Nicodim Gallery is proud to announce Bhabharosi, the first solo exhibition by Simphiwe Ndzube (b. 1990) outside his hometown of Cape Town, South Africa.
Bhabharosi is an invented term given to the protagonist in this current body of paintings and sculpture. It stems from the words “Barbarous” and “Rose,” combined and pronounced in isiXhosa, my home language. A Bhabharosi is one who embodies elements of beauty and hardship, one who has been rejected, disjointed, disfigured, and discarded after being used for his labour. He finds refuge and diversion by defiantly embodying sartorial elements of the Swenkas, the working-class Zulu men who participate in amateur competitions that are part fashion show and part choreography, the purpose of which is to display one's style and sense of attitude. He has elements of the hero in Amos Tutuola’s The Palm-Wine Drinkard, as well as the fat-bellied Pozzo and his slave, Lucky, from Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. In Bhabharosi, the fantastical figure emerges, walking precariously on a surreal journey of recovery, finding his voice and feet, moving through patched open landscapes with transitory barricades or signs monitoring where and how far he can go.
— Simphiwe Ndzube
Galeria Nicodim este onorată să prezinte Bhabharosi, prima expoziție personală a lui Simphiwe Ndzube (n. 1990) din afara orașului său natal Cape Town, Africa de Sud.
Bhabharosi este un termen inventat și atribuit protagonistului din această serie de picturi și sculpturi. Acesta are la origine cuvintele trandafir (Rose) și sălbatic (Barbarous), compuse și pronunțate în isiXhosa, limba mea maternă. Un Bhabharosi este cineva care întruchipează semne ale frumuseții precum și ale vitregiei sorții, cineva care a fost respins, rupt în bucăți, desfigurat și dat la o parte după ce a fost folosit pentru munca sa. El își găsește refugiul și amuzamentul îmbrăcând cu sfidare articole de croitorie ca cele specifice grupului Swenkas, bărbații zulu din clasa muncitoare care participă în competiții pentru diletanți de spectacol de modă și coregrafie totodată, scopul acestora fiind de a afișa stilul personal și vlaga din atitudinea fiecăruia. El are elemente ce amintesc de eroul lui Amos Tutuola din „Bețivul care bea vin de palmier” (The Palmwine Drinkard), precum și de burtosul Pozzo și sclavul său, Lucky, din piesa de teatru a lui Samuel Beckett, „Așteptându-l pe Godot”. În Bhabharosi, figura fantastică iese la iveală și înaintează cu incertitudine într-o călătorie onirică de recuperare a sa, regăsindu-și vocea și echilibrul, hoinărind de-a lungul peisajelor în aer liber peticite cu baricade tranzitorii ori semne care monitorizează unde și cât de departe poate el să meargă.
- Simphiwe Ndzube
“Bhabharosi” at Nicodim Gallery in Los Angeles is the first solo show from Simphiwe Ndzube outside Cape Town, South Africa, the artist’s hometown. The strange, headless and limbless figures that travel throughout the paintings and sculptures of Ndzube have their own mythology.
With this exhibition, Simphiwe Ndzube has officially gone international. Ndzube is based in Los Angeles and South Africa, and this presentation is his first solo show outside of his native Cape Town.
Simphiwe Ndzube, in his bold debut at the Nicodim Gallery, has produced a personal and political tragicomedy that is an insightful commentary on the human condition. Set against the backdrop of South Africa where Ndzube was born, Bhabharosi tells the timely story of the hero’s journey that is steeped in the colors and customs of his birthplace but speaks to universal themes.
Certain artists—Kerry James Marshall and Nicole Eisenman come to mind—have mastered the ability to combine life as it is lived with life as it is portrayed; representation and abstraction work in tandem to produce portraits or scenes that reveal more about their subjects than literal depictions.
“Bhabharosi,” the title of Simphiwe Ndzube’s show and several works therein, is a neologism the artist coined from the words “barbarous” and “rose” in isiXhosa, his native language, to refer to his protagonists. As insinuated, a mood of bittersweetness transfuses the exhibition. Variegated mixed-media works portray distorted figures whose ragtag garb and uneasily posed theatricality evoke dystopian fashion mannequins.
Through metaphor and myth we seek to express themes that speak not to the particulars of a time and place but assert the conditions of life in universal terms; it is a need to depict the everyman and woman as players in this tragicomedy of life. From the Tarot deck, the fool steps off of a cliff......
“What artists make is, to a certain extend, an extension of themselves. It somehow shows what is happening in the backs of our minds, how we analyze the world and how we project the world back to ourselves.” - Simphiwe Ndzube
