 Tjorts!/Cheers! - curated by Marna Hattingh and Liza Grobler- is a conversation between acclaimed and award-winning poet Danie Marais and visual artists Marna Hattingh, Tina Jensen, Marlise Keith, John Murray and Liza Grobler. The show is based on a single unpublished poem by Danie Marais. The direct and personal nature of drawing finds a resonance with the personal nature of Marais’ work. In this text Marais – whose work often conjures up strong visual associations - maps a space overtly familiar to all the participants: Cape Town in the twenty-first century.
Each artist responded to the text in a series of drawings. The drawings are associative rather than descriptive, and artists were encouraged to respond to the text in a range of media. Executions therefore vary from work on paper to site-specific spatial constructions. Artists also circulated drawings-in-progress and responded to each other’s interpretations in a deliberate effort to find synergies and stimulate ongoing dialogue.
Below Tjorts! - the original poem in Afrikaans, followed by Cheers! - the English translation.
Tjorts!
Die wêreld is alles
wat die geval is,
soos Wittgenstein sou sê,
maar ek en die gevalle alles
het altyd ’n gespanne verhouding gevoer.
Jare lank het ek my swart hart
kinderlik soos ’n vuis vir revolusie
gebal, my tande vir ’n ander wêreld
geslyp.
Maar op hierdie uitgewasde somerdag
met die Moederstad wat soos opdrifsels
teen ’n Tafelberg vol littekens lê,
loop my beker oor van bewondering,
drink ek op alles wat geval het.
Want o, hierdie wêreld met sy kleinlike oorloë,
growwe nalatighede en nederlae
ís my vervalle woning;
hierdie stukkende lewe met sy
Nighthawks at the Diner, sy
Madame Bovary’s, sy bergies en sy botteltjies blou
ís ’n perverse meesterstuk
die groot onheilige mis voor die son. Cheers!
The world is everything
that is the case,
Wittgenstein said,
but everything
rubbed me wrong.
For years I clenched
my black heart childlike
for revolution, set my teeth
on edge for another world.
But on this washed-out summer day
with the city shored up
jetsam against a Table Mountain
wrapped in scar tissue, my cup
overfloweth, I propose a toast:
to Tess of Durbanville
and everything that has fallen.
For, oh, this dashed world with its petty wars,
Cape-Coon choirs and mountain fires, this ocean
we have ploughed, this world
I’m passing through is my home;
this star-crossed life with all its lepers
of love and Grapes of Wrath,
its Rain Dogs and Nighthawks
its Madame Bovarys, bergies and blue murder
bestows on us a perverse masterpiece
our daily bread –
the great unholy mass, the fog
that will not clear. DANIE MARAIS
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