Balandzeli

In Balandzeli, Mntambo uses what has become a signature material for her: cowhide, moulded and treated so that it assumes the form of a human body. In the context of South African traditional cultural, cowhide is a conceptually and ideologically significant material.

By shaping it into female forms, Mntambo is gesturing toward the commodification of the female body on the one hand, and to the complex association of the feminine with nature, on the other. In this work, Mntambo goes a little further, reinvigorating the hides and arranging them to resemble both a military display and a rack of fashionable clothing.

The ambiguity and complexity of this work situate it in an urgent global political discourse about race, sexuality and women’s bodies.

Artwork courtesy of Johannesburg Art Gallery.