In a block of text on an interior wall of The Blue House, David Krut Projects’ gallery and bookstore in Parkwood, Boitumelo Makousu introduces Stephen Langa’s Inceptions of Black Serenity by mentioning that the artist was inspired by Marvin Gaye’s 1976 album I Want You — and by its cover image, The Sugar Shack, a painting by Ernie Barnes of a writhing, jamming, jiving dance hall.
The energy and mood of this work may seem at odds with the calmer, quieter atmosphere permeating the scenes depicted in Langa’s oil-based monotypes and pastels. What they share, however, is the artists’ desire to show different aspects of “ordinary” black life in the US and SA: two countries in which black experience has historically been represented (to borrow from Njabulo Ndebele) in “spectacular” terms of oppression and resistance. ..
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