Visiting Artist: Zwelethu Mthethwa

2 Questions:

-I was reading an article about how you approach your subjects. It was saying that when you first started shooting your color photographs, you would circulate outside and wait for your subjects to invite you in your homes. You would give these people time to shower or clean their home. At this point, their home was basically a studio for you to work with. At the end of the shoot, you would give them a print of themselves to keep. What is the importance of giving your subjects a tangible print? Do you have any interesting stories about that?

-In your series "Common Ground", you explore the effects of both the disasters of Hurricane Katrina and the Capetown Wildfires with a more documentary approach. Could you explain to us how you approach shooting subject matter in comparison to your post-apartheid portraits?

• I found it really interesting and inspiring how Zwelethu Mthethwa chose to show us work that he considered to be "unresolved". When he opened his lecture with this, I immediately became more interested in what he had to speak about. 

Three words that define Mthethawa's artwork and practice:

• Post apartheid: this is an obvious selection, yet I still think it needs to be said, as all of the work he showed was documenting the effects of apartheid and the new-found freedom of the Africans. 
• Documentary: he successfully documented many different walks of life in South Africa and surrounding countries. He documented sugarcane workers, miners (gold, quartz, and coal), and brick recyclers. He approached people in the street and went into their homes to document their space. He documented the devastation of both Hurricane Katrina and the fires of Capetown. I wouldn't necessarily call his photographic approach dead-pan documentary, but it definitely is routed in the act of documenting a space, time, and person.
• Collaborative: upon walking into the lecture, I expected to see photographs. I also knew that Mthethawa studied as a painter in South Africa, so I wasn't going to be surprised if some of his paintings were shown in his presentation. I didn't know he did video work at all, especially of such different varieties. He mentioned that when he approached his subjects in this series "Interior", he was accompanied by a painter friend of his, who would also take pictures of the spaces, but for the purpose of replicating through painting. He also collaborated with a different painter to create a video in response to technology, which was a first-person view of a soccer ball being kicked around.

I thought it was interesting that he described photographing in a different city as intimidating because he doesn't fully understand the culture or history of a place. When he said that, I immediately thought of his "Common Ground" series, where he photographed both New Orleans and Capetown. He quickly explained that he has visited New Orleans prior to Hurricane Katrina, so he felt that he was able to revisit the place and accurately and confidently photograph the effects of the disaster.

One of my questions was answered during the lecture. He explained that in "Interiors" he photographed a man in his home that was recently hit by a car. Later, Mthethawa came back, returning with a print for the man. The man told him that he was glad he now has a photograph of what he looks like, so he may be able to send the photo to his family so they now may know what he looks like, after the accident.

I felt that the last series Mthethawa showed up was the most compelling. It was untitled and unfinished, but it was photographs of the electrical lines in poorer parts of South Africa. He explained that although the lines have killed many people because they are very unstable and unsafe, he finds some sort of beauty within them. I definitely think that this was his strongest work and was a bit disappointed to not see more series like this.

Another question that comes to mind is - how important is composition to Mthethawa? It seems that many of his portraits (though craft-fully made) don't seem to focus much on the actual composition of the frame. For example, many of his photos from the "Sugarcane Worker" series, simply placed the worker in the middle of the frame. The same can be said for his gold, quartz, and coal mining series.