Simphiwe Ndzube
Uncharted Lands and Trackless Seas
This catalogue is published on the occasion of Simphiwe Ndzube's debut solo exhibition with Stevenson. Through painting, sculpture and installation, Ndzube stages an introduction to his imaginative universe, stating 'I’ve attempted to create the genesis of a cosmology that finds itself in the “uncharted lands and trackless seas” I call the Mine Moon. It emerges from the tradition of magical realism and is expanding to points currently unknown.’
The catalogue features a short story by Bongani Kona, written in response to the exhibition, as well as 'notes on the text' in which Kona reflects on the quest for 'new metaphors; a new vocabulary with which to speak of our time and place'. He writes:
Drawing from the world of his dreams and the reservoir of magical realism, Ndzube’s exhibition Uncharted Lands and Trackless Seas is an attempt to tell the story of South Africa. Of this place and time. The tradition of magical realism allows Ndzube to transgress the limits of social realism – the dominant mode of speaking about this place, be it in political manifestos, newspaper reportage, NGO pamphlets, cinema, literature, etc – and to make the familiar strange. Or put another way: Ndzube’s work breaks with clichés of language and form to say something new.
Published by Stevenson | Catalogue 92 | March 2019
Softcover, 52 pages | Price: R200
