Strauss & co - Wits Art Museum

40 WITS ARTS MUSEUM ENDOWMENT AUCTION 27 Santu Mofokeng (b.1956) Easter Sunday, Bapong Silverprint 19 x 28,5 cm (image size) 1989 Donated by the artist and Lunetta Bartz, Maker, Johannesburg R40 000 – 60 000 Easter Sunday is from the period in which Mofokeng was in residence at the University of Witwatersrand African Studies Institute. This time provided Mofokeng with the opportunity to research and explore different photographic subjects. The image corresponds to his photographic essay ‘Appropriated Spaces,’which focuses on religious communities in South Africa that lacked a specific space or site to pursue their spiritual practices. The blurred and hazy monochromatic image is enigmatic. The subject of the photograph, Easter celebration in Bapong, is not visually intelligible. Still, the outstretched arms of the central figure in the foreground and the mystical, luminous row of what must be devotees intimate a powerful religious moment, akin to the miraculous resurrection celebrated at Easter. The image is representative of Mofokeng’s artistic effort to convey through the photographic image a group’s spiritual investment saturating an appropriated space.  PD