Abstract artist Lerato Motaung’s powerful exhibition Traces in The Still Air investigates the ideas of loss, grief and memory

The exhibition opened on 5 September 2024 on Viljioen Street, Lorentzville, East of Johannesburg,  attracting a huge crowd of creatives and tourists. It will run till November 2, 2024 On Saturday, October 12, there will be a walkabout at 11am.

By Edward Tsumele, CITYLIFE/ARTS Editor

When entering the gigantic building that clearly used to be either a factory warehouse or a ware house, the first thing that will strike you and catch your eye in a particular way are the suspended used tires that have been remade into swings. Tied by silver ropes to the roof, these tires are in the form of swings that honestly speaking are quite inviting, reminding one of their childhood when mounting swings was the rage. But these swings, 33 in all are not arranged in a consistent fashion, with some of them lower than others, while others are high up. If you lower your eye level, you will also immediately be strike by a heap of crushed bottles that are in the middle of these swings in the shape of hill. These are beer bottles that have been crushed and meticulously arranged.

You would actually be viewing a conceptual exhibition, a marvelous abstract installation created by Lerato Motaung, whose exhibition titled Traces in The Still Air, which opened on Saturday, 5 September 2024 on Viljioen Street, Lorentzville, East of Johannesburg, and which runs till November 2, 2024.

The building itself is owned by another abstract artist Nicholas Hlobo, whose works are in the hands of influential individuals collectors and leading institutions around the world. In fact Hlobo and a group of other artists and curators are the once that are credited in making sure that Motaung’s exhibition became a reality. Others involved include curator Boitumelo Makousu. This collaboration in many ways speaks to the idea of what happens when creatives work together for the common good. At the opening, which was attended by a sizeable crowd, that included tourists and mainly other creatives was an impressive affair as none of the people who attended seemed to be in a hurry to leave the place as they enjoyed drinks, food and lovely conversations with each other for the whole afternoon, going into the early evening.

But for me what occupied my mind as I viewed this exhibition is the powerful narrative carried by this exhibition, which  is an exploration of grief, memory  and pain, concepts that are universal,  as most of us at some stage in life have to deal with these concepts at a personal level, such as the loss of our loved ones.

In the case of Motaung, these ideas are not just philosophical exploration, but issues that have affected him personally, forcing him to revisit his childhood and to deal with the pain of losing his loved ones.

“I lost my mother in 2009, and was therefore taken care of by maternal grandmother in Katlehong. She too passed on two months ago. And so this exhibition was inspired by my own personal circumstances.  The bottle installation represents people’s broken lives, and as the suspended tires are an investigation of my own suspended life, the loss, the grief,” he told CITYLIFE/ARTS in an interview.

The number 33 represents Motaung’s age, and the arrangement of the tires that is at different heights represent the stages of the artists’ journey so far.

What also impressed those who attended this exhibition, is the fact that Traces in The Still Air exhibition is a far departure from the practice of creating art for5 commercial purposes and not to deal with issues of philosophy and therefore ignite quality discussions about life and human’s reasons for existence. This exhibition offers that possibility, and that is that art for art’s sake, and not for selling isa powerful medium to explore the issue of existence without the pressure of selling and therefore compromise’s one’s creativity to suits the tastes of those with big pockets. But to create such art, artists need the support of those that have the means, and hence this exhibition has been supported by a number of people that include Hlobo and Makousu.

This is an exhibition that is worthy viewing and will leave you inspired.