Charl Blignaut : Cultural sushi
Perhaps the most remarkable work on the Johannesburg biennale is the installation of the embassy of an imaginary country called Elgaland-Vargaland. It was created by artists Carl Michael von Hausswolff and Leif Elggren, who move into town for major art shows, swear in new citizens, issue passports and even select ambassadors. The most astonishing thing about the project is that citizens of Elgaland-Vargaland have actually used their fake passports to gain access to countries all around the world, without getting arrested. South Africa’s chosen ambassador was biennale organiser Bongi Dhlomo-Mautloa, sworn in at the biennale opening.
Time out!
Which is, all things considered, a damn sight more respect than was paid to Dhlomo- Mautloa at the opening of the South African-French millennium festival in Nantes, France, last week. She was supposed to share the hour-long opening address with the South African National Gallery’s Marilyn Martin. But Martin launched into a history of South African art, and by the time the hour (and the audience’s patience) was up, Dhlomo-Mautloa had yet to get a word in edgeways.
Thanks but no thanks
Dhlomo-Mautloa would empathise with singer Patti Smith, “the grandmother of punk”. At last week’s Q Awards for music in London, Smith was called upon to accept the 1997 Inspiration Award. This was handed over by U2’s Bono who, in calling Smith to the podium, gushed on endlessly about her influence and even managed to refer to her as “the galloping granny”. Smith got to the podium, took the statue, looked at Bono and said loudly and clearly, “Fuck off” before returning to her seat.
Hair today …
Aside from a new album, Jonathan Butler has also got himself a new bleached blonde hairstyle. The singer was appearing on Dali Tambo’s talkshow People of the South, and rumour has it that Dali decided it would be cute if he were also to dye his Jheri-Curl. But something must have gone horribly wrong, because the shoot had to be delayed as the colour didn’t work and Dali had to have emergency hair treatment.
Spiked
There were also a couple of problems on the set of the massively popular music show Selimathunzi. A girl fan won a competition in which she was to be granted her dream opportunity to cook and serve Arthur a meal. But it seems the “King of Kwaito” then told the show’s producers he couldn’t eat the food. Why? Apparently he said he was scared of korobela (muti used as a love potion). The show ended up having to get a private catering company to feed them.
ET go home
News of the week from Japan is enough to keep the good people from breeding: The most popular movie in the history of Japanese viewership is the newly released Princess Mononoke. It’s a blood-soaked animation picture about a doe-eyed, knife- wielding girl raised by wolves and has been described as “an orgy of violence in which an ocean’s worth of blood is spilled”. Children loved it, placing it just above ET as their all-time favourite movie.