OLD WHITE MAN

Artists: Norman O’Flynn, Chris van Eeden, Andrew Lamprecht, Brendon Bussy, Johan Thom, Justin Fiske and Mark Rautenbach

“His comments have a tendency to create social divides. He is a bitter old, white man who does not want to accept that South Africa is in a transitional phase. He must either accept that or hit the ceiling. We [the country] can’t be harnessing people like him anymore,” said Zuma.

This statement was reported in the News 24 article Max du Preez a ‘bitter, old, white man’ on April 24, 2015.

The past always sucks, ask anyone. Why in all this fury of social ‘want to be’ revolution is the youth not directly striking their anger at the current political environment instead of looking backwards? In this momentary haze of fist high, foot down, angst and struggling with the other and self, we decided to host OLD WHITE MAN – a rebellious celebration (of sorts) of the old white man, the man artist forging forward in contemporary mediums, both visual, literary and audible.

Artists are not the enemy – America is, obviously. As an overall generalization, artists in all forms of mediums are, your liberal supporters and pacifists. Most artists whom we know and have invited do not want to be reduced to an OLD WHITE MAN. So in here, which we use the age old trick of irony to salute not the old white man but to salute the human, under the skin, individual with a name given by their mother, as we would do with any other self-respecting artists.

The artists, Norman O’flynn, Chris van Eeden, Andrew Lamprecht, Brendon Bussy, Johan Thom, Justin Fiske and Mark Rautenbach were asked to play at ALMA MARTHA and do what they wanted, without responsibility (respectfully), without judgment. They are old enough for the average pubescent brought up by a Smartphone to wrinkle their nose at (which is, in fact, not very old) and they are old enough to be men who would sit with you to discuss views on the male, masculinity and its context, both personally and on a larger scale. Perhaps they would less likely speak to their white-ness, but maybe it would be best if you ask them yourself.

(OLD WHITE MAN, the exhibition, was planned before the article in News 24 came out. (“Forget the past and come naked without your skin to fight what really matters, not each other but every government.”))

FOOTNOTE: The organizers of OLD WHITE MAN are two women artists, one old (well in so far as the category of which we decided the ‘man’ artists are old,) and one young woman. One is a foreigner and one is local. Both are technically white although the one has sometimes wondered why her Middle Eastern side is considered white on the check off the box category. The other white is local but actually born in an Eastern European country, which also has been known to more centrally located Europeans as the land of the Gypsies and Vampires. One grew up here and the other has been flirting with the country since 2006 and now resides here. Both understand the importance of History and the pain and suffering we acknowledge it and respect it, (one of their logos is a Native American), but would just like to live in the present and be present in the current as well as the contemporary for that matter.