Janet Smith
There was remarkably little snow and far fewer fat white men in red suits sleighing across the hundreds of Christmas cards that passed through the Mail & Guardian offices this year.
It has taken some time for South African Christmas card manufacturers to realise that we’re not in the northern hemisphere, and now that they have, our mantlepiece looks like a game reserve.
Yet, just when we were thinking that if we saw one more watercolour of a gemsbok, we’d throw up, in came a surprisingly game greeting card (1) from Ruth Golembo and staff at Langa Public Relations. Their hand-crafted wire rhino with a dazzling green eye was not only a joy to receive, it also made a donation to the Red Cross Children’s Hospital.
The Mayibuye Centre at the University of the Western Cape sent a collectable struggle graphic by Jon Berndt (2), while the Standard Bank Gallery’s card elicited a double-take: a black Christ, for a change, in the painting Nativity by Joseph Manana (3). But The Goodman Gallery outdid the artwork of the other exhibition spaces, as usual, with a fabulous card featuring Kendell Geers’s Adding Life — a wasted can of Father Christmas (4).
Ronnie Kasrils — who is now only too aware of the horrors that can follow the innocent posting of a holiday card — sent us a photograph taken by his wife Eleanor of Nelson Mandela at the South African Navy’s 75th anniversary celebrations (5). His card doesn’t win first prize (even the FBI wouldn’t be interested), but it’s harmless enough.
First prize is split between two cards. The first is a happy new year greeting from Ouma Ossewania Poggenpoel (7) and her daughters, Mrs Evita Bezuidenhout and Madame Bambi Kellermann, who constitute a glittering force in South Africa’s gender wars in their koeksuster party frocks.
The second is an undersea 3D adventure (6) from Aqua, the band who laid a curse on the world of pop this year with their killer Barbie Song. Although we hope they rot in hell for composing the anthem to the girl who thinks it’s fantastic to be plastic, we dig the card. Really.