Cows have an especial significance in Sub-Saharan Africa. They are associated with affluence and prosperity in a society that is traditionally agrarian. Today they are still the accepted currency that a prospective groom must offer his bride’s family in the age-old practice of lobola (bride-price). The transmutation of an ancient tradition into the industrial society reveals the complex negotiation of modernity in the contemporary African state.
For young sculptor Nandipha Mntambo, who was born in Swaziland and received her master’s degree in 2007 from the Michaelis School of Fine Art, Cape Town, the symbolism of cowhide makes it her material of choice. Selecting raw cowhides from piles of salted skins in warehouses, Mntambo, who is a vegetarian, goes through the process of curing the material herself, dealing with rancid fat and maggots, and then shapes the cured skins on casts of her own body and those of women close to her. Recalling museum displays of elaborate fashions of the past, Mntambo displays her sculptural “costumes” without the formational cast, their shape held intact by a layer of resin. The hides are not without glutinous remnants of the body they once encircled, sometimes incorporating ears, tails, and bits of face. These gruesome elements are as repellent as much as their glossy hairiness is appealing.
Indlovukati (2007) is an ethereal work formed from a creamy white cowhide and appears to float in the exhibition space. Upon first glance, the hide seems to serve as a ghostly outline of a shape, but the empty space seems haunted by an absence, loss, and longing. This sense of loss is crucial to the meaning of Mntambo’s work. It suggests a philosophical absence, as if illustrating the inadequacy of current representations of femininity.
In 2007 Mntambo took a step toward performance and video art and began to explore masculine and Latino aspects of bovine-centric culture: the bullfight. Filming a bullfight in Lisbon, the artist later rehearsed the steps of the matador and cut her rehearsed actions into the original footage. The video is called Ukungenisa (meaning preparation, or a way forward) (2007). The next step in Mntambo’s project will be to receive proper training and to reenact a bullfight in the abandoned bullfighting ring Praça des Touros, in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique. This nation is the northeastern neighbor of South Africa, and under Portuguese colonial rule black Mozambicans would fight the bulls for the entertainment of the white colonials.
In re-creating this aspect of colonial history and taking on a traditionally male role wearing a costume made of the skin of her bovine opponent, Mntambo seems to honor and identify herself with both matador and bull. She rises above past stereotypes and accrues the power of both.
Indlovukati 2007
Cowhide, resin, polyester mesh, waxed cord
153 x 89 x 70 cm
Image courtesy of the Michael Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town
Photographer: Mario Todeschini
© Nandipha Mntambo
Mlwa ne Nkunzi (detail) 2008
Diptych, archival ink on cotton rag paper
112 x 84.5 cm each
Image courtesy of the Michael Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town
Photographer: Lambro
© Nandipha Mntambo
Nftombi mfana (detail) 2007
Cowhide including ears, faces and tails, waxed cord
Height 165 cm
Image courtesy of the Michael Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town
Photographer: Mario Todeschini
© Nandipha Mntambo