Strauss & co - 16 February 2019, Cape Town

28 14 Blessing Ngobeni SOUTH AFRICAN 1985– Bullfighter (Capitalist) signed and dated 15; inscribed with the artist’s name, title, date, medium and dimensions on a Gallery MOMO label adhered to the reverse mixed media on canvas 150 by 180 cm R100 000 – 150 000 EXHIBITED Gallery MOMO, Cape Town, Blessing Ngobeni: As If You Care , August 2015. LITERATURE Danny Shorkend. (2015) ‘As If You Care: A Solo Exhibition by Blessing Ngobeni’, Art Africa , issue 1, September, pages 174–176. Illustrated in colour on page 175. ITEM NOTES The artwork Bullfighter (Capitalist) formed part of the exhibition As If You Care, held at Gallery MOMO in 2015, the artist’s third solo exhibition. In an interview in Between 10 and 5 , Ngobeni explains how the exhibition was inspired by the emotions felt when witnessing how people are still slaves to capitalism ‘as colonialism intended it to be.’ 1 ‘I have found that most people act as if they care about the greater good, particularly those in power, but in reality they don’t. They are pushing a personal agenda by manipulating the ideas of socialism in order to convince those who are desperate to support and celebrate them.’ 2 Ngobeni’s use of mixed media and found objects allows him to have a conversation with the mate- rials on the canvas and he describes his work as a game that takes the viewer on a journey: ‘If you win, the work becomes a masterpiece. If you don’t, then you have to revisit or play a different game.’ 3 Blessing Ngobeni was the winner of the Reinhold Cassirer art award in 2012. 1. Jessica Hunkin. (2015) Layered with Meaning: Blessing Ngobeni’s Mixed Media Collages, [Online] Available: Between 10 and 5. Available: https://10and5.com/2015/07/23/ layered-with-meaning-blessing-ngobenis- mixed-media-collages/ [7 December 2018]. 2. Mapmyway. (2015) Blessing Ngobeni ‘As If You Care’ at MOMO, [Online] Available: https:// mapmyway.co.za/blessing-ngobeni-as-if-you- care-at-momo/ [7 December 2018]. 3. ibid 1.