From the Tell It to the Mountains wayfinder:
“Mikhael Subotzky’s Moses and Griffiths (2012) is a portrait of the lives and labours of Moses Lamani and Griffiths Sokuyeka, two men who worked in Makhanda (previously known as Grahamstown). It asks after the distance between ‘home’ in Tantyi, a township outside Makhanda, and ‘work’ in the city’s colonial structures. This in turn offers reflections on distance – between the promises of reformation and its realities in practice, and between the fictional stories that are told of history and those of lived experience. Khanya Mashabela speaks of “two Moses and two Griffiths,” who “cannot be reconciled or easily separated. The ‘ideal’ version of their identities, as demanded by the institutional structures in which they work, is hostile to their core identities outside of their labour.”"
Provided exclusively to proto~, these film stills are taken directly from Subotzky’s four-channel video installation, notating passing moments that prompt reflection on the nature of time, visuality, and the coincidence of photography and film.
Mikhael Subotzky and Lindokuhle Sobekwa's Tell It to the Mountains opened in A4's gallery in October 2021.
Mikhael Subotzky (b. 1981, Cape Town) is a Johannesburg-based artist whose works in multiple mediums (including film installation, video, photography, collage and painting) critically engage with the instability of images and the politics of representation. Subotzky has exhibited in a number of seminal international exhibitions, and his work is collected widely by international institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art (New York), Solomon R Guggenheim Museum (New York), the National Gallery of Art (Washington), Tate (London), Centre Pompidou (Paris), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the South African National Gallery, among others.
“Mikhael Subotzky’s Moses and Griffiths (2012) is a portrait of the lives and labours of Moses Lamani and Griffiths Sokuyeka, two men who worked in Makhanda (previously known as Grahamstown). It asks after the distance between ‘home’ in Tantyi, a township outside Makhanda, and ‘work’ in the city’s colonial structures. This in turn offers reflections on distance – between the promises of reformation and its realities in practice, and between the fictional stories that are told of history and those of lived experience. Khanya Mashabela speaks of “two Moses and two Griffiths,” who “cannot be reconciled or easily separated. The ‘ideal’ version of their identities, as demanded by the institutional structures in which they work, is hostile to their core identities outside of their labour.”"
Provided exclusively to proto~, these film stills are taken directly from Subotzky’s four-channel video installation, notating passing moments that prompt reflection on the nature of time, visuality, and the coincidence of photography and film.
Mikhael Subotzky and Lindokuhle Sobekwa's Tell It to the Mountains opened in A4's gallery in October 2021.
22 x 33 cm | Inkjet print on photo rag | 1 of 15
Mikhael Subotzky (b. 1981, Cape Town) is a Johannesburg-based artist whose works in multiple mediums (including film installation, video, photography, collage and painting) critically engage with the instability of images and the politics of representation. Subotzky has exhibited in a number of seminal international exhibitions, and his work is collected widely by international institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art (New York), Solomon R Guggenheim Museum (New York), the National Gallery of Art (Washington), Tate (London), Centre Pompidou (Paris), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the South African National Gallery, among others.