SUPER BORING - Wayne Barker
celebrating 25 years of Wayne Barker’s work (catalogue), 2010, Marelize van Zyl (ed). Published by SMAC Gallery, Stellenbosch (RSA); ISBN: 978-0-620-46718-6
celebrating 25 years of Wayne Barker’s work (catalogue), 2010,
Marelize van Zyl (ed). Published by SMAC Gallery, Stellenbosch (RSA);
ISBN: 978-0-620-46718-6
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68<br />
I destroyed Apies River in a performance in a black working-class bar…<br />
WAYNE BARKER<br />
WAYNE BARKER, 2002<br />
In <strong>Barker</strong>’s “Apies River” the landscape was fi rst roughly smudged out, then various organs and disembodied<br />
heads drawn over its surface. The cartoons look stressed out, they sweat and cry under halos of exclamation<br />
marks. A large saw with two heads sewn together at the mouth threatens the whole scene from above, and<br />
a large diamond pops out of a chute and rises into the middle of the picture. As in Basquiat’s art, these<br />
are very goofy looking images, claims <strong>Barker</strong>, but they are also quite heavy. They are images of pain and<br />
torture, murder, emasculation and a hard labour that bloodies the hand, pisses red, lobotomizes. In <strong>Barker</strong>’s<br />
grim view this beautiful South African landscape shits out diamonds and gold, and buries its shattered men<br />
in their place (Peffer 2009: 223-224).<br />
Apies River | 1989 | oil on canvas | 118 x 104 cm<br />
<strong>SUPER</strong> <strong>BORING</strong><br />
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