Artist: Simphiwe Ndzube
Exhibition title: Like the Snake that Fed the Chameleon
Venue: Nicodim, Los Angeles, US
Date: February 13 – March 20, 2021
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Nicodim, Los Angeles
My skin is tightening
soon I shall shed it
like a monitor lizard
like remembered comfort
at the new moon rising
I will eat the last signs of my weakness
remove the scars of old childhood wars
and dare to enter the forest whistling
like a snake that had fed the chameleon
for changes
I shall be forever.
— excepted from Audre Lorde, “Solstice,” 1978
With Like the Snake that Fed the Chameleon , Simphiwe Ndzube continues to develop and expand his cosmology, reimagining Black bodies as mythical and fantastic beings capable of inhabiting
multiple dimensions. His figures fly, flail, fall, and dance their way from sculpture, to sound, to canvas through multiple environments, highlighting the fluidity and permeability of identity itself. Like the snake, his characters can be cold-blooded and stealthy; like the chameleon, they are capable of change.
Whereas the bodies in Ndzube’s earlier works are often faceless or headless, this series includes detailed portraits of a number of the individual characters and further develops their unique personalities. In prior exhibitions, Ndzube’s figures reckoned with drought and desolate environments, but the landscapes in Like the Snake that Fed the Chameleon have grown fertile and sensual along with the humanoids that populate them. Where once the earth was dry and barren, it has now been sown and is ready for harvest. Within the paintings, pink flowers rise to the sky and spread their fleshy petal-tongues to the sunlight, begging to be kissed. Around them, a sculptural cornfield grows throughout the exhibition. A seven-foot dandy traipses throughout the proceedings, peacocking his vibrant couture to anyone who will pay attention. A Bacon-esque figure in a Garden of Earthly Delights, perhaps he is trying to draw the eyes of the couple making love in the sunlight on a canvas nearby.
At the belly of the snake lies the artist’s surrealist adaptation of a domestic shack, based on those of the townships surrounding Cape Town, South Africa, where Ndzube was born and raised. A twenty-minute sound piece Ndzube composed and recorded with Thabo K. Makgolo and Zimbini Makwethu emanates from within the large, suspended structure, filling the surrounding spaces with haunting music. It incorporates acoustic elements that evoke sorcery, witch-hunting, and creatures that fly by night. In Ndzube’s world, a darkness is always lurking, but on-notice that it will eventually be evicted by the light.
Simphiwe Ndzube (b. 1990, Cape Town, South Africa) lives and works in Los Angeles, CA and Cape Town, South Africa. He received his BFA from the Michaelis School of Fine Arts in 2015. Ndzube’s work is characterised by a fundamental interplay between objects, media and two-dimensional surfaces; stitching together a subjective account of the Black experience in post-apartheid South Africa from a mythological persepective. Recent exhibitions include The Fantastic Ride to Gwadana, Stevenson Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa (2020, solo); INXS: Major Never Before Seen Works by Simphiwe Ndzube, Moffat Takadiwa, and Zhou Yilun, Nicodim Gallery, Los Angeles, USA (2020); Hollywood Babylon: A Re-Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, Nicodim, Jeffrey Deitch, and AUTRE Magazine, Los Angeles, USA (2020); Where Water Comes Together With Other Water, The 15th Lyon Biennale, Lyon, France (2019); People, Jeffrey Deitch, Los Angeles, USA (2019); In the Order of Elephants After the Rain, Galeria Nicodim, Bucharest, Romania (2019, solo); New Acquisitions, The Rubell Museum, Miami, USA (2018); NOISE!, The Frans Hals Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (2018); Waiting for Mulungu, The CC Foundation, Shanghai, China (2018, solo); Bharbarosi, Nicodim Gallery, Los Angeles, USA (2017, solo); and Becoming, WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town, South Africa (2016, solo). His work can be found in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Musée d’art contemporain de Lyon, Lyon, France, and the Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa, among others. Oracles of the Pink Universe, his first solo institutional exhibition in the States, opens at the Denver Art Museum this June. Like the Snake that Fed the Chameleon is the artist’s third solo exhibition with Nicodim.
Simphiwe Ndzube, Like the Snake that Fed the Chameleon, 2021, exhibition view, Nicodim, Los Angeles
Simphiwe Ndzube, Like the Snake that Fed the Chameleon, 2021, exhibition view, Nicodim, Los Angeles
Simphiwe Ndzube, Like the Snake that Fed the Chameleon, 2021, exhibition view, Nicodim, Los Angeles
Simphiwe Ndzube, Like the Snake that Fed the Chameleon, 2021, exhibition view, Nicodim, Los Angeles
Simphiwe Ndzube, Like the Snake that Fed the Chameleon, 2021, exhibition view, Nicodim, Los Angeles
Simphiwe Ndzube, Like the Snake that Fed the Chameleon, 2021, exhibition view, Nicodim, Los Angeles
Simphiwe Ndzube, Like the Snake that Fed the Chameleon, 2021, exhibition view, Nicodim, Los Angeles
Simphiwe Ndzube, Like the Snake that Fed the Chameleon, 2021, exhibition view, Nicodim, Los Angeles
Simphiwe Ndzube, Like the Snake that Fed the Chameleon, 2021, exhibition view, Nicodim, Los Angeles
Simphiwe Ndzube, Like the Snake that Fed the Chameleon, 2021, exhibition view, Nicodim, Los Angeles
Simphiwe Ndzube, Like the Snake that Fed the Chameleon, 2021, exhibition view, Nicodim, Los Angeles
Simphiwe Ndzube, Like the Snake that Fed the Chameleon, 2021, exhibition view, Nicodim, Los Angeles
Simphiwe Ndzube, Like the Snake that Fed the Chameleon, 2021, exhibition view, Nicodim, Los Angeles
Simphiwe Ndzube, Like the Snake that Fed the Chameleon, 2021, exhibition view, Nicodim, Los Angeles
Simphiwe Ndzube, Like the Snake that Fed the Chameleon, 2021, exhibition view, Nicodim, Los Angeles
Simphiwe Ndzube, Like the Snake that Fed the Chameleon, 2021, exhibition view, Nicodim, Los Angeles
Simphiwe Ndzube, Like the Snake that Fed the Chameleon, 2021, exhibition view, Nicodim, Los Angeles
Simphiwe Ndzube, Like the Snake that Fed the Chameleon, 2021, exhibition view, Nicodim, Los Angeles
Simphiwe Ndzube, Like the Snake that Fed the Chameleon, 2021, exhibition view, Nicodim, Los Angeles
Simphiwe Ndzube, Like the Snake that Fed the Chameleon, 2021, exhibition view, Nicodim, Los Angeles
Simphiwe Ndzube, Like the Snake that Fed the Chameleon, 2021, exhibition view, Nicodim, Los Angeles
Simphiwe Ndzube, Like the Snake that Fed the Chameleon, 2021, exhibition view, Nicodim, Los Angeles
Simphiwe Ndzube, Like the Snake that Fed the Chameleon, 2021, exhibition view, Nicodim, Los Angeles
Simphiwe Ndzube, Like the Snake that Fed the Chameleon, 2021, exhibition view, Nicodim, Los Angeles
Simphiwe Ndzube, Individuation, Manifest, 2021, acrylic, collage, spray paint, fabric, artificial grapes, wire and wood on canvas, 72 x 72 in, 182.9 x 182.9 cm
Simphiwe Ndzube, The Kiss, 2021, acrylic, collage, found clothing, resin on canvas, 90.5 x 72 in, 230 x 183 cm
Simphiwe Ndzube, Beast of No Nation, 2021, fabric, fog machine, resin, wood, metal, rope, motorbike lights, found clothing and tires, dimensions variable
Simphiwe Ndzube, The Return from Heaven, 2021, acrylic, collage, spray paint, resin and found clothing on canvas, 90.5 x 96 in, 229.9 x 243.8 cm
Simphiwe Ndzube, I am a Bird Now, 2021, fabric, found clothing, resin, synthetic hair, synthetic snakeskin, and wire, dimensions variable
Simphiwe Ndzube, Portrait of Daluxolo, 2021, acrylic, collage, and spray paint on canvas, 51 x 39.5 in., 129.5 x 100.3 cm
Simphiwe Ndzube, Secrets of the Fields, 2021, metal, glay, gazing ball, and mulch, dimensions variable
Simphiwe Ndzube, Rehearsal for Rebellion, 2021, acrylic, collage, found clothing, resin, and spray paint on canvas, 90.5 x 72 in, 229.9 x 182.9 cm
Simphiwe Ndzube, Neon Vernacular, 2021, acrylic and collage on canvas, 20 x 16 in, 51 x 41 cm
Simphiwe Ndzube, Rainbow Nation of God, Cities on the Sky, 2021, sheetmetal, lumber, windows, plexiglass, artificial plants, dirt, found door, and mulch, dimensions variable
Simphiwe Ndzube, Rainbow Nation of God, Cities on the Sky, 2021, sheetmetal, lumber, windows, plexiglass, artificial plants, dirt, found door, and mulch, dimensions variable
Simphiwe Ndzube, Nombewu, the Seed, 2021, acrylic, fabric, and synthetic hair on canvas, 30 x 24 in, 76 x 61 cm
Simphiwe Ndzube, NoGolide the Great Mother, 2021, acrylic and spray paint on canvas, 30 x 24 in, 76.2 x 61 cm
Simphiwe Ndzube, TaBhiza, The Flâneur, 2021, concrete, metal, resin, silicon, fabric, shark teeth, thread and found clothing, 81.5 x 26 x 48 in, 207 x 66 x 122 cm
Simphiwe Ndzube, Once Upon a Time, Mine-Moon, 2020, acrylic, duct tape, and spray paint on linen, 72 x 96 in, 183 x 244 cm
Simphiwe Ndzube, Silumko, 2021, acrylic, duct tape, and spray paint on canvas, 72 x 72 in, 183 x 183 cm