and death. The naming of a child could also play a role of social custodianship in that the name may capture the happenings at birth. His birth was accompanied by a huge hailstorm on 17th October 1957 in his village of Phiphidi, a name of Water Fall supplied by Mutshundudi River near Thohoyandou which is reputed for its dense forest. His second name Ntsengeni speaks fluently to his interrogation on his multifaceted talents enshrined in his life. This name was overshadowed by Avashoni, which we affectionately shorten it for Bra Shoni.

Today is a great privilege for us all here to converge in one spirit of celebrating the veteran cultural worker of many caps such as printmaker, poet, sculptor, painter, mentor, teacher and social activist. We are thankful to the Polokwane Literary Fair and Polokwane Art Museum for introducing the public to one of the living art masters from the province of Limpopo.

Who is Avashoni Mainganye? To me personally Bra Shoni as we call him, is one of the elders in the arts who held my hand when I was just starting out. I first knew about him from my friend and colleague Jan Tshikhuthula back in Joburg at Artist Proof Studio during my art college days. Jan spoke so fondly of this great man that I wanted to one day meet him. He taught and mentored Jan and many others to the extent of securing him a place at one of the reputable art institutions in the country, APS. Later I had an honour to see Avashoni's work live when I interned at David Krut Printshop Gallery in Parkwood Johannesburg. I was fascinated particularly by his collages and sculptures and some prints when I manned the storeroom. It is appropriate to punctuate that Bra Shoni took it upon himself to introduce to the Johannesburg art landscape great sculptors from the province, particularly women and men of woodwork from Venda. Notably Mme Noria Mabasa came to prominence along with many other great sculptors owing to Morena Mainganye’s introductions.

 

I would like to remind everyone here tonight that Bra Shoni is one of the few artists from the province who attended Rock's Drift, the only art school that opened its doors to train black artists at the time. The other artists included Phineas Monyepao and later James Mphahlele. The most unknown great watercolourist from this province in a village in Nzhelele is Kenneth Thabo who went there before Shoni and the other three.

Talking about producers of art, the Late Okwui Enwezor, Nigerian born global curator and art historian once observed that “Artists have a lot of meaning they produce that can allow us to look at the world in deeper, meaningful and more probing ways." This brings me to a point I needed to highlight about Polokwane Literary Fair which for the past years took a huge interest in making inclusion of the visual arts in their programs, amid repeated quarrels from writers. Of course there are many reasons why people should care about art, first and foremost because artists have a lot of important things to say, a lot of important subjects to explore. So, I do feel that people should care about art, not only because of the fact that art necessarily changes the world. I like to think about what I do and the way I work with artists as a position of learning and truly engaging the substance of their thinking, their concepts and the material that come together to produce the kind of effect that art conveys.

In the past two days I had the privilege of engaging with Bra Shoni and other colleagues and we agree that we learned so much from each other. Young artists who were part of the roundtable discussions with bra Shoni where Khanyisa, Kgodisho and Sehloroana. From all the engagements I concluded that art matters in many, many different ways, and I think it’s both in the large and small ways, that one can begin to see the utility of art not as something to be appropriated as propaganda or for ideological purposes, but the utility of art as a learning tool, as a teaching tool, but also as a way for the public to learn how to expand their view of the world.

The introduction or launch of his upcoming retrospective exhibition in 2022 at this very museum runs in parallel with Feminism Ya Mang exhibition by Goethe Institute. If you go throughout the exhibition, what is obvious is that the artist Bra Shoni, has engaged subject feminism. Artists are people who interrogate the relationship between form and meaning, something that’s essential, but also deeply engaging for the public at large as we will see with the panel discussions in the auditorium. The works in the exhibition span various mediums, a clear indication that it is a showcase of a veteran artist who expands the language of his visions through different mediums. We have here paintings, collages, monotypes and sculptures which variously take their form of visual storytelling. Take for an example the piece on your right as you enter the exhibition installation, it is dedicated to singer and songwriter Busi Mhlongo. Here you marvel at the semi-realism poetic portraiture that Bra Shoni has mastered. The piece is a collage medium made from election posters he collected after the 2004 elections. In his words about collage he remarked that collage to him means is a cleansing of the industrial garbage.

The most obvious abstract pieces in this exhibition intersects the modernity and ancient African traditions of visual arts. Shoni grew up looking at master muralists in his village, specifically women who painted the houses and merako using earth mixed with cow dung. This wall painting was a prestige reserved only for women. Though in some areas of South Africa this art form was not documented to the fullest as we see with the famous Ndebele paintings reputed for its colourful patterning, Shoni is reminding us in his small pastel impressions that mural as a medium has stood the test of time. African women used these vibrant symbols and expressions to portray communications of personal prayers, self-identification, values, emotions, and marriage.

 

Bra Shoni as a son of a spiritual healer, his work is spiritually rooted in African philosophy and ideologies. When you look at his sculptures in the exhibition, your curiosity is taken to task in trying to imagine the well-seasoned wood he used. There are two tall sculptures that stood out for me in this instalment particularly because they are a tribute to his mother who told him stories. In total the sculptures paying homage to his mother are three because the third one is the twin figured one renders two realms of life. In it we see a figure looking inward with hands holding the breasts - which may be a symbol of nourishment, nurturing and protection. Whereas on the other hand the other figure may represents a guardian angel looking out for those on this earth. Also there is a piece called Jolie which is dedicated to Bra Shoni's daughter who is Julia but Bra Shoni's mother Masindi could not say Julia and resorted to Jolia.

Before I conclude my remarks on this launch, I would like to take delight in briefly two mention the different trees he used. There is Morula, Mopani, Mohweleretshipi and leadwood that the sculptures in the exhibition were sculpted from. It would be a great idea to expand on these processes and man’s ideas in a comprehensive monograph book that would accompany the actual retrospective exhibition next year.

 In closing allow me to declare the exhibition open. Talk about this exhibition among your friends and colleagues and feel free to bring your family here on a family outing for the duration of this exhibition. Of course it is equally important to make mention of the fact that all the artworks in this exhibition are for sale, with exception of one or two pieces that are Shoni's personal collection.

I thank you.