Strauss & co - 16 February 2019, Cape Town

94 73 Athi-Patra Ruga SOUTH AFRICAN 1984– The Knight of the Long Knives I signed, dated 2013 and numbered 4/5 on the reverse archival ink-jet print on Photorag Baryta, dibonded 150 by 190 cm R250 000 – 350 000 EXHIBITED WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town, The Future White Women of Azania Saga, 27 November 2013 to 1 January 2014. Framer Framed, Amsterdam, Re(as)sisting Narratives, 28 August to 27 November 2016. Another example from this edition is in the permanent collection of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (MOCAA). LITERATURE Athi-Patra Ruga. (2014) Athi-Patra Ruga: F.W.W.O.A. SAGA, Cape Town: WHATIFTHEWORLD. Illustrated in colour, unpaginated. ITEM NOTES The costumed figure in this photo- graph speaks directly to Athi-Patra Ruga’s biography, in particular his love for fashion and artistic penchant for elaborate scenogra- phy and camp theatrics. Born in Umtata but raised in East London, Ruga moved to Johannesburg in 2002 to study fashion at the Gordon Flack-Davidson Academy of Design. He soon encountered the work of transgressive performance artists Steven Cohen and Sharon Bone, and also befriended artist Tracey Rose, whom he would later assist. The balloon-clad figure in this photo was conceived for a live per- formance at the 2010 Toffie Festival in Argentina. Ruga subsequently staged appearances in Holland and Italy, as well as in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Grahamstown. Over time his drag-influenced character acquired a mythical context: she is a monarch from a matriarchal dynasty ruling Azania, a fictional utopia once championed by anti-apartheid activists. Ruga has likened his Azania to Walter Battiss’s Fook Island: ‘I think one should always have the idea of a better place.’ 1 Sean O’Toole 1. Sean O’Toole, interview with artist, 21 October 2013.