FINE ART: Adam Haupt
LARRY SCULLY’S array of five gleaming projectors seems incongruous in the Teutonic white monstrosity that is the Stellenbosch Town Hall. As one of the few black people there I feel equally out of place, although I do notice Wally Serote present, and feel reassured by that old familiar dictum: ”Do not fear, Baas. Do not fear.”
Scully manually projects one thousand slides on to a 35m x 10m silk screen. Larger-than- life projections are overlaid to create a collage of images, presenting the artist’s perspective on art and life ”in Stellenbosch and, for that matter, the world.” The flow of shot sequences are in sync with the music.
Stellenbosch Plus is essentially a live performance, because there’s no telling what can happen. Hence Scully’s artistically eccentric disclaimer: ”The artist reserves the right to change the programme without a moment’s notice.”
The opening sequence locates the viewer within South Africa’s colonial past and commences with shots of wine farm homestead gables. This sequence, with its series of extreme close-ups, introduces the artist’s playful habit of destabilising the viewer’s attempts at anchoring the images. But here, as in other scenes, a referent is ultimately provided toward the end of the sequence with a wide-angle establishing shot – confirming realist conventions of representation.
We move from Stellenbosch to scenes from Lesotho’s Ke Naka Khotso and the Zimbabwe Ruins. Three slides are overlaid and one is reminded of ethnographic representations of the African landscapes and rural African people. While the landscapes are largely idealised, the architectural sequences tell an interesting story. Representations of South Africa focus mostly on colonial buildings and modern architecture and contemporary city life are presented in New York and Paris sequences. Our ties to a colonial past seem to be ever-present in the Stellenbosch sequences.
My favourite sequence commences with a slide of Danie Craven to Natalie Cole’s Unforgettable. The inevitable nostalgia which the song evokes is sustained throughout shots of various rugby events. A boerewors- andbraaivleis age is recaptured and merged with shots of Kayamandi, a black township situated on the fringes of Stellenbosch.
Then we see the World Cross Country Championships and a stadium being prepared for a Pavarotti concert. These sequences are a brief reflection on audience participation in sporting and cultural events and in Scully’s show. Who gets to enjoy what Stellenbosch has to offer? And who benefited during apartheid? Ironically – or perversely – the ”Plus” in the show’s title extends this question beyond Stellenbosch itself.
Scully will be performing Stellenbosch Plus on November 17 at 58 Bree Street, Cape Town