REVIEW / KOLODI SENONG

DUMILE FENI
HISTORY
GALLERY MOMO
From 20 August to 22 October 2014, Zwelidumile Feni-Mhlaba's second exhibition at
Gallery MOMO, 'History,' comprised of bronze sculptures, works on paper and hand-
printed black-and-white photographs. The sculptures and drawing are indicative of
his profound ideas and creative impulses in dealing with human experiences, while the
photographs by George Hallet capture glimpses of Feni's life in London and New York
where he spent his exile years.
The photographs show Feni with his friends, doing work in studio and enjoying leisure
activities, and they have become important visual records of the artist with his
colleagues in exile. Feni's psychic drawings, often in pencil, ink and charcoal, convey a
sense of deep longing made visible through visual expressions, attempting to penetrate
what seems to be his inner self. These drawings come across as a creative means
to negotiate the challenging realities of the world he had to cope with. His bronze
sculptures include several untitled busts, one a tribute to the anti-apartheid struggle
activist, Ruth First, and a rounded mask-like bust, which pays homage to his friend
Omar Badsha.
Upon entering the gallery space, one is confronted by a troubling bronze sculpture,
titled History, which blends humanoid and animal forms. The work shows two human
figures that have assumed a beast-like posture and two more figures sitting over a
kneeling woman while riding on a cart. The bestial figure pulling the wagon is naked
and larger than all the other figures; his legs stand erect while his hands function as
forelegs. Feni's interpretation, although the work was created during apartheid, seems
relevant to post-apartheid South Africa; he calls the human/beast, with a horse-bit in
his mouth that grants his rider control and a waist-band that fastens him to the cart, 'a
vandalised mind' symbolising the people who have given up in life.
The work portrays oppression and exploitation at their best; its sharp criticism is
the inhumanity with which human beings sometimes treat each other, oftentimes
perpetuated by greed and malice, two cores of apartheid. Feni's works, fondly termed
'precious monsters' by the artist, depict what he calls "the South African pain."
Much of the work that forms part of the exhibition, including Exile in Fifth Stage
Cleansed Mind, was done in exile between London and New York. This disconcerting
image unpacks the difficulty of life in a foreign country, without losing critical sight of
his troubled home; South Africa. It shows the uncertainty and effects of separation in
its portrayal of people who appear to be evolving into beasts as they swirl, stretch and
stride on all fours. The artist depicts what seem to be humans emerging within other
figures in a whimsical world.

Feni's topics range widely between politics, jazz and erotica in meditative yet perverse
life forms. Sexual themes are portrayed in compositions such as Figures and Horses,
In God's Eye. Beneath the Shadows, shows an overlap of lines, an upside down twisting
horse, musical instruments such as the violin, the guitar, and the upright bass in what
appear to be sexual encounters that words cannot accurately describe.
Generally, Feni's mythical artworks are disturbing in their fusion of incongruous life
forms and emphatic line work that conveys peculiar landscapes. The artist claims that
his unrefined artworks are rooted in the history of the San people (whom he regards as
his ancestors). Although born in 1939 in Worcester, Feni lived in Johannesburg in the
1950s where he produced some of his probing ballpoint pen drawings that propelled
him to draughtsman-guru status. Rather than succumbing to apartheid's racial
oppressive laws, he escaped to London in 1968 and, in 1979, he moved to New York.
Here he lived out his days until his death on 16 October 1991, just a day after the opening
of his exhibition at the University of the Witwatersrand.

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