WAYNE BARKER, ARTIST’S MONOGRAPH
Published 2000 in association with Chalkham Hill Press Published 2000 in association with Chalkham Hill Press
When a lecturer at Michaelis told Barker that what he really needed was to go to the army, learn some discipline and then go back and paint, he obviously never knew his student. Or perhaps knew him all too well. When Barker returned from Cape Town at the end of 1983 having failed art history, his father insisted that he would do his bit for the country. Barker ignored the family pressure and spent that Christmas in Johannesburg. The decision would shift his context and redefine the parameters of his work, largely due to the influence of two people working there at the time. In Cape Town he had met a young actress and started helping her and a friend construct the sets for their plays. The actress was Megan Kruskul, and her friend was Chris Pretorius. Before leaving the country to pursue international opportunities, Pretorius and Kruskul would come as close as anyone ever has to being underground stars in Johannesburg. Working with them, Barker acquired skills that would later add weight and conviction to his military performance repertoire. When critic Brenda Atkinson today writes about the "ravishing aesthetic impact" of Barker's work, and of how he is able to turn "politics into beauty", the artist should probably, however briefly, tip his hat in the direction of South Africa's alternative theatre scene. Pretorius, a writer and designer, would almost certainly have instilled in Barker a sense of textured space and odd lighting. Kruskul, with whom Barker had become involved, would act in plays with names like Weird Sex in Maputo. She was also known to chant sick ditties and spit political outrage at the singer of a seminal punkish agit-rock band called Koos. Of the authors she got Barker to read, he would say in the Vryeweekblad: "In the army I was three people - Umberto Eco, Carl Jung and Joseph Heller." Early in 1984, Barker's call-up papers arrived at his parents' home. He and Kruskul were devastated, but she and his mother eventually dropped him off at the military 18
ase in Voortrekkerhoogte, Pretoria. Barker was stunned. "I took one look and decided no way, not interested." Although the End Conscription Campaign had begun to gather momentum, white boys who refused to march to the apartheid tune for two years and return for camps for years thereafter essentially had two options: to go to the army or go to jail. Conscientious objectors could be - and were - arrested and imprisoned for up to five years. Barker's best option was to have himself classified unsuitable for service. With a renewed recklessness and a grand concentration of energy, he set to work. It took him about two weeks. "What happened was that in the army I met Jeremy Nathan [later a leading independent film producer], a confused theologian and a poet who'd been studying for nine years. We were in different barracks, but somehow we met and we'd strategise on the parade ground and we'd swap notes. We refused to carry rifles and understood how we were being indoctrinated." In those days the army was partly an extension of the white education system: on any given Friday afternoon you could see teen troopies strut their stuff in polished boots on well-watered school fields across the country. Because Barker had kicked a soccer ball deftly, in the army he ended up in the sport bungalow. "I was with all these fucking massive ous built like shithouses. And there I was going into passive resistance mode, pretending to be a bit mad." Barker's informal education kicked in: his desperate, off-the-cuff fusion of psychoanalysis and theatre had him marching like Charlie Chaplin, as well as bonding "to get to the Corporal to get to the Sergeant to get to the Lieutenant to get to the Captain to get out." He was duly released. Temporarily disowned by his family, he moved to Johannesburg and started painting.
- 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 16 and 17: In his two years at the University
- Page 22: Something was up in Johannesburg's
- Page 26 and 27: 24 In 1989, Nelson Mandela was stil
- Page 30: The Johannesburg Art Gallery, a gra
- Page 33: On July 4 1990, five months after h
- Page 43 and 44: as the gem of the Biennale and much
- Page 46: In 1990, at the height of the FIG's
- Page 55: single African country was represen
ase in Voortrekkerhoogte, Pretoria.<br />
Barker was stunned.<br />
"I took one look and decided no way, not interested."<br />
Although the End Conscription Campaign had begun<br />
to gather momentum, white boys who refused to march<br />
to the apartheid tune for two years and return for camps<br />
for years thereafter essentially had two options: to go to<br />
the army or go to jail. Conscientious objectors could be -<br />
and were - arrested and imprisoned for up to five years.<br />
Barker's best option was to have himself classified<br />
unsuitable for service. With a renewed recklessness and<br />
a grand concentration of energy, he set to work. It took<br />
him about two weeks.<br />
"What happened was that in the army I met Jeremy<br />
Nathan [later a leading independent film producer], a<br />
confused theologian and a poet who'd been studying for<br />
nine years. We were in different barracks, but somehow<br />
we met and we'd strategise on the parade ground and<br />
we'd swap notes. We refused to<br />
carry rifles and understood how we<br />
were being indoctrinated."<br />
In those days the army was<br />
partly an extension of the white education system: on any<br />
given Friday afternoon you could see teen troopies strut<br />
their stuff in polished boots on well-watered school fields<br />
across the country. Because Barker had kicked a soccer<br />
ball deftly, in the army he ended up in the sport bungalow.<br />
"I was with all these fucking massive ous built like shithouses.<br />
And there I was going into passive resistance<br />
mode, pretending to be a bit mad."<br />
Barker's informal education kicked in: his desperate,<br />
off-the-cuff fusion of psychoanalysis and theatre had him<br />
marching like Charlie Chaplin, as well as bonding "to get<br />
to the Corporal to get to the Sergeant to get to the Lieutenant<br />
to get to the Captain to get out."<br />
He was duly released. Temporarily disowned by his<br />
family, he moved to Johannesburg and started painting.
Change language