Mbongeni Buthelezi

Biography

Buthelezi’s material is recognisable at once: it is plastic waste. He cuts coloured plastic into small fragments and fixes them to the canvas with a glue gun, so that the surface builds up piece by piece and the tones shift from place to place.

He was born in Johannesburg. Sources give different years of birth, 1956, 1965 or 1966, so it is safer to describe him simply as a native of that city who received his training in the late 1980s.

From 1986 to 1992 he attended courses at the African Institute of Art in Johannesburg, and in 1997–1998 he studied at the University of the Witwatersrand, also in Johannesburg. The earliest exhibition in the lists dates from 1988: a group show at the Gertrude Posel Gallery of that university. Then came shows at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown (1991, 1998) and in Johannesburg venues such as the Market Gallery, the Alliance Française and the Johannesburg Art Gallery. In 1999 his work was shown at the Museum for African Art in New York, and in 2000 he took part in exhibitions in Houston, London and Birmingham. The 2000s are marked by a German circle: solo shows at Galerie Seippel in Cologne, at the Atelierhaus Höherweg in Düsseldorf (2001), at the Bellevue-Saal in Wiesbaden (2006) and at the Haus am Lützowplatz in Berlin (2010). In 2004 a solo exhibition was held at the Museum Goch, and on Madeira he made a mural. In 2005 his work was at the Prague Biennale, in 2006 at the 10th Cairo Biennale and at the Casa Encendida in Madrid. In 2009–2010 solo shows were held at the Pretoria Art Museum, the Sasol Art Museum in Stellenbosch, the Oliewenhuis Art Museum in Bloemfontein, the Red Location Museum in Port Elizabeth and the William Humphreys Art Gallery in Kimberley.

He was an artist in residence several times: in Wiesbaden, on Sylt (Kunst:Raum Sylt-Quelle in Rantum), in Düsseldorf, at the Vermont Studio Center and the Art Omi International Artists Centre in the United States, and as part of the Standard Bank National Art Festival in South Africa. Buthelezi’s works are in the collections of Mercedes-Benz South Africa in Pretoria, of Daimler AG in Stuttgart, of the Museum for African Art in New York, of the Johannesburg Art Gallery and of the Spier Collection.

He has said that he has mastered eighteen techniques with subtle differences. The plastic can be laid on in large multicoloured “brushstrokes”, or in sepia tones, where layers of neutral shading create depth, or in lines.

The choice of material is linked to environmental concerns, to the physical decay of the townships, and to the poverty and lack of opportunity that the artist sees in South Africa. He himself wants to convey hope: he is convinced that, seeing his work and his path, people realise that a life and a career can be built out of nothing, and that art can change a life. To my mind this is a significant clarification: for him plastic is a symbol of poverty, and also proof that something can be made from it.

Catalogues have been published on him: “Mbongeni Buthelezi” (Museum Goch, 2004; authors Pitso Chimzima and Susanne Madaus) and “imizwa yami (my feelings)” (Seippel, 2009; Nina Gruntkowski, Pretoria Art Museum).