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CHRIS THURMAN: Stitching up wounds after a chainsaw massacre
Sewing Saw refuses straightforward interpretation, writes Chris Thurman
Nicholas Hlobo’s work is not easy going. It is striking, certainly, in its range of materials and textures, its mismatched surfaces and colours. It is visually intricate, and the stitching that has become a trademark of the artist is testament to painstaking labour. To some eyes, it may even be beautiful – but it is not pretty. Conceptually, Hlobo piques the viewer’s curiosity but the riddles he poses are not readily solved. His quirky installations bear the vestiges of past performances; standing in the place of now-absent audiences, lacking the convincing immediacy of the artist’s presence, we are left puzzling over the meaning of it all. This is certainly the case with Sewing Saw (at Stevenson Cape Town until January 21), in which Hlobo sets the iconic Singer sewing machines frequently associated with his practice against the sharp teeth of a Bosch power saw. The notes accompanying the exhibition explain that the artist is "uprooting and expanding his personal mythology", and it ...
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