Tlotlo Sereisho: Rhodes Must Fall, a Mengelmoes, 2021. Oil on canvas (unstretched). 250 cm x 120 cm
When the grim system of apartheid finally came to an end with the first democratic elections in 1994, one would have thought that also meant doing away with everything that seeks to symbolise and/or commemorate its colonial values. Rhodes Must Fall, a Mengelmoes came about as a response to the 2015 #RhodesMustFall movement. The said movement started when the youth of South Africa took to the streets in protest of prevalent practices around commemoration and nation building. Specifically, this composition is about colonial monuments/statues that seek to and commemorate colonial heroes and/or benefactors.
The heavy object (a Cecil John Rhodes statue) that is (somehow) resting on the egg represents how the public presence of such objects is contradictory to the South African dream of integration and/or equal representation. The unchallenged presence of these objects (imperial/colonial and apartheid monuments) is indexical to the South African tradition of avoiding conversations that should be had collectively. As an apparent post-colonial state, South Africa has not moved away from its past that gave precedence to some polities over others forms the basis of my work.
Tlotlo Sereisho (b. 1993) is an artist from Vryburg, North West Province. In 2020 he completed his BA in Visual Art at the University of Johannesburg and is currently busy with his BA Honours in the same field. At the same educational institution. He has been busy building his technical skills and thus on ‘something to offer’ in the past three years and things are finally looking up. In this time he has been part of several group exhibitions like the departemental UJ Best of the Best (2018 and 2019) and the 2019 Nothern Lights (Antwerp, Belgium) street exhibition. So far? Things are looking up!