A Meeting of Minds - Louis Maqhubela and Douglas Portway

23 Louis Maqhubela  Untitled XIX  gouache on paper 70,5 by 95 cm  pretoria art museum ‘Alternatively, there was a preference for transcendental subject matter, which asserted the artist’s right to spiritual and artistic freedom (Maqhubela, Shilakoe, Mahlangu). Louis Maqhubela (Interview, 1994) resists any attempts at a political interpretation of his art, insisting that the pressures to create political statements rob artists of their rights to spiritual evolution. Thus the choice of a-political subject matter can also be regarded as an act of active resistance against the perceived prescriptiveness and expectations of the predominantly white artworld.’ Van Robbroeck, Lize. ‘Township Art’: Libel or Label?, De Arte , 33:57, 3-16, 1998. ‘Louis Maqhubela (a contemporary and close friend of Sihlali) revolts against the idea that black artists’ work should necessarily draw from African sources. He stresses that: … white artists are at liberty to draw from any source in the universe … (but) as far as Black artists are concerned, it seems everyone has a pre-conceived idea of how their work should look like … That would be acceptable if we all wanted to confine ourselves to diamond shapes and the chevron motif for the next millenium (Interview, 1994).’ Van Robbroeck, Lize. ‘Township Art’: Libel or Label?, De Arte , 33:57, 3-16, 1998. ‘A single work by Louis Maqhubela is like a capsule of hope, technically supreme, theoretically apt. The works of Louis Maqhubela, Gavin Jantjes and Durant Sihlali can be seen as milestones in the development of Black African art in South Africa, from the traditional through modernism to postmodern fragmentation, appropriation and open- endedness.’ Ntuli, Pitika. ‘Fragments from Under a Telescope: A Response to Albie Sachs’, Third Text , 7:23, 69-78, 1993. ‘From 1967/68 Maqhubela’s painting became thoughtful and abstract, with ectoplastic drawn images and knotted linear configurations emerging from and disappearing into the delicate layers of colour.’ Martin, Marilyn. ‘Is There a Place for Black Abstract Painters in South Africa?’, De Arte , 26:44, 25-39, 1991.