Clean Slates

We’ve all heard the saying, “If these walls could talk”. And more often than not, we’re bloody delighted that they can’t.

At Gallery ZAZA, it’s about more than just the art on the walls, it’s about what the walls say – whether it’s gallery walls, or public walls festooned with the imaginings of a street artist or young upstart. This is important, because we’re about to empty the gallery walls for our second exhibition. We’re starting afresh. Wiping the slate clean. And if I’m honest, it’s really difficult to say goodbye to what have become the best work colleagues I’ve ever had (sorry Ron Irwin).

On the mistiest of Hilton days, sodden and a bit miffed, opening the gallery doors to Hussein Salim’s aptly named “Sunny Day” and “Longing,” has been more powerful than my first mug of tea for the day (for those of you who have encountered me sans tea will understand). I’m so attached to “Longing” that I get genuine separation anxiety thinking about saying goodbye. And so I was eternally grateful when Hussein said we could keep this absolutely ravishing canvas in our foyer. Longing.

And then bit by bit, Siyabonga Sikosana’s canvases have started exiting the gallery for what some (not me) would call their “forever homes”. Paintings literally being hugged by their new owners beaming with smiles as if holding a new excitable puppy. I pause to imagine how much colour and joy these artefacts will bring. How they’ll pass between generations, echoing stories of their first home.

Sakhile Mhlongo’s two troublemakers have been “most excellent” colleagues. They’re so badass. These paintings are alive and stare at me every day, as if threatening me that I’m not working hard enough. They’re constant reminders of the beautiful juxtapositions in my life, and they always draw a crowd. I often catch myself looking at “the dude’s” jeans and then feel completely inadequate in my craft. They bring balance, and longing.

Then there’s the absolute joy and terror of being a temporary home to Logan Woolfson’s Rubik’s cube family. “Lucky Star” started to show his rebellious side, or maybe it’s just that he doesn’t dig Hilton weather and wants to adios back to Joburg STAT? In contrast, Logan’s other pieces have adjusted well to their temporary home. But Lucky Star just refused to comply from the get go. And then, one morning, the damp weather proved too much, and instead of opening the doors to an expectant Longing, I was greeted by the gallery floor, completely scattered with kamikaze Rubik’s cube shrapnel. Taking a leaf out of Tracey Emin’s book we improvised, and adopted “art installation,” and it’s amazing how many people haven’t even balked at this. “Lucky Star”, now affectionately known as “Unlucky Star” has become a metaphor for 2021… It really is how you frame it.

The gallery walls are ephemeral, ever changing, and we love that, because nothing lasts forever. It makes us want to live in the moment and to cherish what we have. To stop when we see something beautiful, and to soak it in. The other day Jono and I spent about half an hour watching a troop of monkeys use the parking lot carport netting as a trampoline. We witnessed a baby monkey steal a plastic bag from the alpha male and tease him with it. It was completely magic, and a reminder that there is so much beauty in the world. If you just stop. 

Which leads me to one of those juxtapositions I was banging on about earlier. If you have driven down Chief Albert Luthuli Road recently you would have seen the end of an era. Burczak’s Picture Framers has moved to their new and magnificent site in Victoria Road, and the old building is under construction. All of this seems like progress, except that the Basquiat mural has vanished.

It started with a red tag, blood was drawn. Then a few markings were made on the wall. Scars. Then a few pre-emptive holes were bashed in. Now I’m what some would call a “romantic pessimist”, so I went deep down the path of “no worries, nothing to see here, they’re going to work around it”.

‘Hi my name’s Jaqui, and I’m in denial.’

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The thing is, I did actually know what was coming, I just refused to believe that I had to start adhering to all of my ideologies about public art… and ditch the hypocrisy. Street art is by its very nature, temporary. I know this.

But what if you really love it? I am, after all, the child who clapped her way through Peter Pan when Tinkerbell needed reviving, so I’m all on board for a bit of a “if you really believe” chumbawumba. And my internal dialogue was in overdrive thinking, ‘Absolutely some street art is ephemeral, unless you really love it, in which case you can save it by just believing that other people love it as much as you.’ Turns out this doesn’t work. Where the elegant Basquiat once was, is now a white wall and a couple of generic steel doors. Longing.

Ron English is a dude who theorises street art. He explains that street art is a cultural phenomenon, it’s not an art movement. This distinction is important because the very nature of phenomena is that they are beautifully transient, they are the fabric of our memories. They are what Abraham Lincoln would describe as, “the mystic chords of memory”. They form part of those spaces we look back on, they form part of the dialogue of, “remember when that used to be…” or, “there used to be something magical there.” We engage, and we remember, because they’re gone. They remind us not to take what we have for granted. They activate the “better angels of our nature”.

What a dazzling reminder of how to live and how to experience the world. And what a great way to engage, and to share our stories and lived histories. And I really should give you this banger of a Lincoln quote because it’s bloody lovely, ‘The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.’