Moshekwa Langa

The works of Moshekwa Langa can be read like the pages of a log book, entries relating the events of his life. More or less directly, they evoke residual impressions of a place, recollections of images glimpsed in a magazine or moments associated with a particular tune or song. The key to interpreting them may be kept within as when, for instance, in the form of lists, the names of historical characters, acquaintances or friends run into each other. Or this psycho-geographic mapping might remain entirely abstract with only a title as a clue, always linked to a fleeting moment in the artist’s life. Impressionism as practiced by Moshekwa Langa finds its closest equivalent in the work of James Joyce, whose methods he has adopted and who, in text, just like the thread of the artist’s paintings, interweaves in a single piece everyday perceptions and historical events.

Most of the images in the series of paintings on view in Toulouse come from a collection of collages made recently in South Africa, using press cuttings, and titled Ingwe Mabala-bala ("the colored leopard" in Ndebele or Zulu), which was a popular song that left traces in both indigenous cultures and Christian rituals. Adverts for all kinds of services offered by marabouts, or for the evangelical church, objects and archive photos have been torn, altered, partially erased and combined in a series of black and white compositions. Enlarged and reclaimed, these fragments provide the raw material for a series of canvasses covered in paint and sandpaper. The initial motif, although barely recognizable, is still perceptible: "like the spot of blood in Macbeth." Other circular marks appear around the frame. They have been left by the jars, spray cans, bottles and tins that held the pictures flat. Like many of the artist’s works, they were painted on the ground, using a quasi-cartographical approach, which neatly twins with the luminous constellation formed by a network of table lamps placed on the floor. This final element is borrowed from the artist’s biography: a dozen or so years ago, in an American museum, he arranged a collection of lamps in a similar way among various reels and diverse objects.

With the support of Belin Promotion