Hero

"In 2001 I produced The Hero, an animation for a group show called ‘Retreks: How the Other Half …’. This consisted of six large (2 x 12m) video projections shown in a disused parking garage in the centre of downtown Johannesburg. The other artists invited to participate were Jane Alexander, Robyn Orlin, Stephen Hobbs, William Kentridge and Rodney Place, who was also the curator.

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I reworked a classic Spaghetti Western title sequence, accompanied by a sampled cowboy movie soundtrack compiled by Warrick Sony. The animation projected a looped sequence of a rider on horseback being pursued by a posse. Each short section ended with a title describing a nation or a religion. This was followed by its binary opposite. The Hutu would follow the Tutsi; the Israeli, the Palestinian; the Serbs, the Croats; and so on, in sequences that attempted to morph the perpetrator and the victim in religious or territorial wars, rendering them both complicit and asinine. The accompanying works which I produced for the show extended these conjoined constructions and reflected on the fundamentalism that appears to drive conflict in many regions. These works reflect my continued disgust and despair at religious wars and, for that matter, all wars."

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‍^BM