to view the work by Natal artist Gustav Kaltenbrun at the Grahamstown National Arts Festival from June 30 to July 10 at the following venues:
1. Main exhibition: Oatlands School Building
2. Arena Art Exhibition: Monument Building, Yellowood Terrace
Theme: ‘Symbols in African Ritual’ with particular reference to the Initiation Ceremony of the Sesotho Shaman
Medium: 40 Acrylic paintings and symbols in silver, bronze and copper
Open: 09:00 to 17:00
Reference: EX 11-0
Info: www.nationalartsfestival.co.za
Examples of Gustav's paintings, silver and metalwork
Not necessarily all in show.
Silver and metal work
Some of Gustav's paintings
EXHIBITION 2011
An initiation ritual is a sequence of activities performed in a secret secluded place, involving performance art, poetry, words, gestures, masks, costumes, drumming, charades and song.
The organizer of this important ritual is the specialist shaman (mosuwe).
Initiation rituals are seasonal and performed at puberty to demarcate the passage from one phase to another such as from child to adulthood.
The ritual symbol has multiple meanings and takes the place of lengthy statements and literature. Every symbol is a store of information
The circle for instance is the focal symbol in Sesotho girls’ puberty ritual (see no. ) it represents a novice undergoing intiation into mature womanhood and everything that it implies. Above all it emphasizes the importance of femaleness in Sesotho society.
In men’s circumcision rituals blood is a potent symbol
The Sesotho initiation ritual is based on a series of stages. Each stage is designed to instill fear. Charades are used as performance art, with masked ‘monsters’ from the underworld as part of the act that teaches obedience to the traditional customs of the people.
Shamanic creativity can be described in short, as “new and valid synthesis of ideas not by deduction but springing by ‘tuition’ from unconscious sources”. (Walters, 1971).
In this exhibition viewers can discern art forms that are shamanic (from ‘unconscious sources’) found in the metal work, and those that can be described as portrait studies inspired by African ritual.
