interview with laura twiggs

student life, December 97 / January 98

 

What do an empty space, a rubber Madiba mask. a thumb print a bomb warning, a smashed beer bottle, a Web-site littered with profanity and a Hustler centrefold have in common? If it's signed ‘Kendell Geers' it might be a work of art. LAURA TWIGGS interviewed South African art's enfant terrible: Kendell Geers, age 29, is one of the most prominent figures in the SA artworld, and one of Africa's foremost postmodernists who has represented both the country and the continent in numerous shows around the world. As representatives go, Geers, like his work, is far from conventional. No art angel, he and his work as artist, curator and critic are invariably embroiled in controversy, making him the ‘rebel' of our art world. Few words in the English language moonlight as both verb and noun. Those that do, like ‘rebel,' are strangely evocative and oddly disturbing. Remember the school rebel, smoking in the pool showers under a bad haircut? Synonymous with ‘thicko,' the rebel was the dropout kid who couldn't manage the academic side of school. Rebels had no future, they were destined for the gutters of Amsterdam and a heroin OD, or to menial jobs (using their hands) in the sex industry. But sometimes it was these who went on to achieve great things while their head-girls ended up staffing the Stutties cosmetic counter. The careers chosen by those branded as rebels are seldom of the mapped-out variety; they're more likely to be drawn into fluid environments than the corporate nine to five. Its a lifestyle that is not only financially challenging, but can lead to prolonged angst and self-doubt as there are so few available role models.

LT: Kendell Geers is such a role model. What was the first act of rebellion you committed, and at what age?

KG: It's hard for me to say. I was brought up in a very strict Christian environment where I was taught never to question my father; my school, state or church. I was being groomed to become my father in every way, as he in turn was his own father's clone and so on. Right from the beginning I found myself asking too many questions. I needed to understand how and why I was not allowed to do this or that, and why other things that seemed arbitrary to me were permissible. At first I was deeply religious and planned to become a missionary. Later, the answers I was being given drove me from Christianity, answers like ‘Because the Bible says so.' I began to realise at around 13 that laws and morals were there to protect weak people from strong people, that the majority of people want to be told what to do, think and believe. That was never good enough for me.

LT: How do you define rebellion? Do you see yourself as a rebel?

KG: No, I don't see myself as a rebel as much as someone who doesn't feel the need to always accept what I am fed. I don't always do what I'm told if I don't see the reason. I could never, for instance, understand why I should give the best years of my life to the army, why I should defend my country against itself. So I refused to go, and frankly would have sat in jail for six years out of a strong belief in personal freedom and choice. I have a very strong sense of morality which is my own code, written by me, for me.

LT: What kind of things have you rebelled against? And in those terms, who've been your role models?

KG: I was always short on role models when I was growing up. As a white kid from a working class Afrikaans family I felt very culturally deprived. It was like living in a cultural vacuum. Later I discovered the sounds of working-class England, bands like The Sex Pistols, and they made a lot of sense to me. I was attracted to their energy and their mistrust of authority. In apartheid South Africa this seemed particularly relevant... It's interesting that it's expected of European artists that they break the rules, that they challenge their forefathers and in the process create new languages, [but] back in Africa we're expected to behave, do what we're told and perpetuate the same old same old... My role models were in many instances my contemporaries: artists, writers or musicians who were fighting similar demons and whose experiences informed my own and I hope vice versa. People like Neil Goedhals, Koos Prinsloo, Warwick Sony and, of course, from an older generation, JM Coetzee. There were other role models too, people who don't deserve to be named: artists who remain a great inspiration to me in that they embody exactly that which I don't want to become.

LT: When you 'ran away from home at age 15 and became Kendell Geers,' what do you think your community thought would become of you? What did you think would become of yourself?

KG: I never knew what would become of me, except that I wanted to put as much distance between where I was coming from and where I was going. I knew that I would never return and that it was only up from there. I guess that this is what drives my ambition: I have nowhere else to go.

LT:What are the responses now, if any, from people from your past life to you and to your work?

KG: I don't know because I've had no contact. Every now and then I meet someone who was at school with me, but it has always been so far from ‘home' that their experiences and ambitions echo my own. They've become doctors or lawyers and somehow we share a silent understanding of why we had to escape, to break the cycle.

LT: What do you think people should rebel against?

KG: I don't condone random acts of rebelliousness. Being rebellious can change the world. Remember, it was the rebel who first said the world was round, or that the earth revolved around the sun and not the other way around, or that women and men should enjoy equal political rights, and so forth. The rebel is necessary to make the human race aware of its own bigotry and intolerance. Doing what you believe in, but always from a position of knowledge, or sometimes instinct, as opposed to ignorance and fear, will make you seem like a rebel. It's a lonely route, but we need many more rebels, particularly in this young democracy of ours or else history is just going to repeat itself.

LT: You've made a name and a place for yourself as an artist yet are seen by many as an ‘art rebel.' In contradiction, the rebel is traditionally an outsider, unable to conform, and lacking all sense of place. How do you reconcile this impasse? Is it an impasse?

KG: No impasse. It's a lot easier to change things from the inside than from the outside. I am an inside ‘outsider,' a virus at the heart of the beast. Just because I am on the inside does not mean that I have to buy the dream, that I cannot be critical of it, including my own role in it. But I think I have in my own small way managed to open doors that 10 years ago were hermetically sealed shut, to create opportunities for younger, more radical artists that the old Broederbond would have destroyed or written out of history. I wish that the people who don't like me or what I do would shut up and get down to work. When I graduated from art school I soon realised that there was no place for me in the so-called art world, that I would have to fight my way in and then fight to stay there. This is the way I work; if I don't like something, I'll set about creating the alternative myself. South Africans have this terrible habit of sitting on the edge of the field complaining, shouting out how they think it should be done. In reality, these are just cowards scared of bruising their knees, of getting dirty or, heaven forbid, of actually scoring.

LT: Were you a golden boy at art school? Did your teachers encourage your work and ideas?

KG: No! No no no no! I don't think I've ever been a golden boy! At school I was always too intelligent to fit in with the rebels, but too anarchic to fit in with the nerds. At art school I think my teachers thought I would never amount to much - at least that's what they told me through the marks I got. In my final year I'm certain that the only reason why I passed was because they didn't want me back. Many years later I was very moved when Peter Schutz admitted to me that they had made a mistake. I accept that apology and now am about to return to Wits to study my masters, in part to change the past, to learn from my mistakes...

LT: Have you ever been tempted to give up your career in the art world

KG: Every day. I love art but hate the art world. It's a small incestuous nepotistic quagmire of mediocrity. But, every now and then you find a gem of an art work, a spark of hope, an affirmation of the potential of art.

LT:What would you have done instead?

KG: I cannot say what I would be if I wasn't an artist because I am an artist. Even if I pursued a career in quantum physics or fashion, both of which influence me very much, I would still be an artist. Today the old definitions of what it is that artists make or do no longer apply, and being an artist is really more about a consciousness than about making pretty pictures.

LT: To people seeking careers in the art world, and to those who want to follow an unmapped creative path, what is the best advice you have?

KG: On the up side, if you succeed as an artist, and the odds are you won't, the biggest perk is that you will get to travel far and wide around the world. In my very short life I have already been taken to Havana, Venice, Lofoten Islands, Paris, London, Berlin, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Tampa, New York, Sao Paulo... to name but a few. On the other hand, getting there hasn't been easy... To succeed you need an enormous amount of courage, vision and hope. Art can be the most rewarding career in the world, but the gems are very well hidden in an enormous pile of bullshit. Being an artist is not a job but a lifestyle without end or compromise. Don't begin unless you are prepared to go all the way.