Strauss & co - 8 - 11 November 2020

96 T O P L A C E A B I D C L I C K O N T H E R E D L O T N U M B E R 628 Simphiwe Ndzube SOUTH AFRICAN 1990– Waiting for Mlungu (III) signed, date 2017 and inscribed with the title on the reverse oil and mixed media on linen 200 by 238,5 by 3,5 cm R400 000 – 600 000 EXHIBITED WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town, Everyday Anomaly, 9 September to 21 October 2017. Gary Brewer in conversation with Simphiwe Ndzube in his studio in Los Angeles: ‘As we spoke, I mentioned Beckett’s ‘Waiting for Godot’, saying that the space the figures inhabited with the cast-off refuse of the pedestrian world, and the strange barren light, felt like a stage set for Beckett. Simphiwe smiled and said, ‘The title of this series is ‘Waiting for Mlungu’, or ‘Mungu’, a reference to the god of creation and bureaucracy, one who is remote and detached from man and living beings, in the beliefs of the Yao people of Mozambique and the Bantu people of Sub Saharan Africa. The word Mlungu was later altered to refer to white people as the dominant ruling class, and now it is used on the street among black south Africans to mean that you are doing well financially, that you are making some money.’ 1 1. Gary Brewer (2017) Art and Cake: A Contemporary Art Magazine with a Focus on the Los Angeles Art Scene , ‘Studio Visit: Simphiwe Ndzube, A Journey Through the Theater of the Absurd’, 11 August, https://artandcakela.com/2017/08/11/studio-visit-simphiwe-nzdube-a- journey-through-the-theater-of-the-absurd/ The present lot (left) in the artist’s studio, Los Angeles, 2017. Photograph by Gary Brewer.