Michelle Matthews
One of the more recent flyers advertising Soft Serve 2: Art at Play posed a riddle to Capetonians: “Q: What are squares scared of? A: Vicious circles.”
The queue outside the National Gallery on Friday will be a long one. While the flock instinct is strong, however, it doesn’t fully explain why an event of this nature should be so popular.
Why does everyone hang out in a gallery on a Friday night? Sheer boredom. They desperately want a unique experience. They want red lights flashing on their sensory circuits.
How does one entertain this group of unruly kids? You play with them. Mind games, optical illusions, score cards, colouring in, practical jokes, musical statues, building blocks -the Soft Serve space invaders will transform the venerable National Gallery into an art arcade with their theme, “Art at Play”.
One of the highlights is a five-round boxing match with a scratching live soundtrack by Ready D. Andile Tshongolo, the Western Cape middleweight champion, will slug it out with the regional lightweight champion, Patrick Madzinga. It won’t be pretty.
Games must have rules and interactive media company Generator will provide the guidelines for the party, transforming the crowd into an art work in itself.
Envelopes containing instructions aimed at getting people to release their inhibitions and meet strangers will be circulated – a semi-orgiastic bosberaad. Everyone’s going to be wonderfully uncomfortable.
Happening young designer David West will be parading his asymmetrical creations to original music by RAM member James Webb.
Also in the fashion vein, Mara Verna and Veronique Malherbe have set up a kitchen- cum-salon in the gallery. Sip coffee and have your hair cut by some of Cape Town’s top stylists for free. The playful theme of the event might mean you get something a little more over the top than a bob.
DJ Opperman presents Aikonoklasme in the courtyard. You might recognise the Afrikaans iconoclast’s handle from the cover of the Groot Verseboek you lugged around at school. Part of his act is reading NP van Wyk Louw’s epic poem Raka from that very book, intoning it over a hypnotic trance beat. The frenzied speeches of apartheid-era politicians make perfect samples for banging house tracks, and high-pitched snippets from Liewe Heksie give an Afro-Aqua tinge to party tunes.
It’s art that you can dance to.
Hip-hop DJ Rosanno X and deep house disher Trevor Mitchell are also on the vinyl music bill.
You won’t get a cutesy plastic Disney character with Michael Dewil’s Happy Meal. Dewil has submerged a cow’s head in a glass tank.
Turner Award-winner Damien Hirst said of his Mother and Child, Divided (which utilises a whole cow and calf in formaldehyde – he had more funding): “I want people to feel like burgers. What is the difference between a cow and a burger? Not a lot … I want people to look at cows and feel ‘Oh, my God’, so then in turn, it makes them feel like burgers.” Happy Meal – a derivative, reactive and ultimately ineffectual raspberry at McDonald’s, or a sharp reflection on the cycle of consumption and mortality? You decide.
Many of the projects are still under wraps. I tried asking a friend from the University of Cape Town’s drama school what they were planning. It was at a very loud party at about 3.30am, but I think he mumbled something about a giant dancing plug and plug hole that end up getting a bit Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze. He could have been serious.
Soft Serve 2: Art at Play takes place at the South African National Gallery in the Company Gardens on Friday. It starts at 6pm and runs until 10pm. Tickets are R15 and booking through Ticketweb is advised