anton kannemeyer at jack shainman gallery, new york

‘n is for nightmare’, 2008 – black ink and acrylic

earlier this month the jack shainman gallery, new york presented ‘the haunt of fears’, an exhibition of new works by anton kannemeyer. the exhibition paid homage to the tradition through which kannemeyer has made his name, comic art. as co-editor of bitterkomix, the satirical comic magazine he started with conrad botes in 1992, kannemeyer has become known for creating an influential new south african brand of biting socio-political satire.

a view of the exhibition ‘the haunt of fears’ at the jack shainman gallery

with ‘the haunt of fears’ the artist presents selections of works on paper from ‘the alphabet of democracy -series’, a new series entitled cursed paradise and drawings from recent sketch books; all of which elaborate on the tradition of comic art to voice more complex concerns in response to an ever changing cultural and socio-political landscape in southern africa. in his ongoing work-in-progress ‘the alphabet of democracy’, kannemeyer has turned his focus from the sins, perversions and sexual repression of the fathers to the bigger post-apartheid picture. kannemeyer tackles a lot of issues politicians and journalists tent to shy away from by using a mixture of the stereotypes associated with political cartooning and combining them with the deeply personal, the irreverent and the surrealism of the subconscious. his idiosyncratic mash-up of allegory, history, existentialist nausea, self-loathing and nihilism makes for a heady brew.

‘b is for black’, 2008 – black ink and acrylic

in the cursed paradise series and pieces such as ‘n is for nightmare’ and ‘pappa in afrika’ kannemeyer takes political satire a risky step further into the murky depths of white fear. to fear someone or something implies that you believe they mean you harm. the figures stalking the dreams of the sleeping suburb portrayed here are not the sympathetic victims of poverty and previous disadvantagement. they are deliberately rendered as savages reminiscent of herge’s depiction of ‘the natives’ in the controversial tintin in the congo. the use of tintin as a satirical character, as seen in the parody of tintin in the congo, is poignant in more ways than one. kannemeyer has used a tintin-like figure to portray himself, or at times the white afrikaans boy running, before – for example in true love (best of bitterkomix, 1998) and the haunting 1974 (best of bitterkomix, 2002). in doing so he pays ambivalent homage to herge, his morally tainted comic artist hero, and to tintin, the hero of his naïve white and privileged childhood.

‘d is for dancing ministers’, 2006 – six colour lithograph

‘j is for jack russell’, 2006 – five colour lithograph

‘m is for mugabe’, 2008 – black ink, pencil and acylic

the art of anton kannemeyer is clearly a violence from within, but it does not seem to believe in any form of protection or anything but the need for individual resistance against the pressures of an unrelenting reality. his work is a head-on collision with the national state of desperate confusion. this new collection of works will make the viewer nervous, then laugh, and then make him nervous all over again.

‘white nightmare: black dicks’, 2007 – acrylic on canvas

‘say! if you speak english…’, 2008 – black ink and acrylic

anton kannemeyer at jack shainman gallery: http://www.jackshainman.com

more information on the artists behind bitterkomix can be found here & here

‘we-make-money-not-art’ recently visited the exhibition ‘the haunt of fears’ – read their report