Award-winning visual artist and activist Lady Skollie, is taking us on a tour to the city's hottest art spots and to some of its most talented creatives that are revolutionizing the way we see African contemporary art.
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00:00I'm Lady Skoli, and I'm a visual artist living and working in Johannesburg.
00:10And this is my city.
00:14Nelson Mandela lived in this, the largest city in South Africa.
00:20But Johannesburg is now home to a thriving and diverse art scene.
00:24Wow, look at that!
00:27When I was growing up, art was not considered a very serious profession.
00:37And this place that we're in right now, August House, that has all of these contemporary
00:41artists' studios in it, was completely unknown to me.
00:52Since graduating, I have made printmaking and painting my art forms.
00:56It has been rewarding to create pieces that have been featured in major exhibitions in
01:01Europe and South Africa.
01:10I'm going to introduce you to some Jo'burg artists that are revolutionizing the way we
01:15see African contemporary art on this continent.
01:18Let's go!
01:20This is Mabuneng, a vibrant cultural district in the inner city.
01:25Mabuneng is a Sotho word that means place of light.
01:29And Mabuneng is the domain of Dibongs Machlati.
01:34For Dibongs, the streets are his canvas.
01:39Dibongs was shy about his art as a boy, but the strong woman in his family encouraged
01:44him to persist and eventually create his supersized public artworks.
01:49So I'm about to show you some of my work in Mabuneng, stuff I've done in recent years
01:53and the progression from how I started doing portraiture.
01:55You like this one?
01:56Look at the scale!
01:57Look at these bees!
01:58Yeah, these are part of the storytelling, as I was saying, part of the narrative that
02:05I'm actually pushing.
02:06And for the fact that these two women are closer and it's so rich with heritage and
02:11culture and tradition.
02:12You have a lot of control.
02:16I try, I try.
02:17You painted straight onto this?
02:18Yeah, I painted straight onto, we did, so it's part print, part painted.
02:22So I painted the portraits and designed the background patterns and then printed those,
02:27then painted the portraits.
02:28Amazing.
02:34I love this hair piece.
02:36Yeah, this is sort of a crown type of thing.
02:40I love this work.
02:41It even makes me want to grow my hair out.
02:44We are visiting Johannesburg's art scene.
02:47This is Victoria Yards, a cultural space which is strongly connected to the street
02:52life around it.
02:54Visitors can walk right in and get to see studios of a number of artists.
03:00We're visiting Blessing Gubeni to see his work that has been a hit in Europe and New
03:04York.
03:05Blessing focuses on disrupting colonial narratives about Africa.
03:10Now it's time for Blessing and I to do some colourful collaboration.
03:14I'm glad that you're here.
03:16Let's see what we can do together.
03:20The faces of the struggle.
03:21Do you know that it's quite a modern invention, pink?
03:24Don't sell my work, I know you want to.
03:27This is for the studio.
03:28Let me add some other colour.
03:30Wow, look at that.
03:32It's nice, no?
03:33So what do you think?
03:34What do you think?
03:35What do you think?
03:36I love it.
03:37The energy, the colours.
03:38The energy, the colours, the vibe.
03:41You know, this is me.
03:43You know, I think I must start inviting you every day.
03:46Yeah, yeah, dude.
03:54My time with Blessing has inspired me to visit Keys Art Mile.
03:58It is a popular cultural and creative destination for many young people.
04:03It is also home to the Circa Gallery and Everard Read Gallery where I exhibit much of my own work.
04:13I love to paint ostriches and I think it's because they symbolise so many things to me.
04:19It has all these contradictions within itself.
04:21It's this thing that kind of looks so silly and stupid.
04:24Yes, it's completely deadly.
04:26And the ostrich, I kind of sometimes use it to symbolise the fact that people like to ignore things that they shouldn't.
04:33So within violence in South Africa, gender-based violence, which is a massive problem here,
04:38the ostrich is always trying to ignore something by pushing its head into the sand.
04:42Being a brown woman in South Africa is a very complicated thing.
04:47Our racial identity is deeply ingrained in rape, in violence, in oppression.
04:54And I think within my work and within my own identity, I'm trying to find a perfect middle ground
04:59where I can feel hard against things that's happened to us, but also be open enough
05:04to figure out what it means in a modern world to be a brown woman in South Africa.
05:09And my worst fear is to fizzle. I'd rather go out in a giant bang than fizzle out.
05:21So I'm back in Maboneng and I'm about to meet up with Debongs
05:24because he's going to help me leave my permanent mark on the streets of Joburg.
05:28Wow. Hey Debongs.
05:30Well, I want you to teach me actually how to use spray paint properly.
05:33You teach me how to sketch and I'll teach you how to use spray paint.
05:35Cool. This colour's wild.
05:38Oh my gosh. I never thought it was this difficult.
05:47I approve this Debongs interpretation of a lady's scrawly piece of work.
05:53Let's go.
05:55Let's go.