Paul Edmunds
REVIEW OFTHEWEEK
Are 35 sagmakers more effective than a few well-aimed jabs? Yes and no, it would seem, in light of Soft Serve 2: Art at Play, which took place at the National Gallery in Cape Town on Friday.
The boxing metaphor might seem inappropriate when recounting tales of a multimedia art happening, but not so in this case, since one of the evening’s main attractions was a boxing match between Western Cape boxing champ Andile “One by one” Tshongolo and regional lightweight champ Patrick Madzinga.
For most of us it was our first real experience of leather on pedigreed flesh and we weren’t prepared for the uncanny silence of the blows, most of which seemed to miss their greased targets.
The fight was brought to us, in a full- sized ring in the fountain court of the gallery, by feisty film-maker Eddie Edwards, a dreadlocked Don King if you like. It made us arty types wonder why it was we were so excited about the pounding that might just take place. Or perhaps it made us neglect to wonder, just as we didn’t claim “Irony!” as we cheered for the bokkie in the wedgie who paraded the ring between rounds. We were, after all, at play. We could forget our grown-up selves for the time being.
In the spirit of the event I left behind all intentions of seeing any big-name works and wandered around stopping to enjoy things as I wished. Like the time I went to a coastal town famed for its dinosaur footprints, only visible at low tide, and elected to stay at the swimming beach all day every day. It was the greatest holiday I had had in years. And, just like the beach, Soft Serve was open to anyone: there was work by rich and famous artists and fashion designers alongside students, dilettantes and, um, dramatic types.
I’m a little funny this way, but I get protective of my personal space when confronted by freeform dramatic pieces that demand “audience participation”. Fortunately the overdressed and made-up dramatic types screaming “Revolution!” were soon swallowed by the crowd and general cacophony.
Works ranged from the totally playful to the fairly-pathological-disguised-as-fun. Yes, I even had a go at PlayStation, but it was snowboarding and my character was a girl whose girth I chose to increase. Besides, hardly anyone saw me; it was early.
Rebbecca Townsend’s piece took its cue from this, near-seamlessly mixing images from video games of obesely muscled fighting characters with footage of self- defence demos in city alleyways. The pumping rock soundtrack provided just enough adrenalin, but was politically spot-on in terms of the issues it broached.
The tale of Mike the Monkey, a video and installation by Emma Baker, moved me in a soft-toy kind of way. Mike, a stuffed monkey in dungarees on view in his installed living room, undergoes a rite of passage-cum-journey to self-knowledge in a washing machine. The subtitled narrative was clever, wry and had an ironic twinkle in its eye.
Nearby, Julia Tiffin’s boxes of fragrant powders evoked childhood jelly powder binges and the smell of clean washing.
Dave Southwood and Gregg Smith took footage of old folk at a nearby retirement home telling jokes. It was an exercise in patience, not having access to the cue button, but some of the stories were worth it; some were even a little racy. Accompanied by Discotheque Paintings, as Smith calls them, made from reflective vinyl and based on the fingerprints of some of the old people, the work came across as sensitive, poignant and highly amusing.
Having successfully avoided a haircut at Hairway to Heaven, a temporary hair salon installed by Veronique Malherbe and Mara Verna, we retired to the gallery’s annexe. (The haircuts were free, but I swear that two of the hairdressers were impostors.)
We were lucky enough to encounter A Taste of Bland, a sensual chill-out zone by Taryn Healy, Sean Slemon and Zen Marie. This was not the usual tiger balm and dope smoke pillowed den, but rather an empty, quiet space that was barely lit. The viewer walked across a series of textured surfaces, stopping to enjoy handfuls of spice, mielie kernels, soil or rooibos before sitting on the floor and watching speeded up footage of snails, earwigs and centipedes.
We weren’t allowed back into the main gallery on our return as they were trying to close down, but I felt satisfied that the bunfight I had anticipated had not happened.
The amateur and professional had successfully worked together and the sheer number of participants had not managed to foil a well-planned attack on our overridingly serious expectations of art and culture. I guess, just like the boxing match which ended in a draw, the right combination of jabs, sagmakers and low blows is what really does the trick.
The event was curated by cultural activist Zayd Minty and young upstart artists Heath Nash and Colin Payne.
The next Soft Serve takes place in November at the same venue