Listening to the Echoes of the South Atlantic Listening to the Echoes of the South Atlantic | Page 19

Ehlers’ video Black Magic at the White House (2009), featured in Listening to the
Echoes of the South Atlantic, involves a similar strategy of decolonial intervention.
In this video Ehlers performs a Vodou dance in Marienborg, which has a strong
connection to the triangular trade. Jeannette Ehlers explains, “It was built as a
summer residence for the Commander Olfert Fischer in 1744, who since sold it to
merchant Peter Windt, who also had created a great deal of wealth from the slave and
sugar trade, and who even brought slaves with him to his home in Denmark. Several
other traders from the colonial era have owned and put their stamp on Marienborg,
and today it still plays an important role in Denmark, in terms of its position as the
8
official residence of the country’s prime minister”.
Since the full impact of Black Magic at the White House depends on our awareness
of the history of the manor where it was filmed, the video begins with the image of
an embroidered cloth featuring a picture of Marienborg followed by winter scenes
that make it fairly clear that the setting is Denmark. It’s interesting to consider the
implications of the fact that Jeannette Ehlers’ performance is essentially an invisible
dance. More precisely, we see her dancing, but she is invisible. We see the outline of
her body, but we don’t see her. She is camouflaged right into the antique wallpaper
and hardwood floor. In that invisibility, essentially an erasure, she has created a bold
and radical work. The insistent and rhythmical beat of the drum is equally crucial to
the impact of the work. Images of a vévé being drawn suggest that she is performing
a Vodou ritual. Occupying colonial space as she does, positioning her body in this
space, the work functions as a powerful act of resistance. Paradoxically, she achieves
visibility through her own invisibility as she exorcises the colonial demons out of
the manor. Ultimately, the work addresses Denmark-Norway’s invisible, unspoken
histories and relocates these histories in the center of the narrative, right there in the
residence (since 1962) of the Danish Prime Minister.As such, and to paraphrase Fred
9
Moten, the work is a forceful “staging of the piercing insistence of the excluded”.
As an exhibition that highlights interdisciplinary and collaborative art practices,
Neo Muyanga’s collaboration with William Kentridge on the film Second-hand
Reading (2013), involves a perfect symbiosis of text, image, and music. Muyanga,
who is an accomplished composer, musician, and librettist, composed and played the
music for Second-hand Reading. Among the many highlights of Muyanga’s career,
he co-founded the acoustic pop duo, Blk Sonshine with Masauko Chipembere
in 1996, and in 2008 he co-founded (with Ntone Edjabe) the Pan African Space
Station, which is a platform that hosts cutting-edge Pan-African music and sound art
on the Internet. He tours extensively, both as a solo performer and in collaboration
with others. Among his many achievements, Muyanga has composed music plays,
chorus songs, and many operatic works for chamber and large ensembles, and has
also recorded numerous albums, including the soundtrack to Second-hand Reading.
Second-hand Reading began as a film constructed from a series of drawings created on
the pages of old books. As the title implies, the work involves a second-hand reading
in which books are transformed into art and subsequently into film, ultimately
dissolving the boundaries between art, text, and music. Second-hand Reading is
created on the pages of Cassell’s “Cyclopædia of Mechanics”, which is magically
transformed into a visual and aural masterpiece. An addendum to the book title—on
historical principles—suggests a possible rereading of history. Or maybe not. After
all, enigma is a vital component of William Kentridge’s artfully poetic books.
Jeannette Ehlers. Black Magic at the White House (2009) video-still
Passages of text are superimposed onto the existing pages of the book. These
statements and fragments of meaning are as elusive as they are witty, evoking what
Kentridge once referred to as “an invitation to interpret the meaning hovering on the
10
edge”. “Thinking on one’s feet” appears on the left-hand page while an animated
charcoal drawing of William Kentridge walks across the right-hand page (and on
through to the end of the book). “Whichever page you open, you are there” alludes