Athi-Patra Ruga (South African, Born 1984) Portrait Of An Indian Woman (After Irma Stern 1936), 2012
Provenance : [Timeline chronologique]
1926-04-03 | Only after promising never to show her portrait in public did she permit me to paint her.' (Irma Stern, The Cape Argus, 3 April 1926)
[Propriété non datée]
- A private collection
- Exhibited Iziko South African National Gallery, Brushing Up on Stern, (July, 2015) The present work is a response to Irma Stern's Portrait of an Indian Woman which was completed in 1936
- Many of Athi-Patra Ruga's reinterpretations held in the 2015 exhibition, Brushing up on Stern, are responses to works created by Stern in Zanzibar
- The aim of this exhibition was to 'explore the current attraction to her work, as well as earlier antipathy to it'
- In an interview with the Cape Argus, Stern described painting an earlier portrait of an Indian woman as a quasi-mystical experience: '(The) East - the cradle of culture
- Its symbols, its philosophy, all its mystery lie in their large almond-shaped eyes
- I completely lost my heart to one Indian lady, the wife of a rich Indian merchant
- Her face was like a delicate ivory carving, and just like ivory when time has touched it - tinted; her neck was like a fragile stalk of a hot-house flower
- Athi-Patra Ruga shifts the narrative of these works by Stern, opting to highlight the problematic nature of the works in othering these women with an Orientalist gaze
- The skull iconography offers numerous interpretations ranging from symbols of universal humanity, to zombifaction, and the infinitely more aggressive othering of the 'Grindhouse cannibal'
- The point is that the passive, apathetic stare of Stern's initial portrait is replaced by angry confrontation that is no longer subject to desire
- In a sense, by utilising the cover format, Ruga is annotating Stern's original piece; the pair are viewed as palimpsest
- Working in tapestries, textiles, print, video and photography, Ruga extends his exploration of dystopian translations, perceptions, and ideologies in post-apartheid South Africa
- Ruga's work is in the possession of numerous public and private collections
- Included amongst these are the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa permanent collection, Iziko South African National Gallery, the Museion – Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, in Bolzano Italy, and the CAAC Pigozzi Collection
- Brushing up on Stern: Featuring Works from the Permanent Collection of the Iziko South African National Gallery, (Cape Town, 2015)
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