[Exhibition][Introduction][Postscript][List of Works] [ConferenceProgramme]
Migratory Aesthetics
Fanozi Chickenman Mkhize (1959-1995)
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Johan Fanozi ‘Chickenman’ Mkhize was born in 1959 in Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa. He received no formal education and spoke only Zulu. After being laid off work at a dairy farm he began making art objects to sell on the street. In 1990 his work was included in the exhibition, Art from South Africa curated by David Brown at the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford. In 1992 he participated in an exhibition of two artists’ work (with Roger Palmer) at the Centre for African Studies, University of Cape Town. Selections of his work were also included in the first Johannesburg Biennale (1995) and in Earth & Everything: Recent Art from South Africa (1996), curated by Tessa Jackson and Roger Palmer for Arnolfini, Bristol. Chickenman Mkhize died in 1995.
Each morning in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Mkhize would arrive at his place of work in the grounds of the Tatham Art Gallery in Pietermartizburg. It was here that Chickenman worked his work, at the interface between the museum and the street. Sitting in the shade of a tree, he would operate a moving dance sculpture of four figures in approximate time to music from a ghetto-blaster (complete with reserve battery power taped to the machine). His road-sign works were to be found nearby on the kerb-side, placed at roughly 5 metre intervals, available to the first buyer for roughly the price of a bunch of flowers.
The sculptures are made entirely of re-cycled materials: a section of fence-pole is supported on a circular base of heavy-duty wire and a triangle and rectangle of hardboard are each nailed to the pole. Both panels are painted dark green with the upper, triangular section edged in red and containing a single white-painted motif. The motifs are for the most part figurative, comprising rudimentary human figures, animals, vehicles, petrol pumps, etc. On the lower panel Mkhize’s unfamiliarity with language is evident. Here he roughly copied found language in either Zulu or English in a typically illiterate hand with no regard for word breaks or the meaning of words. A white dotted border encloses the text. In each work a disjuncture occurs between motif and text. The expectations of road-signs are both met and denied by this disjuncture and by the complexities of Mkhize’s idiosyncratic re-presentation of language.
Like many untrained black artists in South Africa, Chickenman Mkhize produced his work according to economic pressures such as the availability of free materials and popularity of certain motif/text combinations - he would re-make pieces that sold well and re-cycle those that did not. But his playful disregard for the conventions of meaning assumes a notable level of sophistication and contributes to a growing preoccupation with the visibility of language by artists in different parts of the world.
[Exhibition][Introduction][Postscript][List of Works] [ConferenceProgramme]
