Strauss & co - 15 February 2020, Cape Town

32  SIMPHIWE NDZUBE SOUTH AFRICAN 1990– In Search Of, triptych edition 4/5 + 2AP light-jet print 120 by 80cm each (3) R120 000 – 160 000 PROVENANCE WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town. Private Collection, Johannesburg. EXHIBITED WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town, Dear Europa … , 31 August to 15 October 2016. “Simphiwe Ndzube’s carnivalesque portraits catch figures in the midst of movement, in the process of becoming . His theatrical landscapes are peopled by characters who are learning how to be subjects of their own making. They observe others and analyse situations, emulating, educating and transforming themselves. Rather than remaining still, his figures mobilise themselves into their futures, raucous and uncontained by physical boundaries, economic barriers, or legal structures and attendant gatekeepers meant to prohibit their existence and maintain them out of sight. We watch as they step into unfamiliar worlds, finding their own place in this brave, and sometimes compromised new freedom. We see them reading the iconography of power, finding ways to access formidable structures, shaping their public identities and personas in order to ease their way into structures that were previously shut off to them. But we also understand that they are not slavish imitators or simple mimics. Whilst Ndzube’s characters may analyse the new worlds in which they find themselves, identifying conventions and discerning what is acceptable, they also riotously flout the usual rules of projecting power, class, and arrival”. 1 1. M. Neelika Jayawardane (2016) Precarious Bricoleurs: Simphiwe Ndzube’s Becoming . Cape Town: WHATIFTHEWORLD. 47