Mohau Modisakeng is a world-renowned artist who works with performance, sculpture, installation, film, and large-format photography. Through these mediums, he explores the history and portrayal of the black body during South Africa’s violent and oppressive past. His creative process starts with a vision, either in the form of a dream or from research into South Africa’s turbulent history.
Mohau Modisakeng’s mother is a spiritually gifted person. She divines things through dreams and visions, and practices a mix of Christianity and African traditional practices. When Mohau was a child, his mother would relay her dreams to him, and explain what she thought they meant. “I understood that images had some kind of meaning,” Mohau says. He attributes his visual vocabulary to her dreams.
Mohau Modisakeng completed his undergraduate and Master’s degree at Michaelis School of Fine Art in Cape Town. He took sculpture in his third and final years. PHOTO: Kirsty Bucholz
Mohau has dreams like his mother. Through the process of initiation, his dreaming became more refined. “I have that gift and I’m in the process of refining it,” Mohau says. In the past, Mohau used his work as a way of channelling his spirituality – creating photographs, sculptures and performances. But as of late, it has become a more inward looking process. Mohau is no longer performing for the audience, instead he says he is trying to understand more about the journey.
Mohau’s most recent series of sculptures represent the faces of migrant community members in Amsterdam. The preparation process was lengthy – starting with a 360-degree camera scan, which was translated into a 3D image, then cut out into foam. Thereafter, the bronze casting began. PHOTO: Kirsty Bucholz
The creative process
Mohau’s creative process starts with a vision. Not necessarily in the form of a dream; it could also be in the research that he is currently doing. The research takes him to a date and a place, and then from there his imagination takes the lead, he explains to MatieMedia.
According to Mohau, sculpting is largely an experimental process. He begins with a vague idea which he develops into figurines of clay. From there he makes a 3D digital scan to have easily manipulatable images to work with.
I understood that images had some kind of meaning.
“For me, I’ve realised with sculptures that it can’t just be ideas and sketches. You need to physically be with the materials,” says Mohau. He works with clay to do his sculptures, and the workers at Sculpture Casting Service, in Somerset West, transform his vision into bronze.
Mohau Modisakeng, Ditaola II, 2014.
Mohau used to often use his own image as the basis of his artwork – to create agency and counter the dominant historical depiction of the black subject. PHOTO: Supplied/Mohau Modisakeng Studio
The duration of time between the conception of an idea to the end product, depends on the individual project. A lot of preparation goes into Mohau’s photography projects. It takes time to get the right costumes and equipment, and to do test shoots and rehearsals. It could take up to two months of preparation for a day of shooting. Mohau’s longest film project took two years to complete, he says.
The faces
Mohau Modisakeng is from Soweto, Johannesburg. He spends his time between Johannesburg and Cape Town. PHOTO: Kirsty Bucholz
Mohau’s most recent project is a series of seven bronze sculptures titled Rona Batho (which translates to “We the people”). The project was commissioned by a Dutch company called CBK Zuidoost, and will be installed in the Nelson Mandela Park in Amsterdam South East. The grand opening of the art installation will be on 5 September. Mohau explains that the sculptures are a commemoration of the spirit of community and a common humanity.
People who were voted as “important to the community” are the faces of the sculptures. Amsterdam South East has a large migrant community, and the Nelson Mandela Park is an important space to the members of the community; protests, celebrations and concerts are held there, says Mohau.
I’ve realised with sculptures that it can’t just be ideas and sketches. You need to physically be with the materials.
“The park is a place that’s already active in their imaginations. [The sculptures] will hopefully add another dimension to that story,” Mohau explains. He would like to go and see the sculptures with his family once they have been installed. “If not this year, it will always be there, so we will be able to see it at a later stage.”
Mohau Modisakeng uses clay to sculpt the prototypes of most of his sculptures. The workers at Sculpture Casting Service, Somerset West, then craft the bronze sculptures. PHOTO: Kirsty Bucholz
Themes that run throughout
Mohau is interested in South African history, and reads extensively about the topic. “I find it difficult to read about black dispossession, and the criminalisation of the black body, men in particular,” he says. The more he reads, the more details he finds out about South Africa’s history, the more urgency he feels that the story needs to be told.
Mohau is an ambitious artist whose approach to material and metaphor is exciting, according to Sean O’Toole, art journalist, based in Cape Town.
Themes such as black urbanity, race in post-apartheid South Africa, the black body and violence, run throughout his projects. “Although he does not directly portray violence, his work speaks of the visceral effects thereof upon the individual as well as the collective. As such, the body is used to represent shared memory,” according to the Design Indaba profile on Mohau.
The seven face sculptures were completed by mid-July. After that, they were transported to the Netherlands where they will be installed in the Nelson Mandela Park, Amsterdam South East. PHOTO: Kirsty Bucholz
“For me, the reason why the same themes run throughout my work is that it becomes more relevant the more I know about it. I’ll probably be grey and old and still interested in the same thing, and still be finding out more – it’s a very complex history,” Mohau explains. Mohau’s drive to continue to create is the fact that the ideas are not stopping.
According to Mohau, a moment of erasure happened in the early 90s. “I guess we all understood that we needed to get into this social contract to move towards a better country. But it caused a lot of forgetting. We tried to forget the trauma, but elements of culture are attached to that experience.”
Mohau counters this trajectory of constantly forgetting by remembering through his artwork, as a way of excavating and restoring.
Different mediums for storytelling
“I’m most interested in performance,” says Mohau. “Where the body is active in a space; where there’s engagement with the audience.” From a performance, photographs, music and film can be derived. “I look at performance as the anchor. Even in sculpture, the moulding action is also performance in a sense.”
He explains that he finds it difficult to capture the fleetingness of performance. Photography and film can be used to document the moment. Photographs give the viewer access to the instant by freezing the moment.
“You can try to imagine what happened moments before or after the image was taken,” says Mohau. Film can document a richer story. “Film actually cues you into what you should be thinking at that time. I like the time-based element of film. While a photograph freezes a moment, film allows you to look into the moment in freer space,” he says. Most of Mohau’s work is filmed at a slower frame rate. He believes this gives people the space to sit down and take things in more effectively.
I’m most interested in performance. Where the body is active in a space; where there’s engagement with the audience.
Mohau Modisakeng directed the short film Passage (2017) for the 57th International Art Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia. The film was commissioned by the South African department of arts and culture. The project included a live performance, film, and photography. PHOTO: Supplied/Mohau Modisakeng Studio
Balance and meaning
Mohau spends his time between Johannesburg and Cape Town. Most of his family are in Johannesburg, including his wife and daughter, Zozi. “I spend maybe a month or two in Joburg and then another month in Cape Town to change it up. It’s a balance between family and work life,” he explains. In his free time, he is learning how to play the double bass. He hopes to score his own performances in the future.
He finds his work meaningful, because he has met enough people who have seen his work and have been moved by it. “When they tell me… that’s enough confirmation for me. It’s encouraging,” he says.
Mohau Modisakeng met Jane Alexander, world-renowned artist, at Michaelis School of Fine Art in Cape Town. Jane became a mentor and mother-figure to Mohau and many other black students at Michaelis, according to Mohau. PHOTO: Kirsty Bucholz