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This publication featuring impressive photo series by South African artist Mohau Modisakeng (*1986 in Soweto) appears on the occasion of his first solo exhi - bition in Europe at the Kunstraum Innsbruck last year.
Also last year, Modisakeng's video »Inzlo« (Mourning) was shown in the South African pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale. As a starting point for his videos and photos he uses performances where he radically exa m - ines his identity as a South African and the local political situation: »The main message behind my work has to do with the influence of the history of violence on how we understand our cultural, political, and social roles as human beings. My hope is to reveal how power is manipulated to change how we relate to our bodies.« The thesis of body memories results in strong images in Mohau Modisakeng's work; it is no coincidence that many viewers feel reminded of actions by Matthew Barney or even Joseph Beuys. The inherent poetics of these images and the slight trepidation they cause are, however, rooted in the very contemporary approach to the performative act, in the way Mohau Modisakeng knows how to focus the representation of man on his own person, and scenically charge the image so that the use of various items such as whips, machetes, harnesses might seem disturbing, but not preposterous.
Materials such as sand and ash correspond to the more or less rhythmic movement of his body. »My work re - sponds elementarily to the history of the black body with in the (South) African context, which in most cases cannot be removed from the violence of the apartheid era and the early 90s. I think the work becomes mes - merizing because although we might recognize history as our past, the body is indifferent to social changes, so it remembers.«
