WAYNE BARKER, ARTIST’S MONOGRAPH
Published 2000 in association with Chalkham Hill Press Published 2000 in association with Chalkham Hill Press
It's not particularly difficult to imagine how the Glen High School in Pretoria was able to bring out "total Johnny Rottenism" in Wayne Barker. Despite its thistle emblem and tartan-clad cheerleaders, The Glen was not a pretty place in Scotland. Its dusty fields with their adjoining littered hollow lent themselves to smoking dope against the back fence while kicking at the tufts of grass still trying to grow. Its walls begged the malcontent scrawl of irremovable graffiti. The year was 1976, Soweto a cultural universe away. Barker was in Standard Six and his brother in Standard Eight. Together they were the neighbourhood's "legendary reprobates", bored white schoolboys who believed that to be wild was somehow also to be innocent. Buying dope one day, Barker was arrested and his Glen High career came to an abrupt end. Soon after, so did his home life - with all his clothes in black plastic bags, he ran away with a friend and became an apprentice woodcarver in Nature's Valley, where the fragrance of ocean and earth mixed headily with the thrill of flight and an almost anonymous freedom. Although his parents knew where he was, Barker had no contact with them until eight months later, when he returned to Pretoria and crammed his final two years of schooling at Capital College. Conscription loomed, and Barker, for better or for worse, followed his instincts and enrolled at Pretoria Technikon to study its first-ever art course. After a year spent living in his parents' outside room - a year of exploring 13 basic techniques and discovering a staggering backcatalogue of art history books and "art heroes" who he had barely known existed - he decided to take his art studies back to the coast. Over this time, another split became part of the make-up of his identity: the wayward rebel full of unfocused energy learned to shift, focus, and absorb information that would literally allow him to survive in a culture of reactionary thinkers. Later, when Barker would need a trap-door out of the military, the books he had read would be the material for performances in which he was the tragi-comic star.
- Page 2: To my wife to be, Claire; my two da
- Page 5 and 6: 4. Introduction 7. Vienna Calling 9
- Page 7 and 8: part of the making process. One has
- Page 9 and 10: 7 "There's a strong flying story go
- Page 11: In 1963, the year in which Barker w
- Page 17: Barker's brief outing as a tennis c
- Page 21 and 22: ase in Voortrekkerhoogte, Pretoria.
- Page 24: In 1986 Barker had made his commerc
- Page 27: By 1992, Barker was well known to t
- Page 32 and 33: It was early in 1990 that Nelson Ma
- Page 42 and 43: Back in Johannesburg it seemed the
- Page 44: Had you visited Trade Routes, curat
- Page 54 and 55: All Washed Up in Africa would play
- Page 58: WAYNE BARKER's artistic career span
It's not particularly difficult to imagine how the Glen<br />
High School in Pretoria was able to bring out "total Johnny<br />
Rottenism" in Wayne Barker.<br />
Despite its thistle emblem and tartan-clad cheerleaders,<br />
The Glen was not a pretty place in Scotland. Its dusty fields<br />
with their adjoining littered hollow lent themselves to<br />
smoking dope against the back fence while kicking at the<br />
tufts of grass still trying to grow. Its walls begged the<br />
malcontent scrawl of irremovable graffiti.<br />
The year was 1976, Soweto a cultural universe away.<br />
Barker was in Standard Six and his brother in Standard<br />
Eight. Together they were the neighbourhood's "legendary<br />
reprobates", bored white schoolboys who believed that<br />
to be wild was somehow also to be innocent. Buying dope<br />
one day, Barker was arrested and his Glen High career<br />
came to an abrupt end. Soon after, so did his home life -<br />
with all his clothes in black plastic bags, he ran away with<br />
a friend and became an apprentice woodcarver in Nature's<br />
Valley, where the fragrance of ocean and earth mixed<br />
headily with the thrill of flight and an almost anonymous<br />
freedom.<br />
Although his parents knew where he was, Barker had<br />
no contact with them until eight months later, when he<br />
returned to Pretoria and crammed his final two years of<br />
schooling at Capital College.<br />
Conscription loomed, and Barker, for better or for<br />
worse, followed his instincts and enrolled at Pretoria<br />
Technikon to study its first-ever art course. After a year<br />
spent living in his parents' outside room - a year of exploring<br />
13<br />
basic techniques and discovering a staggering backcatalogue<br />
of art history books and "art heroes" who he<br />
had barely known existed - he decided to take his art<br />
studies back to the coast. Over this time, another split<br />
became part of the make-up of his identity: the wayward<br />
rebel full of unfocused energy learned to shift, focus, and<br />
absorb information that would literally allow him to survive<br />
in a culture of reactionary thinkers. Later, when Barker<br />
would need a trap-door out of the military, the books he<br />
had read would be the material for performances in which<br />
he was the tragi-comic star.
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