Johannes Phokela

J ohannes Phokela's mutated doppelgangers o f Dutch and Flemish Old Masters query illusions o f aesthetic purity and notions o f cultural authenticity. His technical facility is selfevident in beautifully painted takes o f iconic images by the likes o f Bruegel, Rubens, de Gheyn and Jordaens, and in his appropriation o f the early modernist realism o f Manet's meditation on nineteenth-century colonialism. Working deliberately from reproductions found in art history tomes and his memo ry o f the original, the gender and color o f key protagonists are often altered from their Northern European origins to result in unsettling images that challenge nationalistic and ethnic narratives around contemporary and historical art. Pho kela, originally fro m Sow eto, studied at FUBA , Johannesburg before concluding his studies at the Royal College o f Art, London. Undoubtedly, Phokela's roots in South Africa and subsequent move to the U.K. are intrinsically linked to these reinterpretations o f the Golden Age and his interest in the parallel histories o f the Enlightenment and the African continent. Indeed, his paintings are as much about the violent and twisted history o f the Dutch in South Africa as they are about the history o f painting. Phokela's extensive knowledge o f art history and its social-political context co mbine with a playful sense o f humo r to bear on his re-presentations o f this familiar but often misunderstood genre. For most post-apartheid South African artists, the politicized context from which they emerge predicates the need to tackle issues and agendas neglected by many o f their European co ntemporaries . Consequently, the black Diaspora often revisits the nationalized or politicized environments from which they were keen to escape in their search for creative autonomy, a move that is mirrored by many European communities trying to reassert degrees o f nationalism in the face o f otherwise fluid ideas o f national identity. Four hundred years earlier, the Age o f Enlightenment began by devaluing local prejudices and customs, essentially advocating an egalitarianism and individual freedom, at least for those for w ho m it was permitted by the controlling forces. The sixteenth century saw borders that separated co mmunities breached by the emergence o f a travel culture, co mmenced by missionaries and developed by scholars embarking on their tours o f Europe and "beyond." The Enlightenment pre-empted, and in part was ended by, the French Revolution whose key components o f popular sovereignty, equality, and liberalism led to the reinforcement o f the very nationalism the Enlightenment sought to undermine. It is appropriate then for Phokela to take as his own subject matter the art o f the Enlightenment and to be critical o f the ideas and values that underpin it, as he himself is fiercely independent o f any easy classification. He would undeniably wish to be received on an equal status with all artists, not to be distinguished on the basis o f racial or cultural origins. Yet, as his friend James Gaywood has written, he "remains fully aware o f his political significance, a black South African artist working in London, making paintings in the classical tradition o f Western A rt."1 Phokela's seductive use o f oil paint, often using a reduced palette, reflects the use o f the medium by the Old Masters, for w hom, it's been said, "flesh was the reason oil paint was invented ."2 Paul O'Kane notes that "Phokela's craft brings ho me the unpalatable fact that the great tradition o f nudes in oils was a "w hite thing.'"3 Phokela's use o f oil, his chiaroscuro, and his realism refute tendencies to exclude Africans from such subject matter and contemporize what is an otherwise ignored genre at the cutting edge. Phokela is phlegmatic in his assertions not to pander to the reactionary European view o f African art's place in the global art market, nor to tolerate the superficial trendiness o f "hanging out with black people." Ecstasy of Medusa is after Rubens's original and also references Caravaggio's circular depiction o...