He’s known for his long, soft notes, but it’s the wild brushstrokes of Miles Davis that are about to get Jo’burg talking. Matthew Krouse and Alex Dodd check it out
When Miles Davis was hit by a stroke in the late Seventies, his hand went into paralysis and he was terrified that he would never be able to play the trumpet again.
His doctor suggested he start doodling as therapy and “what started out as a prescription turned into an incredible passion”, says Lynne Clifford. Clifford is the director of Yoko Ono-Lennon’s New York- based Bag One Arts Inc, currently in Johannesburg for the launch of the first- ever exhibition of the great jazzman’s art work on African soil.
While he was alive Davis was unwavering in his conviction that he would never visit South Africa while Nelson Mandela was behind bars, but the issues that plagued this country became such a driving force in his creativity that he dedicated two albums to heroes of our struggle. In 1986 there was Tutu, named after the renowned archibishop, and in 1989 he released Amandla, dedicated to Madiba.
Davis died in 1991, one year after Mandela was freed. Despite his deep instinctual connection to Africa, he never managed to set foot on this continent. Since his death, Bag One Arts Inc have curated exhibitions of his art work all over the world, from the United States to Spain and Italy. But the exhibition being launched on Friday night at the Firs Gallery (on the lower level of the shopping centre) in Rosebank will be the largest exhibition of his work ever staged. Over 100 pieces will be on show – 13 of them limited edition prints and the rest originals. A brand new limited edition print, New York by Night, will be premiered at the show. Another work, Blue in Green, valued at $1 000 has been donated by the curators and will be raffled during the course of the exhibition to raise funds for Street-Wise.
Inspired by comic books, Davis started out doodling and called his early simplistic line drawings his “robots”. When he became more confident he graduated to pastels and watercolour markers and from there to acrylic canvases. By 1988 he was heavily influenced by the Memphis school of functional design (furniture, architecture, decor) founded by Ettore Sottsass which inspired his wild experimentation with colour – lime greens, lemon yellow, turquoise and virulent pinks.
In The Art of Miles Davis, Scott Gutterman writes: “When the Memphis spell had run its course he again changed direction. Working closely with artist and friend, Jo Gelbard, he began to develop a mature body of work that integrated his playful figures and swirling abstractions with strong, African- inspired textures.”
While hanging the works, curator Clifford spoke about Davis’s obsession with Africa. “In the last two years of his life, his apartment was filled with African masks and fetishes … He had no studio. He’d simply strip a room of furniture, lay out a canvas and paint until he dropped. When he woke up he’d come at it again from a different direction. That’s why some paintings are signed in several places.”
The close correlation between his art and his music is unmissable. Some works even enjoy the titles of his songs or albums – Bitches Brew, Sketches of Spain, My Funny Valentine …
Owned by one of the world’s most famed avant gardists, Yoko Ono-Lennon, Bag One Arts Inc is dedicated to creating limited edition reproductions and staging exhibitions of the works of her late husband, as well as those of Miles Davis. When Clifford came to South Africa last year to curate an exhibition of art works by John Lennon, she realised she had to bring Miles to Africa.
With last year’s exhibition Bag One Arts Inc managed to raise R54 000 for child welfare. This year they’re hoping to equal or raise that figure with cover charges (R10 at the door) and the raffle of Blue in Green.