& THE TREASURES OF SATAN]
71 x 50 cm
[CLOUD HUNTING WITH THE ANGELS]
[NO TIME TO DIE]
Arch Pierre Mukeba
Smokelovers
16.11.24
I.
The beauty of the individual is lost on the group. Thereby, the collective will eat it’s own head if so served. A malevolent sprite tugs gleefully at this thread.
II.
The agony of metal work is an acoustic one. Do you hear the slams? Do you hear them again? Eyes fly open and frequency floods in. The dynamic mind perches on the shoulder like a parrot, hearing phantom slams long after the performance ends. What harrowing noises can be felt in our most secluded nerves, in the privacy of the form? What of our being resides there? Are we to abide the absurd notion that our bodies are unaltered by this frequency? What of the words that travel straight through us? What of the images that burn into our memories? What of the absolving touch? Sparks roar upwards and kiss the heels of heaven. Cycles of labour and violence become indistinguishable. A young black boy pumps water in the beating sun of Tongogara and bears his unabated heart with a saccharine innocence.
III.
Jouissance, a Lacanian derivative, is a transgressive pleasure. It’s a pleasure so vast that it bleeds into non-pleasure. It’s the pleasure of a stubbed toe, of hot-cheeked humiliation. It’s the precarious screech of a Hitachi wand on a cello that crawls pleasantly down the spine. It’s the bursting moan that breaches our submerged pain when a single razor blade is dragged across the skin. It’s toiling over a manuscript in secret. It’s the buried treasure of the trenches. It’s madly pining, it’s erotic hate. It’s laughing along with the windows down to our own earthly torment. It’s crying (crying!) over a botched canvas and the 36-hour workaround to correct it that though gruelling, can only lead to the exaltation of our talents. It’s the masochistic twist of life, the last sip of a martini. None of this is easy. The death drive is the veiled drive for purpose and if not purpose; death. Anger tilts the wheel toward the median strip. Satisfaction begins in the quotidian. Jouissance is our smiling subversion of the death drive and into the fruit of Eros. No time to die.
IV.
The ego exits to confront impossible tasks with sheer willpower. If you do not intend to make great art, nor to catalyse newness in the world, go ahead and have a docile ego. Cut the tall poppies around you. Resign yourself to mediocrity. View it as inevitable and loudly inform everyone as such. But if you intend to walk right past the perilous forces and to ripen your art to the layered cadence of your own bodily satisfaction - Ego, baby, ego! You’re a 007 agent now. There’s no better day than today to make your best art yet. Put on your Oakley’s and let nothing stop you. No time to die.
V.
Bonus spell: Command your mind to turn around and take 3x paces back, then move. Call upon the beatitude of 5x Bruce Lees to guard your aching animal back while you reach into the supraliminal for the physical and non-physical tools needed to complete your mission. A glittering cutlass is among them. Cleanse with fresh-cut roses as needed. No time to die.
Text by Marianne Astrid Close
[NO TIME TO DIE]
Arch Pierre Mukeba
Smokelovers
16.11.24
I.
The beauty of the individual is lost on the group. Thereby, the collective will eat it’s own head if so served. A malevolent sprite tugs gleefully at this thread.
II.
The agony of metal work is an acoustic one. Do you hear the slams? Do you hear them again? Eyes fly open and frequency floods in. The dynamic mind perches on the shoulder like a parrot, hearing phantom slams long after the performance ends. What harrowing noises can be felt in our most secluded nerves, in the privacy of the form? What of our being resides there? Are we to abide the absurd notion that our bodies are unaltered by this frequency? What of the words that travel straight through us? What of the images that burn into our memories? What of the absolving touch? Sparks roar upwards and kiss the heels of heaven. Cycles of labour and violence become indistinguishable. A young black boy pumps water in the beating sun of Tongogara and bears his unabated heart with a saccharine innocence.
III.
Jouissance, a Lacanian derivative, is a transgressive pleasure. It’s a pleasure so vast that it bleeds into non-pleasure. It’s the pleasure of a stubbed toe, of hot-cheeked humiliation. It’s the precarious screech of a Hitachi wand on a cello that crawls pleasantly down the spine. It’s the bursting moan that breaches our submerged pain when a single razor blade is dragged across the skin. It’s toiling over a manuscript in secret. It’s the buried treasure of the trenches. It’s madly pining, it’s erotic hate. It’s laughing along with the windows down to our own earthly torment. It’s crying (crying!) over a botched canvas and the 36-hour workaround to correct it that though gruelling, can only lead to the exaltation of our talents. It’s the masochistic twist of life, the last sip of a martini. None of this is easy. The death drive is the veiled drive for purpose and if not purpose; death. Anger tilts the wheel toward the median strip. Satisfaction begins in the quotidian. Jouissance is our smiling subversion of the death drive and into the fruit of Eros. No time to die.
IV.
The ego exits to confront impossible tasks with sheer willpower. If you do not intend to make great art, nor to catalyse newness in the world, go ahead and have a docile ego. Cut the tall poppies around you. Resign yourself to mediocrity. View it as inevitable and loudly inform everyone as such. But if you intend to walk right past the perilous forces and to ripen your art to the layered cadence of your own bodily satisfaction - Ego, baby, ego! You’re a 007 agent now. There’s no better day than today to make your best art yet. Put on your Oakley’s and let nothing stop you. No time to die.
V.
Bonus spell: Command your mind to turn around and take 3x paces back, then move. Call upon the beatitude of 5x Bruce Lees to guard your aching animal back while you reach into the supraliminal for the physical and non-physical tools needed to complete your mission. A glittering cutlass is among them. Cleanse with fresh-cut roses as needed. No time to die.
Text by Marianne Astrid Close
[MAY DIVINE LIGHT REVEAL UNSEEN GLORY TO THE SOUL.
[ I LOVE YOU ] BUT NO TIME TO DIE.]
Paint on unprimed canvas, Steel, Interactive performance work
40x50cm
40x50cm
PLAYTIME
By ENIRE VAN AMSTEL
Pierre Mukeba
10.05.24
China Heights
16 Foster St. Surry Hills
Where to begin?
Champagne on an empty stomach at a cavernous gallery in Sydney. Prehistoric collectors waddling around the room trying to see what the kids are up to these days. By kids I mean a 48-year-old painter - it’s his opening. Each time someone asks you what you do (they really mean - how did you get into the building?) you get one step closer to self-immolation. You try to grab two drinks off a tray from a man in a white apron, but he only lets you have one this time. These are the conditions under which Pierre and I found each other.
The thing about Pierre is, you can usually hear him before you see him. I didn’t know about this of course, which is why I was confused, to say the least, when I heard triumphant bellows of laughter that evening. Someone was having fun, somewhere.
It wasn’t hard to find him. We left and proceeded to eat good food and drink nice alcohol at a nearby bar. Somewhere along the way (100 or so metres) we had amassed an eager flock of mostly strangers. Some were from the gallery and some were from the street. Guess which ones were more fun.
This is how things go when you are around Pierre. Things come to you. People move towards you. They linger. Gravity bends. Moves are made. Ideas are announced. A lot of people don’t realise how much discipline is required to live life that way.
So to help you understand, I’ve taken it upon myself to make this catalogue essay more informative than usual. They say there are no shortcuts in life, but Pierre and I know of at least four, and we have outlined them below. They are complimentary to his upcoming show at China Heights.
1. God
Understanding things is overrated. I have no idea how those aeroplanes that write things in the sky work. Each time I see one I feel like I’m witnessing a miracle. Not needing to know how things work and why is a freedom I wish upon more people. The worst things in life know things. Depression knows things, people without faith know things. To rejoice in that grey area, or even in the trenches, is a valiant effort. Pierre’s divine relics visit us often throughout this show. The messiah, the mother, the guardian. But there is a less obvious, more intrinsic kind of spirit in the work. And it’s called Playtime. An often overlooked, deeply spiritual and powerful practice; Playtime is hard. It means dedication to curiosity in the face of fear, and hope in the face of doubt. Playtime is faith.
2. Stay Outside.
Playtime has existed since Bison were painted in caves. For some reason, this simple truth is easily lost on us. If you are an artist, and you’ve forgotten about it, that’s forgivable. You are condemned to a lifetime of repetition. Make, destroy, make, destroy etc. And because of phones, we see more images before lunch than someone in the 18th century would have seen in their whole life.
Staying outside helps with this. Plenty of things in nature are serious and demand to be treated as such. Creativity doesn’t need to be one of them. We have found that a good remedy for this is real life. Art world gamblers - I mean participants - will have you thinking that what they do is extremely serious. It isn’t. It’s playtime. And you’re not doing it right if you aren’t laughing at all.
3. Armour
A suit of armour will come in handy. A helmet, a mask, a crown, face paint. Cartoons and anime figures mingle with cherubs. Choose your titans carefully and adore them. Whether it be Astroboy, Batman, Archangel Michael or Richard Serra. Fantasy is the lifeblood of Pierre’s work. Chance and childlike wonder. Every colour is an omen and all of his brooches fall off when he hugs someone that underestimates him. He’s gone through about ten since I’ve known him.
4. Chicken
Everything you need is within yourself. But sometimes you have to put KFC within yourself to get what you need.
Fact: Playtime pays off.
Newton was at play in his mind when he saw the apple tree and suddenly conceived of the force of gravity. Columbus was playing when it dawned on him that the world was round. Yves Klein was at play when he invented that blue. He was on holiday in Nice. Time will fly by whether you play in the trenches or not.
Eight bills for freight and postage - that’s life.
A housing crisis, so you live in hostels for three months - that’s life.
A Love Warrior with two golden organs, a halo and a sceptre stepping out of a red mouth - that’s Playtime.
See it for yourself. Pierre’s show “Holy Spirit, On My Knees In A Trench” opens on the 10th of May.
By ENIRE VAN AMSTEL
Pierre Mukeba
10.05.24
China Heights
16 Foster St. Surry Hills
Where to begin?
Champagne on an empty stomach at a cavernous gallery in Sydney. Prehistoric collectors waddling around the room trying to see what the kids are up to these days. By kids I mean a 48-year-old painter - it’s his opening. Each time someone asks you what you do (they really mean - how did you get into the building?) you get one step closer to self-immolation. You try to grab two drinks off a tray from a man in a white apron, but he only lets you have one this time. These are the conditions under which Pierre and I found each other.
The thing about Pierre is, you can usually hear him before you see him. I didn’t know about this of course, which is why I was confused, to say the least, when I heard triumphant bellows of laughter that evening. Someone was having fun, somewhere.
It wasn’t hard to find him. We left and proceeded to eat good food and drink nice alcohol at a nearby bar. Somewhere along the way (100 or so metres) we had amassed an eager flock of mostly strangers. Some were from the gallery and some were from the street. Guess which ones were more fun.
This is how things go when you are around Pierre. Things come to you. People move towards you. They linger. Gravity bends. Moves are made. Ideas are announced. A lot of people don’t realise how much discipline is required to live life that way.
So to help you understand, I’ve taken it upon myself to make this catalogue essay more informative than usual. They say there are no shortcuts in life, but Pierre and I know of at least four, and we have outlined them below. They are complimentary to his upcoming show at China Heights.
1. God
Understanding things is overrated. I have no idea how those aeroplanes that write things in the sky work. Each time I see one I feel like I’m witnessing a miracle. Not needing to know how things work and why is a freedom I wish upon more people. The worst things in life know things. Depression knows things, people without faith know things. To rejoice in that grey area, or even in the trenches, is a valiant effort. Pierre’s divine relics visit us often throughout this show. The messiah, the mother, the guardian. But there is a less obvious, more intrinsic kind of spirit in the work. And it’s called Playtime. An often overlooked, deeply spiritual and powerful practice; Playtime is hard. It means dedication to curiosity in the face of fear, and hope in the face of doubt. Playtime is faith.
2. Stay Outside.
Playtime has existed since Bison were painted in caves. For some reason, this simple truth is easily lost on us. If you are an artist, and you’ve forgotten about it, that’s forgivable. You are condemned to a lifetime of repetition. Make, destroy, make, destroy etc. And because of phones, we see more images before lunch than someone in the 18th century would have seen in their whole life.
Staying outside helps with this. Plenty of things in nature are serious and demand to be treated as such. Creativity doesn’t need to be one of them. We have found that a good remedy for this is real life. Art world gamblers - I mean participants - will have you thinking that what they do is extremely serious. It isn’t. It’s playtime. And you’re not doing it right if you aren’t laughing at all.
3. Armour
A suit of armour will come in handy. A helmet, a mask, a crown, face paint. Cartoons and anime figures mingle with cherubs. Choose your titans carefully and adore them. Whether it be Astroboy, Batman, Archangel Michael or Richard Serra. Fantasy is the lifeblood of Pierre’s work. Chance and childlike wonder. Every colour is an omen and all of his brooches fall off when he hugs someone that underestimates him. He’s gone through about ten since I’ve known him.
4. Chicken
Everything you need is within yourself. But sometimes you have to put KFC within yourself to get what you need.
Fact: Playtime pays off.
Newton was at play in his mind when he saw the apple tree and suddenly conceived of the force of gravity. Columbus was playing when it dawned on him that the world was round. Yves Klein was at play when he invented that blue. He was on holiday in Nice. Time will fly by whether you play in the trenches or not.
Eight bills for freight and postage - that’s life.
A housing crisis, so you live in hostels for three months - that’s life.
A Love Warrior with two golden organs, a halo and a sceptre stepping out of a red mouth - that’s Playtime.
See it for yourself. Pierre’s show “Holy Spirit, On My Knees In A Trench” opens on the 10th of May.
PIERRE MUKEBA
Mukeba was born in Bukavu, Democratic Republic of the Congo, fleeing the Civil War to Zambia then Zimbabwe before seeking Asylum to Adelaide, Australia where he has resided since 2006. Mukeba has no formal art education and learnt how to create art as a refugee in Zimbabwe taught by his uncle and influenced by his grandfather who was a renowned artist in the Congo.
Mukeba’s first exhibition was held in 2017 and since then he has won the Churchie Award in 2017 and the Lipman Karas Peoples Choice Award in the Ramsay Prize in 2019. Mukeba was curated into the 2020 Adelaide Biennale of Australian Art and the 2020 NGV Triennial. Mukeba is held in Australian public collections including Wyndham Regional Gallery, Shepparton Art Museum, the NGV, and the Art Gallery of South Australia.