Durban Art Gallery to stage Pitika Ntuli’s acclaimed exhibition

PITIKA Ntuli’s ground-breaking exhibition, Azibuyele Emasisweni (Return to the Source), comes to the Durban Art Gallery in Durban, opening on April 14, where it runs until January 2024.

The online version launched as part of the National Arts Festival and was nominated for a Global Fine Art Award for best digital exhibition in the world and received one of two People’s Choice Awards in Paris in 2021.

Pitika Ntuli’s solo exhibition, Azibuyele Emasisweni (Return to the Source), immediately grabbed attention when it first opened at the National Arts Festival in Makhanda in 2020. Not only had the 80-year-old artist created 45 new sculptures from bones and other materials, but some of the country’s most esteemed poets and musicians responded to the body of work with songs and poems that were packaged for an online presentation of the exhibition during the Covid pandemic.

However, as with all art, his works are best appreciated in person, and Durbanites will be next to enjoy this touring exhibition at the Durban Art Gallery. It will show at this museum from April 14 this year until January 2024, and is planned to coincide with the Articulate Africa Art and Book Fair that will take place in the city during its run.

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Ntuli has been circling pertinent sociopolitical issues as an academic, writer, activist and teacher, but as the title of the exhibition suggests, he is returning to ‘the source’ of expression. In turn, he is encouraging society to return to the ‘source’ of African spiritualism and knowledge as the means of resolving corruption, greed and poverty. Above all, the bone sculptures – a result of Ntuli teasing out human features from the animal skeletons – articulate his desire for humankind to reconnect with nature.

“I do not copy nor work like nature. I work with nature! Bones are vital, as in imbued with life, and it is this life they possess that possesses me when I work. We are partners. Bones, like wood, have definite forms to work with. I do not oppose their internal and external directions; I externalise their inherent shapes to capture the beauty and the truth embedded in them. In other words, I empower the bones to attain their own ideal,” observes Ntuli.

Azibuyele Emasisweni doesn’t only lead the viewer back in time, but through a unique and original use of material, form and symbolism, reflects on the spiritual wasteland that may define this era, thereby collapsing those hard lines that were thought to divide ancient and contemporary concerns and art.

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“Bones have a special potency and subtle spiritual energies; their endurance is legendary. We know who we are and where we come from as a result of studying bone fossils. Bones are the evidence that we were alive 3.5 million years ago, and they are carriers of our memories,” says Ntuli.

An extensive public programme with workshops, talks and walkabouts will support the exhibition at the Durban Art Gallery.

Azibuyele Emasisweni will be on view at the Durban Art Gallery from April 14. It can be viewed on www.themelrosegallery.com

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