Far and Away: Reporting from the Brink of Change

The first time I visited South Africa, two years ago, Johannesburg dealers had described Venda as the land of the innocents, where an authentic black culture still reigned, and I thought it might be the missing link that would make sense of my experience of South African urban black and white art. The Venda people have been carving curios for a long time—bowls, animals, little figures—and the new Venda art, suddenly fashionable in the past five years, connects to this tradition. Some of the works are just inflated knickknacks; some, parareligious objects; some reflect a Western idea of art. The story of their integration into the South African art market is a pretty good parable for the confused but touching cultural interaction that will be the basis of the New South Africa.

There are no road maps of Venda, an area of about three thousand square miles. The artists are not easy to find; most don’t have electricity or indoor plumbing, much less a telephone. You just show up and they are usually at home—and usually glad to see you. The artists are all religious, but it’s hard to explain what their religion consists of: it is a hybrid of Christianity and a dozen other mythologies, with regular visits from the spirits of the past, a lot of sangomas, and a priestess who rules over the nearby lake where your ancestors turn into fish. When you arrive in Venda, you can get initial directions from Elias, the old man who runs the curio shop by the main road. These you must follow up with local directions as you get closer to where you are going.

I went to Venda with the Cape Town artist Beezy Bailey, and we headed off first to visit Noria Mabasa, the only woman among the Venda artists. We turned off the main road at a field of hemp and passed through a village of mud rondavels with pointed thatch roofs; the people all stopped to look when they saw our car. Many of the women wore traditional dress, their breasts bare, their wrists and ankles glittering with hundreds of thin silver bangles, their bodies wrapped in brilliant, geometrically patterned cloth.

We found Mabasa sitting outside with some friends and relations, barefoot, dressed in a blue smock and a multicolored knitted hat. “Most of my things are in Johannesburg now, at an art gallery,” she said. “Too far away.” But a few pieces were still scattered around outside. She carves hollow trunks into rings of people reaching out toward one another, or dancing, their faces turned outward, strangely intricate. Next to her rondavel, Mabasa had built a new house of poured concrete. “From my art I am building this,” she said proudly.

“It wasn’t my choice to make these things,” Mabasa told us. “I was sick. So sick, terribly sick.” Mabasa shook and hunched over, as if ill. “And I had a dream, and a terrible old woman came to me in my dream. And I was very much afraid.” Mabasa stood up to imitate the old woman and pointed with one arm rigid. “She said I must make some figures from clay, for being well. So after this terrible dream I began to make some figures, and I got well.” Mabasa smiled wide. “Oh, I was so well again, with making these figures. And it lasted, oh, some years.” Mabasa’s laugh is like an explosion. “And then I was ill again. And again this terrible woman came to me in my dream, and she said I must stop to cut my hair. So each time as it was growing, I began to get more strong and more strong with this hair, and I never am for cutting it again.” Mabasa took off her hat to reveal a fibrous topiary of hair that had been neither cut nor combed. “And then this old woman came a third time and told me to carve, and that it was the last time—if I carved, she would never be coming and bothering me again. When she was gone, I began to carve my dreams, to keep her away. And she has never bothered me again. Now, when it is a strong dream, I begin with making my carvings.” We walked together behind the house; Mabasa picked some mangoes, which we ate. “Now these people are coming from Johannesburg and they take my carvings away and sell them. I went to Johannesburg, too. Too many people! Terrible place.” She put her hands up to the sides of her head.

Mabasa’s work was about to be shown in Amsterdam, and she was being flown out for the exhibition. It would be her second trip out of Venda. She was the only person in her village to have left it. We warned her that Amsterdam gets cold in winter, and that she must take warm clothes.

“It’s really? It’s really?” She took snuff.

“You know that there is not so much snuff in Amsterdam,” we said.

“No? I will take a big bag of it with me.” She spread her hands wide to show how big and shook her head with the wonder of it. “Do they have cigarettes? Mangoes?”