Andrew Putter: Performance art
Cape Town artist Peet Pienaar is one of this year’s FNB Vita Award finalists. Each finalist was given a budget with which to make a new work, a work that will be judged to decide on an overall winner. For his piece, Pienaar interviewed Mark Andrews, the Springbok rugby player who plays the same position the artist once played for Western Transvaal. The interview took place at the South African Rugby Museum in Cape Town and was televised on SABC3 recently. This is what transpired:
Peet Pienaar: Carel du Plessis has been quoted as saying that creative and innovative thinking are important to the game. Could you comment on that?
Mark Andrews: I agree with him. I think it applies to all sports. You find it in sports that entertain you – like basketball for example. To the lay-person, basketball might just seem like getting a ball into a hoop at the far side of the court. But the players are very creative. They’ll jam 10 times a week; they’re on TV all the time. The creativity makes it more entertaining and also catches opponents by surprise. I think it’s something that rugby has lacked for a while. It’s been stereotyped – forwards, backs – in a way quite boring. But it’s getting more creative, with different angles, moves and things. There’s lots of place in the game for creativity and innovation.
PP: How important are ideas and concepts for you in the game?
MA: Ideas and concepts – sounds like a scientific lecture we’re doing here (ha ha). It’s always important to have new ideas, to innovate. Concepts are part of that idea.
PP: What other skills – that strictly speaking fall outside the game of rugby – do you need (or rely on) as a rugby player?
MA: Social skills, surprisingly. Especially if you play on an international level. Right now I’m sitting in front of a TV camera – something most people don’t do. It’s a skill you learn. You have to speak to strangers. You go to functions, cocktail parties, after-match press conferences and people – strangers – come and ask you personal questions. So when you’re in the international arena you learn that you belong to the press and public – as much as you belong to your wife, your family and your girlfriend.
PP: How open would you be to apply your knowledge to the art world by possibly collaborating with someone towards an art exhibition?
MA: Very much, I think. I studied art at school, believe it or not – a rugby player! But it’s always something that amazes me. Art is such a wide, general term. One can go to so many different types of exhibitions. I saw an exhibition in Australia before the last Olympics. All the Australian sportsmen and sportswomen put together a book with a photographer about their bodies, using their bodies as an art platform, using light and shade. It was erotic and controversial because most of them were in stages of undress, or were totally undressed. It appeals to me. It’s new and refreshing. A normal person who wouldn’t support sport — someone more in the cultural line – would buy the book to see the artistic side of it … but also appreciate the sportsmen and women who are involved. So yes, I would, but I wouldn’t quite know how to get involved.