Image Credit: Gallery Girls

Image credit and story details can be found here on Aljazeera. Check it out to see why the artists are pissed off.

Bettie, a self-proclaimed Artist, Writer, Art lover and Art professional, see her Artslant profile here. In all her infinite wisdom thought it was okay to photograph Stuart Bird’s Blood Knot, push the contrast, and make a Limited Edition of 10, Giclee Print , Dimensions: 40 x 30 inches, and sell these “Original” “Artworks” online for $687.50.
PM is so amused; PM might just pee in PM Panties! Sweet Bettie, can PM call you Bettie? You have been a little bit of an idiot! Shame PM almost feels sorry for you. Bettie called her two merchandised Stuart Bird artworks “Re-Context The Artwork 1″ and “Re-Context The Artwork 2″. Bless! Have a look at an image of the sculpture Blood Knot below and then at Bettie’s BEUTS.

Detail of  Blood Knot , hand carved wood, Image Courtsey of Stuart Bird and the Goodman Gallery.

Bettie’s little “artwork” Re-Context The Artwork 1. Giclee Photographic Print .

In Bettie’s defence she does acknowledge Stuart Birds work, but No Bettie! No! No! No! Panga Management feels a moral obligation to unpack this for you.  PM is going to be kind, and put what would rightly  be viewed as blatant theft, down to naivety ( for now anyway). Firstly Bettie, Re-Context The Artwork 1 and 2 are just plan ugly, and anyone who would pay money for them would naturally be blind. Secondly, and more importantly Bettie, you have photographed an artwork of great merit and your photographic “interpretation” destroys its dignity , the frightening thing is you obviously can’t see that. Then of course Bettie, it is such blatant theft PM just can’t get PM’s head round the fact that you did not know what it was that you were doing.

Hell Bettie, why don’t you just jump onto the “I’m going to steal from Jane Alexander, because everyone else is” wagon. All you need to do, is go to the National Gallery, photograph The Butcher Boys, change the image to Black and White, push the contrast and make prints to sell online. You would not even have to change the text you used on Artslant, to justify your appropriation of Stuart Birds works. You could just cut and paste changing the artist name and venue. Example below. (your words Bettie)

“The contemporary South African artist, Stuart Bird’s Jane Alexander installations in the Goodman Gallery National Gallery, Cape Town, teased me for re-visioning some of them by turning them into two-dimensional pictures in which the gallery space became intrinsically part of the picture. Both in choosing the non-documentary angles from which to photograph some works and in the post production, changed the shapes, colours, and eliminated some important details so as to create a new experience.”

Now can you see how stupid your justification sounds?

Dear Bettie, if you are very lucky Stuart Bird will take this “creative act of stupidity” as a horrific compliment, and all you might receive is an email demanding their immediate removal and destruction.  If you remove/destroy them quickly, Stuart Bird might be kind enough to laugh it off.

But if PM was Stuart Bird, PM would make an example out of you and sue you for everything and the clothes on your back. Shame Bettie, PM hopes for your sake Stuart Bird is gentler than Panga Management, because if it went to court there are no grey areas here, Stuart Bird would kick your ass.

Photo Credit: Eyelashes

Photo Credit: Eyelashes

Photo Credit: Eyelashes

The second was the view, which was quite spectacular, nothing much else to add on that point. The third was the epitaph on the tombstone of James Richard Abe Bailey “Loved Playmate” it said. PM was forced to rule out the playboy mansion, as PM did not think that James Richard Abe Bailey would have tickled Hugh Hefners fancy. None the less a ‘loved playmate” he apparently was.

This got PM thinking about the Baileys, which got PM thinking about the Bailey Bequest. The Bailey/ Iziko South African national gallery fiasco has made print in the local Western Cape dailys recently, click here. Panga Management forgives you if you have not grasped the story just yet. Beezy Bailey media/ocre artist (great-grandson or something along those lines, of Abe Bailey) has been complaining to the press, about the National gallery breaking the contractual agreement of the Bequest by not having any of the Bailey Bequest works up at the ISANG. The reason that you have not realised the tyranny of the ISANG’s decision is understandable,  though the headline mentions the news worthy element, the article is full of Beezy Baileys self promotion. To sum it up the story goes like this…. “It’s terrible what the ISANG is doing, but are you aware of my new exhibition, I’m so important that the ISANG should give me a solo show”. It’s at this point PM has to hold back a mouth vommie. Shame on you Beezy! Undermining this very serious situation for your own selfish interests. So PM is going to bring the debate to you -without Beezy’s sickening self promotion.

Thomas Gainsborough. Lavinia (The Milk Maid).

The Bailey Trust donated/ bequeathed to the ISANG a huge collection of works. This happened a long time ago. (Some very boring, though very precious sporting paintings) but the bequest also contained some of the most spectacular paintings ever, like the Gainsborough amongst others.

The Bailey trust pays for the restoration, care and storage of the bequest. The only thing Iziko has to do is place some of these works on the gallery walls. How hard is that, one has to ask! Granted the regular viewing public would get bored with seeing the same works up in the same way, but that being said the Bailey bequest has been the foundation for some of the most sophisticated and interesting curatorial exhibitions the ISANG has ever had.

There are people with limited intelligence, who wank on about the colonial aspects of the works, arguing that because of those aspects they should not be hung. These people are just stupid, and PM will scrape together some pity for them.

Yes there are colonial aspects of the works, and yes the works should not colonise half of the ISANG’S wall space in perpetuity, but to lose the bequest would be the hugest loss for the visual arts community of South Africa. Nowhere else in the country/continent can you see a painting like the Gainsborough. So that’s fine for the rich folk who can jet off to some first world country and see paintings like that whenever they want, but it’s pretty shit for the not so wealthy people who will then never get the opportunity to see paintings like the Gainsborough.

Secondly, now that PM is on a role. Why the fuck can’t the works from the bequest be curated into exhibitions that sophisticatedly interrogate the colonial aspect, or respectfully play a game with the sporting aspect? In fact let’s quickly unpack some interesting facts about the Gainsborough painting PM keeps mentioning. It called Lavinia (The Milk Maid) and for all inspection looks like a pretty little girl returning from milking the cows…. except it is not a little girl at all, the milkmaid is a little boy! It’s true!

So how about if a curator or artist conceptualised an exhibition using Bailey bequest works and contemporary works in a way that investigates gender and sexuality, that would be fascinating, no? PM could come up with like a trillion contemporary takes that would cleverly negotiate the Bailey bequest works, and guess what, the exhibition would not even be about the Bailey bequest works in particular, but they would be up.

Really panga people, Iziko is fucking it up again. Yawn. If the Bailey Bequest was expecting Iziko to pay for the upkeep of such valuable works PM would understand, but they are not. So it looks like Iziko is (again) advertising its mediocrity of mind. PM thought about using big words, and maybe a footnote or two, to communicate how the works could be recontextalised, and used as a bases for unpacking the colonial aspects of South Africa heritage, but PM knows how anything academically rigorous, creates mental rigor mortis for some decision makers at Iziko. Use a big word and you find them peeing themselves in a corner like frightened little stupid people. The tyranny of intelligence is out to get me, they scream! So there you have it panga people, that’s the story.

I hope you can advise me, my heart is in knots and I don’t know what to do. You see my new lover, is perfect besides one small thing, if you know what I mean (no that’s not what I meant). He has some very strong reactions to my contemporary art collection.
I’m one of those collectors, who really just follows my heart- head when choosing a work, and I have over the years collected a few rather special and critically acclaimed pieces, and yes, I can see that they define my sensibility and way of looking at the world. Which makes this situation even more personal.

Back to my lover, let’s call him Larry, it’s not so much that we have different tastes in art, it’s that Larry tends to be inspired, shall we say amorously, when viewing a certain work in my collection.

Don’t get me wrong, he is not compelled by my Bridget Baker; you know the one where you have a beautiful view of a young woman, in retro gear bending over, pulling bubble gum of her roller skate. That I would be comfortable with. It’s a little more complicated. You see he loves my Nicholas Hlobo work “Dream Catcher”; so much in fact, that he argues it would hang conceptually very well above the bed.

Again don’t get me wrong, I can see how rubber and ribbons could be titillating for a man, and the Dream Catcher work is one of my favourite works of all time, but it’s the big rubber cock / ribbon bottom hole / homoerotic angle of the work that perhaps should not excite him as much as it does….. If he was straight…….
Aunty Panga, please help, should I mention my concerns to him?

Love

Happy To Just Be A Fag Hag, but don’t want to hurt male ego if wrong, am I over reacting?

Dearest Happy To Be A Fag Hag

Aunty PM is here to help!

Aunty Panga must compliment you on your fantastic taste in art. That being said, your taste in lovers is not so well-considered. Aunty PM is going to be frank, and unpack this for you like a picnic basket. One plastic container and synthetic drink at a time.
You clearly align yourself with the subject in the Bridget Baker work, and the fact that Larry is not aroused by that subject, means that he is not aroused by you, problem.
If Larry just loved the Nicholas Hlobo work for its conceptual and textual genius, he would be more than happy for it to hang in the lounge.

So yes, it’s good your happy to be a fag hag, because my sweet that is what you are. Moving forward.

This is not a situation that will benefit from an emotional response. Your Artdar is clearly better than your Gaydar. Best you sit Larry down, with a good glass of wine, and ask him directly if he is into boys. Don’t be hardcore, judgy or disappointed sounding in your line of questioning. If he is not loud and proud just yet, he might feel sensitive about it and won’t want to disappoint you. If he feels safe ,the air will clear pretty fast, enjoy the rest of the bottle of wine and watch Casa Blanca together, you will both love it.

You said he was “perfect besides one small thing”. Aunty PM wants you to rephrase that. Your affirmation should be “He is perfect, but not for me”

Love Aunty Panga

Email Aunty Panga on pangamanagement@gmail.com with all your art and love queries.

She looks, and maybe reads, but mostly skips out the beginning part of the text, the introduction part, the part that offers political and social context to the situation photographed. She skim reads until finding the nitty- gritty of the story, if she reads the captions at all. She looks, feels frustrated that the image is not clearer. She wants to move closer. She wants to smell the situation , move into it, move round it and view it from another angle. Why do heads swell up like that when people die? What are those ruptures on his back? The afternoon light coming through the carcass is very beautiful; she wonders if the carcass is warm to the touch.

Photo Credit : Marco Di Lauro

She likes the image of the bull with its horn embedded in the matador’s throat; she likes the way the horn protrudes out of the matador’s mouth. It is not a great photograph but it captures a great moment. That puncture could not have tickled, she muses. The thought makes her happy. The matador survived the justice of the situation, and after medical care and a hospital stay he returned to the ring. She is glad he was hurt so brutally, she is glad that the indignity was captured by a photographer for longevity; but she does not mind that the matador survived, because there is justice in that. There is always justice in survival.

Photo Credit : Gustavo Cuevas

The image of the men on the back of a bakkie; so horrified. Their eyes stare with bewilderment as blood dries on their faces. They almost appear innocent, like children. The shock has taken from them all the accumulated strength of their years and they are no longer men. Pain can be so humiliating he thinks. The horror of the earthquake and then when they are at their most fragile, they have to sit on the back of bakkie, because Haiti has no ambulances. Poverty can be cruel. He feels haunted, and then he feels annoyed. A slovenly young man in baggy shorts has arrived to see the exhibition, dragging his feet over the castles stone floors. The youth peers at an image gormless, in that middle class kinda way,  whilst propping himself up against the display board, making it wobble. Containing his urge to shit on the loser youth for being what he is, a young loser, he moves away.

She sits on the deep bay window sill, the breeze on her back. She watches two women as they “Oh my god” and “have you seen this”. They are swayed by the spectacle. They are not compelled and neither are they curious. They are wearing ugly plastic shoes and sour coloured t-shirts. She stands up and walks away from them.

Both she and he like the image of the man carrying the shark over his shoulders near the fish market in Mogadishu. Behind the subject, ancient architecture is pock-marked from years of conflict and dancing shrapnel. The buildings appear stoically compromised and beautifully fucked up. There is something other worldly captured in the image. It’s the remnants of architecture that shows what was, and now what is. That’s what does it, he thinks.

Photo Credit : Feisal Omar

She thinks that man must have done a dance when he caught that shark. She also reckons that every photographer, that ever had their ass shot at, while being based in East Africa must be sooo pissed by this image. All of them must have walked that area by the fish market, the architecture being a perfect backdrop to communicate the never-ending fucked- up- ness that is Mogadishu, and never once did they see a man carrying a shark over his shoulders.

Again, not an amazing photograph, per se, but an amazing confluence of things coming together and captured. There are likely 100 photographers, who could have taken a better image of that scene, but they didn’t. They were not there. She hopes the photographer will live long enough to tell his grandchildren about the image, and the award he won for it.

She moves through the exhibition faster than he does, as she does not read all the captions. He can’t believe the state of the prisons in Sierra Leone. He feels how the system has brutalised both the guards and the prisoners. The guards paid a pittance. Their humanity and dignity destroyed through the breakdown of social and political systems. They work in a flawed environment , trying to make life a little bit better for their kids. The prisoners, maybe innocent of all but something petty, maybe guilty of something great, its irrelevant really. They are both caught in the insanity of a country bereft of fair consequence, corrupted through the generations, from one dictator to the next. It’s wrong that these people don’t count. Its wrong, he thinks, and there is no way of ever making it right. But he will try. In his way, he will always try.

Photo Credit : Fernando Moleres

She is most moved by two images, two stories. In the first a women’s life was photographed over a number of years, each image capturing a different stage. The women had contracted HIV and proceed to have 6 children before she died at the age of 36. She is moved by contempt for this woman. This woman who gave birth to 6 children and then killed their chance of having a mother in one easy spread your legs, “harder-harder baby! Oh! Yes- yes harder!” movement.

If the photographer wished the viewer to feel empathy for the women by photographing the 36-year-old in a nappy, bed ridden and haggard they did not succeed. She felt only wrath and contempt for her, and for the system they call democracy. She despises that no body stepped in and sterilised the selfish bitch. Democracy, she vents, is only a compassionate system until it is forced to take a stand, and then it shows itself for what it really is, cowardly.

Photo Credit : Darcy Padilla

The second image showed a woman in DRC , playing a cello surrounded by the disorder that is poverty. The cello player an egg seller by day, eyes closed, is practising her instrument. She loves the cello player, she love that this women has risen above her context and taught herself something new. She loves that this women has risen above her context, but never left it. She admires this women, she admires that she has survived with her soul intact, and she wishes she could step into the image to show the cello player the love she has for her, for her beauty. She really wants to hear the music.

Photo Credit : Andrew Mcconnell

He did not see the cello player image; he was suffering empathy fatigue and needed fresh air. They ate chocolate cake and discussed the exhibition. A cannon was fired , it was noon. What do you do? He said, as they remembered the photograph that captured the scene of people being crushed during a stampede, at a rock concert in Germany, where 21 people died. What do you do, if you are one of them caught in that cluster fuck-up? imagine I was there with you, and this wave of humanity all struggling to breathe are squashing us , and we are being crushed and can’t breathe, what do you do? how would I protect you. She smiled at him; she adored his empathy, his kindness. You would do what I would do, you fight, She said, you kick, and you punch, and you stand on other suffocating people if you have to. You do, what you need to do, to survive. There is only justice in survival, and without justice there can be no mercy.

Avant Car Guard. Any Idea (2012) Mixed media on paper. 65 x 50cm As seen at Blank Projects.

With the same respect the young women gives mouldy bread, she applies an appeasing smile and moves to the opposite end of the lolling crowd; feeling that irrational itch one gets when another has lice, she tries, and fails, to pay due diligence to the curator as they introduce the artist and the exhibition.

Coercive in her decrepitude the elderly women halts proceedings with a feeble wrist flapping. “Hi” she introduces herself “I’m Mrs Cullinan and I have been coming to this gallery for many years, it’s a national asset you know”.

As the elderly women pauses to swallow air, the curator show signs of having contracted the same irrational itch, but the elderly women continues unphased, holding the floor with an indignant pose.

“And I must say that I’m so distressed that you no longer post out invites to your events, if it was not for the fact that I was passing by, I would not have known that this was taking place.”

The young women fantasies about dropping a one rand coin from a 50 story building onto her elderly crown, and shifts her body weight onto the other foot.

Unabated the elderly women continues, with seeming disregard for how little time she has left on the planet, “In my day, art galleries hung art!”

The crowd is no longer lolling but impatiently trying to reclaim its calm, rolling eyes to fight the attrition of the elderly women’s mental nadir. There is a bulwark of knowledge separating the artist and the curator from the elderly women’s comatosed view on the arts, paralysed and unrecovered sometime in the 1980’s. They look at her, not unkindly but certainly with a substance that the elderly women would read as arrogance.

“I really don’t know why you can’t drop me a letter with all the important opening dates; I don’t have an email you know and I have survived perfectly well for 60 years without one”. The elderly women tries to come up for air, and her gnarled fingers, like cigarettes needing to be ashed, clutch at the collar of her blouse. “Its hot in here” she proclaims “and you don’t have benches!”

It’s at this point that a gallerina brings through a fold away chair and the curator uses the distraction to continue with the introduction, wisely ignoring the elderly women’s interjections, and the plummeting action that precedes her making contact with her commandeered throne.

The artist discusses the shows conceptual investigations with the crowd, who along with the young women spend much of the dialogue avoiding eye contact with the elderly women, in the hopes of discouraging her efforts to solicit allies to her cause.

When the elderly women took umbrage with a point made, which was often, she exhaled with a humph! sounding like air squelching through a holey tyre. She would time her humph! with a body swivel on her chair, dragging her decrepit limbs after her. Like a cat scratching at the glass of an open window, trying to gain access but not having the mental faculty to change direction, the elderly women was constipated in a cerebral inertia with no laxative in sight.

The young women was surprised when after 15 minutes she had not, in fact, hyper ventilated through her passive aggressive breathing techniques, and came to the conclusion five humph! s later, that she would prefer the company of a yeast infection to this self-absorbed, arrogant, stupid, wrinkled stick of flesh.

As the discussion drew to a close, the elderly women foisted her bouquet of withered fingers into the air, in a manner that suggested a salute, rather than a question. The curator’s eyes where cold, and it was diplomacy not warmth that was hitched to the smile that crossed the curators face.

“I really don’t understand” the elderly women barked “my granddaughter makes beautiful paintings, she got an A in matric for art, and really, it’s her paintings that should be hanging on the walls not, this “installation stuff” or whatever you call it!”

“Thank you, Mrs Cullinan” the curator responded like a sjambok “this however is question time, and not statement time, and at your age you really should know the difference”. The crowd, finding their empathy for the elderly women empty, snigger at her expense.

The young women finds voice coming through mouth “Mrs Cullinan, do you not think it’s arrogant to request the world to change in order to suit the limitations of your old age?”

If the elderly women had a response it was not heard  by anyone, and the crowd along with the young women, the artists, and the curator turned on their heels , moving through the gallery in the direction of the refreshments.

Panga Management is writing to you today regarding basic gallery etiquette.
To begin with let’s state the obvious, as PM has come to the sad conclusion that common sense is anything but common……..

Art Galleries are Not play grounds or nurseries. Unless stated otherwise (children’s finger painting workshops etc) they are in fact adult spaces.This is in no way to suggest that children are not welcome in galleries, but to clearly state, that their presence should never interfere with the viewing experience of the adults present.

Question: would you take your two-year old to watch a movie? Answer: NO.

Question: Why ever not? Answer: Because it would wriggle around , scream, want to walk everywhere and eventually, all of 20 seconds into the film, the general public would lynch your little bundle of joy. Remember parents, your little freedom fighter is everyone else’s terrorist.

Now dear parents, before you choke on a wet wipe, PM is going to make something very clear to you.

If you take your child to a movie and it performs, it’s you who should be lynched for being an irresponsible and selfish cunt. The same goes for galleries, if your child can not walk by your side, with its hands behind its back then you should not bring them to a gallery. PUNT ! aka fullstop.

Panga Management has seen children do incredibly destructive things in galleries, while you, darling parents, chat to your friends over a glass of free plonk, all the while expecting the gallery staff to run after your progeny like baby sitters. After the inevitable breakage has occurred, you dear parents, avoid responsibility saying things like “ there really should be a sign that says don’t touch” to which Panga Management replies “ there really should be forced sterilisation for people like you who have such limited intelligence” or , dear parents, you respond along the lines of “ they are going through a growth phase “ to which Panga Management replies” Gee…. who gives a continental fuck, best you take your credit card to the gallery staff and pay for your child’s R50 000.00 growth phase accident” .

PM then follows the above verbal responses with a quick punch to your head, hard enough so you see Christmas coming 12 months before the rest of us. This brings cathartic relief to every gallery staff member, artist, and responsible adult present.

Dear parents, what you must understand is that PM punched you, in order to help you…. intending only to dislodge the baby brain hormones and knock some sense back into you. The saying “it takes a village to raise a child” is absolutely idiotic, what it should say is “it takes a village to raise a parent”.

The other approach PM applies when children run amok in a gallery, is to stop them, and say very loudly “What your parents have negated to tell you, because they are very bad at being parents, is that you don’t run, scream or touch anything while you’re in a gallery. PM is sorry you were born to such irresponsible cunts , who have clearly taught you nothing , but that does not mean you can act like them and expect no consequences, do you understand ?” .

So, dear parents, if the above mentioned community solutions don’t tickle your fancy, best you step up, grow up, and act like responsible adults, and teach your children through positive example.

On a more general note about parenting, for you dear parents, (this might come as a shock so best to grip your pram for emotional support), you should be aware that nobody thinks your sperm/egg mix is particularly special. In fact, if you look around it’s a very common occurrence. Following on from this thought, just like your indigo child is not particular special to the rest of us, having a baby does not make YOU particular special either, and certainly does not earn you a “get out of jail free card”. The Shock! The Horror! but yes, its true, basic rules of acceptable behaviour still apply to you,  dear parents…… …deep breaths, deep breaths, do you require a brown paper bag or are you cop-ing with the truth being S.P.E.L.T out for you?

Good, so let PM finish up with some visual aids to reinforce your understanding.
If your child can’t walk by your side, hands behind back, like image below. They should not be brought to a gallery.

If you proceed to bring your toddler/child/baby to a gallery and then negate your parental responsibilities to supervise them, you should leave the gallery like the image below, with your hands behind your back –handcuffed.

PM does hope this letter will assist you with your parenting skills.

Kind regards
Panga Management

P.S Children might be your little artworks, but not all artworks belong in galleries.