Johannesburg ,2009
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Notes : David Koloane, as much as any South African artist, can be considered a national treasure. A tireless champion of black art and artists in the country throughout his long career, he will be honoured with a national retrospective later in the year, which will include the current work at auction and will be accompanied by a catalogue in which the work will also be illustrated.Koloane, unusually for the local art world, is renowned as much for his role as mentor, critic and teacher as he is for his extensive visual output. If for nothing else, his instrumental involvement in founding the Bag Factory Artist’s studios in Fordsburg – for decades a stalwart Johannesburg art institution – should cement his legacy.As he has often reflected himself, Koloane sees his work as a chronicle of black urban life, both during and after apartheid. Vibrant and full of detail, Koloane’s cityscapes in various mediums are among his most characteristic subjects. Born in the township of Alexandra in 1938, he has seen his hometown of Johannesburg go through many changes in his lifetime. This view of the city emphasises the industrial and commercial character of Jozi. Advertising hoardings dominate the upper plane, along with the belching smoke of the cooling towers of a huge factory in the background – perhaps Orlando or Kelvin power stations. A shabby car, flattened in its perspective, pollutes the atmosphere in the right foreground. In the left foreground, an often-used metaphor in Koloane’s work reoccurs; a pack of scavenging mongrels, emblematic of forces of greed, oppression and the hard life of the city, forages on the ground.In this work, the artist’s muted palette and bold, almost graphic expressionism perfectly capture the grimy underbelly of the big city with the implicit oppression of its apartheid history never far from the surface.
James Sey
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