Matthew Krouse
THE UNFOLDING MAN: THE LIFE AND ART OF DAN RAKGOATHE by Donv Langhan (David Philip) ONDAMBO AFRICAN ART FORUM edited by Rolf Cusemann-Brockmann, Christoph Ludszuweit and Hans-Joachim Bogatzke (Gamsberg Macmillan) Dan Rakgoathe isn’t a great poet. But then it’s not his poetry that he’s famous for. If he is known, it’s for his printmaking, which seemed to reach a pinnacle in the mid- to late Seventies. Today the work of this mystically inclined artist feels very up-to-date, with titles such as Disintegration and Multiplicity or Duality on the Cosmic Plane evoking a sort of hip New Ageism.
Donv Langhan’s biography of Rakgoathe, like his poetry, is dull and with mock simplicity tries to say too much. An art teacher and author of children’s books, the thoroughness of her research is constantly undermined by the language she employs. Given her obvious eagerness to climb into her subject’s head, it’s surprising that she has constructed an artist with such an innocuous personality. This is art criticism as children’s writing. While being schooled at Botshabelo Mission Station, for example, Rakgoathe “runs away into the mountains” where he “would … daydream and meditate on the meaning of life”. And, upon being caught bunking church, he would be punished with manual labour during which, according to Langhan, he would “dream dreams”. Besides the cosy language, Langhan gives one no clue as to how she comes by these cute facts.
This is what is made of a basically rebellious artist who failed academically, who turned his back on his church upbringing, who became a helpless alcoholic, leading to his expulsion from the art school in Rorke’s Drift, but who ultimately became the first black South African to earn a fine arts honours degree.
All the details may be present, but one can’t help thinking that the book would have been more intriguing had the author given her subject more space to breathe. The many illustrations are well annotated with quotes by the artist and, as mentioned, Langhan has also drawn on Rakgoathe’s rather sentimental poetry. For the publisher, it’s a book on a worthwhile subject prettily produced shame about the text, which appears not to have been edited at all. Right book, wrong author. Gamsberg Macmillan’s dual English-German book Ondambo African Art Forum suffers a similar fate. Here are profiles of nine African artists who attended what was dubbed the “First International Forum and Workshop for African Artists” in December of 1997. Ondambo, meaning “footprint”, took place at the oasis of Arandis in the Namib desert, where artists from Southern Africa, Nigeria and Benin gathered to produce and exhibit their work. These included Joe Madisia, Willie Bester, Valente Malangatana, Antonio Ole, Tapfuma Gutsa, El Loko, John Liebenberg, Romouald Hazoume and El Anatsui. Each artist is accorded his own chapter with a biographical introduction and a narrative in direct speech. In the case of Bester, for example, the biography has been cobbled together from his interview and so the two are virtually identical in content and in length. And there are other editorial shortcomings. Namibia’s Madisia is permitted a tiresome ramble about the meaning of the workshop in conjunction with the spiritual life of the desert that doesn’t amount to much. In contrast, Liebenberg at least has some fixed ideas about whether photojournalism can be considered an art, although I’m not convinced … Ultimately, the editors, Rolf Csemann-Brockmann, Christoph Ludszuweit and Hans-Joachim Bogatzke, have allowed too much laxity, and so one has to sift through a lot of information to get to the really interesting bits. Both these publications display the fact that African art has reached the heights it has because its practitioners have lived through so much. These are not post-adolescent art school graduates, but people who’ve been through the mill and who have found their voices.