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James Webb
b. 1975
lives and works in Stockholm, Sweden

     selected works
     biography
     texts
selected exhibitions:
     What Fresh Hell Is This
     17
     Ecstatic Interference
     next thing you know
     The Two Insomnias


︎︎︎ artists


James Webb, A series of personal questions addressed to the River Rhine (2023) | Speakers, audio, dimensions variable | Installation view, Monheim Triennale, Monheim | link to audioIn this ongoing series, the artist literally poses spoken questions to selected objects and environments as if they were sentient beings able to respond. The installation takes the form of audio speakers installed above where the audience would ideally be situated in relation to the object or space. Each set of questions is written specifically for the chosen interview subject. No answers are written, given, or suggested, and a pause of approximately 10-seconds is taken between each question. In this pause, the object can be thought of as being in a state of response. Here too, the audience is also free to consider their own replies to the questions. James Webb, A series of personal questions addressed to a boat that sailed its last journey on the Red Sea (2023) | Traditional fishing boat, speakers, audio, dimensions variable | Installation view, Islamic Arts Biennale, JeddahIn this ongoing series, the artist literally poses spoken questions to selected objects and environments as if they were sentient beings able to respond. The installation takes the form of audio speakers installed above where the audience would ideally be situated in relation to the object or space. Each set of questions is written specifically for the chosen interview subject. No answers are written, given, or suggested, and a pause of approximately 10-seconds is taken between each question. In this pause, the object can be thought of as being in a state of response. Here too, the audience is also free to consider their own replies to the questions. James Webb, A series of personal questions addressed to a Theriac urn formerly used in the Hôtel-Dieu (2022) | Borrowed 17th century Theriac urn, speakers, audio, dimensions variable | Installation view, Biennale de Lyon, Lyon | link to audioIn this ongoing series, the artist literally poses spoken questions to selected objects and environments as if they were sentient beings able to respond. The installation takes the form of audio speakers installed above where the audience would ideally be situated in relation to the object or space. Each set of questions is written specifically for the chosen interview subject. No answers are written, given, or suggested, and a pause of approximately 10-seconds is taken between each question. In this pause, the object can be thought of as being in a state of response. Here too, the audience is also free to consider their own replies to the questions.


James Webb, A series of personal questions addressed to five litres of Nigerian crude oil (2020) | Crude oil, speaker, audio, dimensions variable | Installation view, blank projects, Cape Town | link to audioIn this ongoing series, the artist literally poses spoken questions to selected inanimate objects as if they were sentient beings able to respond. The installation takes the form of the display of the particular object, and an audio speaker installed above where the audience would ideally be situated in relation to the object on exhibition. Each set of questions is written specifically for that chosen object. No answers are written, given, or suggested, and a pause of approximately 10-seconds is taken between each question. In this pause, the object can be thought of as being in a state of response. Here too, the audience is also free to consider their own replies to the questions, either on behalf of the object or perhaps even themselves. James Webb, A series of personal questions addressed to a Roman Coin (2019) | Silver Denarius Roman coin dated 70AD, speaker, audio, dimensions variable | Installation view, Galerie Imane Fares, Paris | link to audioIn this ongoing series, the artist literally poses spoken questions to selected inanimate objects as if they were sentient beings able to respond. The installation takes the form of the display of the particular object, and an audio speaker installed above where the audience would ideally be situated in relation to the object on exhibition. Each set of questions is written specifically for that chosen object. No answers are written, given, or suggested, and a pause of approximately 10-seconds is taken between each question. In this pause, the object can be thought of as being in a state of response. Here too, the audience is also free to consider their own replies to the questions, either on behalf of the object or perhaps even themselves.


James Webb, This is where I leave you (2020) | Ceramic Ānanda statue, vitrine, plinth, 150 x 50 x 50 cmFound objects serving as placeholders in a retelling of the story of the Nossa Senhora dos Milagros shipwreck encased in vitrines made of fluted glass. The 1686 shipwreck of the Nossa Senhora dos Milagros along the Cape Agulhas coast was an important moment in the history of religion in South Africa. This accident brought Catholicism and Buddhism into contact with the recently colonised, Lutheran Cape: a twist of fate that would have bizarre and poetic consequences. The effect of the fluted glass on our view of the objects appears to fragment and divide them; the static pieces looks to be vibrating, or even radiating. The glass becomes a lens as well as a veil that disconnects, obscures and mystifies: the unity of the recognised form remains out of reach. The choice of found objects relates to how the artist imagines and reimagines the scenario of the story: the objects are sites for projection and interpretation, and are here presented as being in a shimmering state.The full series of sculptures from This is where I leave you was included in the artist's solo exhibition at blank projects in 2020, titled


James Webb, I do not live in this world alone, but in a thousand worlds (13 Views of the Moon) (2019) | Ink on soluble paper, water, glass vials, glass shelves, 210 x 200 x 14.5 cmI do not live in this world alone, but in a thousand worlds is a series of text pieces designed as philosophical medicines and poetic potions. Each work is presented as an installation of glass vials on shelves, with each vial containing the liquid residue of a selected text that has been transcribed in ink on soluble paper and dissolved in water. Committed to water, the text gains the possibility of entering the body through the mouth, in the style of a psychoactive drug or elixir. In this way, the words can be contained by the body, with the drinker able to possess and embody it, and be influenced from the inside. Dissolved, the ideas and images contained in the text have the agency to spill, stain, and seep. These transmuted texts, or ‘drowned anthologies’, oppose the idea of the permanence of the written record - whether on paper or in stone - and their transitory nature allows them the potential to shift and undergo subtle changes over time, so that the artwork is in a constant state of flux. James Webb, I do not live in this world alone, but in a thousand worlds (Alchemy) (2019) | Ink on soluble paper, water, glass vial, glass shelf, 22 x 15 x 15.5 cmI do not live in this world alone, but in a thousand worlds is a series of text pieces designed as philosophical medicines and poetic potions. Each work is presented as an installation of glass vials on shelves, with each vial containing the liquid residue of a selected text that has been transcribed in ink on soluble paper and dissolved in water. Committed to water, the text gains the possibility of entering the body through the mouth, in the style of a psychoactive drug or elixir. In this way, the words can be contained by the body, with the drinker able to possess and embody it, and be influenced from the inside. Dissolved, the ideas and images contained in the text have the agency to spill, stain, and seep. These transmuted texts, or ‘drowned anthologies’, oppose the idea of the permanence of the written record - whether on paper or in stone - and their transitory nature allows them the potential to shift and undergo subtle changes over time, so that the artwork is in a constant state of flux. James Webb, I do not live in this world alone, but in a thousand worlds (The Two Insomnias) (2019) | Ink on soluble paper, water, glass vials, glass shelf, 20 x 40 x 13 cmI do not live in this world alone, but in a thousand worlds is a series of text pieces designed as philosophical medicines and poetic potions. Each work is presented as an installation of glass vials on shelves, with each vial containing the liquid residue of a selected text that has been transcribed in ink on soluble paper and dissolved in water. Committed to water, the text gains the possibility of entering the body through the mouth, in the style of a psychoactive drug or elixir. In this way, the words can be contained by the body, with the drinker able to possess and embody it, and be influenced from the inside. Dissolved, the ideas and images contained in the text have the agency to spill, stain, and seep. These transmuted texts, or ‘drowned anthologies’, oppose the idea of the permanence of the written record - whether on paper or in stone - and their transitory nature allows them the potential to shift and undergo subtle changes over time, so that the artwork is in a constant state of flux.


James Webb, Prayer (2000 - ongoing) | Carpet, speakers, audio, 1600 x 400 cm | Installation view, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago | link to audio Prayer is an ongoing project, remade around the world since its first presentation in Webb’s home city of Cape Town in 2000. The work consists of recordings of prayer from individuals who belong to dozens of faiths and spiritual affinities in the host city. Listeners are invited to remove their shoes and walk the length of the carpet, composing their own arrangement of voices as they go, or to kneel or otherwise lower themselves next to a speaker to listen more closely to particular prayers. The spare though colorful installation has the austerity of a work of Minimal Art and the enveloping richness of a choral concert. James Webb, Prayer (2000 - ongoing) | Carpet, speakers, audio, 1600 x 400 cm | Installation view, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart | Photo by Natasha Mulhall | link to audio Prayer is an ongoing project, remade around the world since its first presentation in Webb’s home city of Cape Town in 2000. The work consists of recordings of prayer from individuals who belong to dozens of faiths and spiritual affinities in the host city. Listeners are invited to remove their shoes and walk the length of the carpet, composing their own arrangement of voices as they go, or to kneel or otherwise lower themselves next to a speaker to listen more closely to particular prayers. The spare though colorful installation has the austerity of a work of Minimal Art and the enveloping richness of a choral concert. James Webb, Prayer (2000 - ongoing) | Carpet, speakers, audio, 1600 x 400 cm | Installation view, Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg | Photo by Anthea Pokroy | link to audio Prayer is an ongoing project, remade around the world since its first presentation in Webb’s home city of Cape Town in 2000. The work consists of recordings of prayer from individuals who belong to dozens of faiths and spiritual affinities in the host city. Listeners are invited to remove their shoes and walk the length of the carpet, composing their own arrangement of voices as they go, or to kneel or otherwise lower themselves next to a speaker to listen more closely to particular prayers. The spare though colorful installation has the austerity of a work of Minimal Art and the enveloping richness of a choral concert.


James Webb, There Is A Light That Never Goes Out (isiXhosa) (2017) | Neon installation, 394 x 89 cm (variable) This work is part of a series, begun in 2010, of site-specific neon signs using the phrase “there is a light that never goes out” translated into carefully selected languages. All of these works begin with the same text, but the process of translation, in addition to the effect of the installation space, produces various meanings according to their linguistic, cultural, semiotic and psychological associations. The original version was in Arabic and the work also exists in isiZulu, Sesotho, Tupi Guarani and Chinese versions. James Webb, There Is A Light That Never Goes Out (Arabic) (2010) | Neon installation, 394 x 89 cm | Installation view, Darat Al Funun, AmmanThis work is part of a series, begun in 2010, of site-specific neon signs using the phrase “there is a light that never goes out” translated into carefully selected languages. All of these works begin with the same text, but the process of translation, in addition to the effect of the installation space, produces various meanings according to their linguistic, cultural, semiotic and psychological associations. The original version was in Arabic and the work also exists in isiZulu, Sesotho, Tupi Guarani and Chinese versions.


James Webb, The Ninth of Eight (2016) | Multimedia intervention, dimensions variable | Installation view, Théâtre Graslin, Nantes | Photo by Bernard Renoux | link to audioIn The Ninth of Eight, a bullhorn loudspeaker attached to the grill gates of the Théâtre Graslin broadcasts the question “Ce que vous voyez?” (transl. What do you see?), spoken by Melodie Abad, onto the Place Graslin intermittently throughout the day.This artwork forms part of La Syzygie, a multi-dimensional reading of the Théâtre Graslin in Nantes, France. The 18th century theatre designed by Mathurin Crucy is transformed into a psycho-architectural environment populated by voices, sounds, and shadows relating to the building’s past, present, and future, referencing conditions and techniques of séance, exorcism, and psychoanalysis. James Webb, La Syzygie (2016) | Multimedia intervention, dimensions variable | Installation view, Théâtre Graslin, Nantes | Photo by Bernard Renoux | link to audioLa Syzygie is a multi-dimensional reading of the Théâtre Graslin in Nantes, France. The artist invited various local specialists to visit the 18th century opera house and read the space through the lens of their own disciplines. The guests included an architect, astrologer, historian, theatre technician, psychic, and psychologist. The 18th century theatre designed by Mathurin Crucy is transformed into a psycho-architectural environment populated by voices, sounds, and shadows relating to the building’s past, present, and future, referencing conditions and techniques of séance, exorcism, and psychoanalysis. Audience members sat in the auditorium and experienced a phantasmagoria of events, dreams, and histories suggested by the magnificent building itself.


James Webb, Al Madat (2014) | Carpets, speakers, tripods, audio; approx. 400 x 250 cm | Installation view at blank projects, Cape Town | link to audioIn Al Madat, a recording of a Sufi dhikr undertaken by patients at the Sultan Bahu Rehab Centre in Westridge, Mitchell’s Plain is broadcast from speakers arranged around four identical Persian carpets. The audience is invited to remove their shoes and sit on the carpets to experience the audio in overwhelming surround sound.Dhikr (literally, “remembrance”) is a traditional Islamic recitation, where sacred names are chanted with special breathing techniques, often creating trance-like effects. This practice was brought to the Cape with the enslaved Malay peoples, and is now used by the rehabilitation centre as an augmentation to the curative process. “Al Madat,” the specific dhikr used for this installation, translates as “help,” and is here used to implore the Prophet for assistance.The installation features the recorded voices of Anwar Bhoyd, Hassiem Nusterdien, Luqmaan Swartz, Mahier Bashier, Marawaan Arabie, Moegammat Shafiek Davids, Moegammat Rossier, Shuaib Hoosain, Shukri Arendse, and Suleiman Samuels.


James Webb, There’s No Place Called Home (Regent's Park) (2012) | Audio, speakers, trees, dimensions variable | Installation view, LondonStarted in 2004, There’s No Place Called Home is a recurring, worldwide intervention wherein specific foreign bird calls and songs are broadcast from speakers concealed in local trees. The incongruent audio is mixed so as to appear as “real” and “lifelike” as possible in the environment. James Webb, There’s No Place Called Home (Great Wall) (2005) | Audio, speakers, trees, dimensions variable | Installation view, Great Wall of ChinaStarted in 2004, There’s No Place Called Home is a recurring, worldwide intervention wherein specific foreign bird calls and songs are broadcast from speakers concealed in local trees. The incongruent audio is mixed so as to appear as “real” and “lifelike” as possible in the environment. James Webb, There’s No Place Called Home (Solitude Park) (2023) | Audio, speakers, trees, dimensions variable | Installation view, Museum Tinguely, BaselStarted in 2004, There’s No Place Called Home is a recurring, worldwide intervention wherein specific foreign bird calls and songs are broadcast from speakers concealed in local trees. The incongruent audio is mixed so as to appear as “real” and “lifelike” as possible in the environment.


James Webb, Entitled (2010) | Ikebana arrangements of weeds, alien vegetation and invasive plants, dimensions variable | Photo by Anthea Pokroy | Ikebana design by Derry Ralph. James Webb, Le Marché Oriental (2009) | Video installation, dimensions variable | Installation view at blank projects, Cape Town | Photo by Paul GroseLe Marché Oriental films a two-minute intervention inside Cape Town’s disused Oriental Plaza, an Apartheid-era shopping mall designed to control the trading opportunities of disenfranchised Islamic communities with links to District Six. On the fourth day of Ramadan, 2008, Sheikh Mogamat Moerat of the Zeenatul Islam Majid mosque next door to the plaza was invited to sing the Adhan (call to prayer) inside the empty remains of the building a few weeks prior to its demolition to make way for luxury apartments. The artwork is exhibited as a wall-sized video projection with immersive sound. 



James Webb, Scream (2008) | Signed certificate, museum barrier, speaker, audio, dimensions variable | Installation view, Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg | link to audioScream is an intervention at the Reina Sofia, Spain’s national gallery, where members of the museum’s staff were invited to scream at Pablo Picasso’s Guernica. Because the Picasso family own the rights to the painting’s image, the artist was not allowed to document the project visually. The artwork is presented as a spacious installation in a white cube with the signed certificate of permission from the Reina Sofia on display and audio recordings of the screams broadcast from concealed speakers. James Webb, Scream (2008) | Signed certificate, museum barrier, speaker, audio, dimensions variable | link to audioScream is an intervention at the Reina Sofia, Spain’s national gallery, where members of the museum’s staff were invited to scream at Pablo Picasso’s Guernica. Because the Picasso family own the rights to the painting’s image, the artist was not allowed to document the project visually. The artwork is presented as a spacious installation in a white cube with the signed certificate of permission from the Reina Sofia on display and audio recordings of the screams broadcast from concealed speakers.



Photo: Pieter Hugo
photo: Pieter Hugo




James Webb is an interdisciplinary artist, known for his site-specific interventions and installations. His practice often involves sound, found objects, and text, invoking references to literature, cinema, and the minimalist traditions. By shifting objects, techniques, and forms beyond their original contexts and introducing them to different environments, Webb creates new spaces of tension. These spaces bind Webb’s academic background in religion, theatre, and advertising, offering poetic inquiries into the economies of belief and dynamics of communication in our contemporary world.

Webb has had solo exhibitions at, amongst others, the Art Institute of Chicago, USA, 2018; SPACES, Cleveland, USA, 2018; Norrtälje Konsthall, Norrtälje, Sweden, 2018; Galerie Imane Farès, Paris, France, 2016 and 2019; Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield, United Kingdom, 2016; Hordaland Kunstsenter, Bergen, Norway, 2015; blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa, 2014, 2016, and 2020; CentroCentro, Madrid, Spain, 2013; Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2012; and mac, Birmingham, United Kingdom, 2010.

Major group exhibitions include the inaugural Islamic Arts Biennale (2023), the 16th Lyon Biennale (2022), Borås Art Biennial in Sweden (2021), 14th Curitiba International Biennial of Contemporary Art (2019), 13th Biennial of Dakar (2018), 4th Prospect Triennial of New Orleans (2017), Documenta 14 (2017), 13th Biennial of Sharjah (2017), 12th Bienal de la Habana (2015), 55th Biennale di Venezia (2013), 3rd Marrakech Biennale (2009), Melbourne International Arts Festival (2009), and the 8th Biennale d’Art Contemporain de Lyon (2007). Other notable group shows include those at spaces such as Museum Tinguely, Basel; Museum of Old and New Art, Tasmania; A4 Arts Foundation, Cape Town; Wanås Konst and Historiska, Sweden; MAXXI Roma, Italy; Darat al Funun, Jordan; Théâtre Graslin, France; and the Tate Modern, London. 

Webb’s work has been acquired for numerous local and international public and private collections, and his projects have been the subject of the two monographs, “. . .” (blank projects, 2020), and “Xenagogue” (Hordaland Kunstsenter, 2015).

For more information on the artist, and audio/video samples, visit http://theotherjameswebb.tumblr.com



—



curriculum vitae


1975    Born in Kimberley, South Africa



education


1999    Diploma (Copywriting) The Red & Yellow School, Cape Town, South Africa

1996    B.A. (Drama & Comparative Religion) University of Cape Town, South Africa



selected solo exhibitions


2024    The moon will not stay hidden forever, Liljevalchs+, Stockholm, Sweden [upcoming]

2020    What Fresh Hell Is This, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa

2019    Choose the Universe, Galerie Imane Farès, Paris, France

2019    Three dreams of the sinking world, POOL, Johannesburg, South Africa

2018    It’s not what it looks like, SPACES, Cleveland, USA

2018    Prayer (Chicago), Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, USA

2018    Supernature, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Yorkshire, UK

2018    The dreamer in me meets the dreamer in you, Norrtälje Konsthall, Norrtälje, Sweden

2016    Hope is a good swimmer, Galerie Imane Fares, Paris, France

2016    We Listen for the Future, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Yorkshire, UK

2016    Ecstatic Interference, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa

2015    Xenagogue, Hordaland Kunstsenter, Bergen, Norway

2015    Nous نحن , with Ninar Esber, Galerie Imane Farès, Paris, France

2014    The Two Insomnias, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa

2013    Audiopolis, Centro Centro, Madrid, Spain

2012    MMXII, Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

2010    Aleph, Goethe On Main, Johannesburg, South Africa

2010    Terms Of Surrender, ABSA Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

2010    Untitled States, MAC, Birmingham, UK

2010    Prayer, Djanogly Gallery, Nottingham, UK

2010    JWAKZNSA, KZNSA, Durban, South Africa

2010    One day, all of this will be yours, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa

2008    Prayer, Huddersfield Art Gallery, West Yorkshire, UK

2007    Beau Diable, Gallery In The Round, Grahamstown, South Africa

2006    Untitled, Blank Projects, Cape Town, South Africa

2002    Phonosynthesizer, US Art Gallery, Stellenbosch, South Africa



selected group exhibitions

2024    There is a light that never goes out, Galerie Imane Farès, Paris, France

2023    You to Me, Me to You, A4 Arts Foundation, Cape Town, South Africa

2023    A Dobradiça - Encontros contemporâneo, A Dobradiça Biennale, Mação, Portugal

2023    Au hasard des oiseau, Biennale Internationale Saint-Paul de Vence, Saint-Paul de Vence, France

2023    Vävda Rum, Riksförbundet Sveriges Konstföreningar, Augmented Reality throughout Sweden

2023    lO, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa

2023    The Sound, 2nd Monheim Triennale, Monheim am Rhein, Germany [upcoming]

2023    À bruit secret: Hearing in Art, Museum Tinguely, Basel, Switzerland 

2023    MONA FOMA festival, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart, Tasmania

2023    Awwal Bayt (First House), Islamic Arts Biennale, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

2022    The Future is Behind Us, A4 Arts Foundation, Cape Town, South Africa

2022    manifesto of fragility, 16th Biennale de Lyon, France

2021    Deep listening for longing, Borås Art Biennial, Borås, Sweden 

2021    The Normal, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland

2020    Audiosphere: Sound Experimentation 1980-2020, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain

2020    Helicotrema, La Fratellanza 1874, Modena, Italy

2020    freq_wave (Seven Seas), Curated by Carl Michael von Hausswolff and Alonso Vázquez, TBA21-Academy, Austria [online]

2020    Konst i Ån, Norrtälje, Sweden

2019    Ngoma: Art and Cosmology, JAG, Johannesburg, South Africa

2019    the head the hand, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa

2019    Rennie at the WAG, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg, Canada

2019    Open Borders, 14th Curitiba International Biennial of Contemporary Art, Curitiba, Brazil

2019    Listening Room, Michaelis Galleries, Cape Town, South Africa

2018    Hacer Noche, Centro Cultural San Pablo, Oaxaca de Juarez, Mexico

2018    Radiophonic Spaces, Museum Tinguely, Basel, Switzerland

2018    Truth is black, write over it with a mirage’s light, Darat al Funun, Amman, Jordan

2018    Radiophonic Spaces, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Germany

2018    Ways of Seeing, New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

2018    African Metropolis: An Imaginary City, MAXXI Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo, Rome, Italy

2018    blank, Galerie Guido W. Baudach, Berlin, Germany

2018    Gegen die Strömung: Reise ins Ungewisse, Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen, Germany

2018    More for less, A4 Arts Foundation, Cape Town, South Africa

2018    The Red Hour, 13th Biennial of Dakar, Senegal

2018    Common Ground, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield, UK

2017    17, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa

2017    The Lotus in Spite of the Swamp, Prospect New Orleans 4, New Orleans, USA

2017    Ways of Seeing, Villa Empain Fondation Boghossia, Brussels, Belgium

2017    Mixed Signals, Helicotrema 6, Teatro di Palazzo Grassi, Venice, Italy

2017    Utocorpis, Silenco, Paris, France

2017    Cinéphémere for LOOP Barcelona, Grand Palais, Paris, France

2017    Every Time An Ear Di Soun, documenta 14 radio

2017    Tous, des sang mêles, MAC VAL, Paris, France

2017    Home is so fucking complicated, Galerie Nathalie Halgand for the Curated by_ series, Vienna, Austria

2017    Picasso et la maternité, Musée Crozatier, Le Puy-en-Velay, France

2017    Image Drain, Tallin Art Hall, Tallin, Estonia

2017    Afrique Capitales, La Villette, Paris, France

2017    Becoming an Apricot, an apple, a crow, a tree, a cockroach, a glacier, a plant, a mushroom, a shell, a bird, algae for Survival Kit 9, Former Faculty of Biology of the University of Latvia, Riga

2017    Tamawuj, Sharjah Biennial 13, United Arab Emirates

2016    Silencio, in collaboration with Raphaëlle Delaunay, Paris, France

2016    Sonic Somatic, Firenze, Italy

2016    Nothing is Impossible, Monte Vista Projects, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sante Fe, USA

2016    Helicotrema, Palazzo Grassi, Venice, Italy

2016    History Unfolds, Historiska Museet, Stockholm, Sweden

2016    Malmös Leende, Malmö, Sweden

2016    Sèvres Outdoors 2016, Sèvres Cité de la Céramique, Paris, France

2016    Le Voyage à Nantes Festival, Théâtre Graslin and Jardin de la Psalette, Nantes, France

2016    A Place In Time, Nirox Foundation, South Africa

2016    Alive in the Dead Sea (1995-2015), The Khalid Shoman Foundation Darat Al Funun, Amman, Jordan

2016    The 55-Minute Hour, Trubok Factory, Cape Town, South Africa

2015    Libertas, 7th Bienal de Jafre, Girona, Spain

2015    Handle with care, Ostrale 15, Dresden, Germany

2015    Barrier, Wanås Konst Sculpture Park, Sweden

2015    Between the idea and experience, Bienal de la Habana, Havana, Cuba

2014    Frestas, Trienal of Sorobaba, Sesc, Sao Paulo, Brazil

2014    Helicotrema, Recorded Audio Festival, Viafarini DOCVA, Milan, Italy

2014    No Fixed Abode, The New Church Museum, Cape Town, South Africa

2014    Fittja Pavilion at the 14th Venice Architecture Biennale, Serra dei Giardini, Venice, Italy

2014    Dirty Ear Forum: Sound, Multiplicity and Radical Listening, Galleri 3,14 and Rom8, Bergen, Norway

2014    next thing you know, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa

2013    This is the thing, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa

2013    blank projects in Johannesburg, Ithuba Arts Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

2013    Imaginary Fact, South African Pavillion, 55th La Biennale di Venezia, Italy

2013    Between The Lines, Former Tagesspiegel Building, Berlin, Germany

2013    No Limit 2, Galerie Imane Fares, Paris, France

2012    GIPCA Live Art Festival, City Hall, Cape Town, South Africa

2012    When Form Becomes Attitude, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa

2012    Experience Pommery 10, Domaine Pommery, Reims, France

2012    Making Way, National Arts Festival, Grahamstown, South Africa

2012    Fierce Festival, various venues, Birmingham, UK

2012    In Other Words: the black market of translation, NGBK, Berlin, Germany

2011    Experience Pommery 9, Domaine Pommery, Reims, France

2011    Neither Man, Nor Stone, Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

2010    Sentences On The Banks and other activities, Darat Al-Funun, Amman, Jordan

2010    Reflex / Reflexión, Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

2010    Article Biennale, various venues, Stavanger, Norway

2010    My World Images, various venues: Copenhagen, Denmark, Istanbul, Athens, Marrakech, Palermo, Catania, Riso Museo d’Arte Contemporanea della Sicilia, Palermo

2010    In Other Words, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

2010    Twenty, Nirox Foundation, Johannesburg, South Africa

2010    Contemporary Artists From South Africa, Stiftelsen 314, Bergen, Norway

2010    Ampersand, Daimler Contemporary, Berlin, Germany

2010    No Soul For Sale, L’appartement 22 / Tate Modern, London, UK

2010    1910 – 2010,  Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

2010    Printemps des Poètes, Salon de lecture, Musée du quai Branly, Paris, France

2009    Happy House, Kunst im Tunnel, Düsseldorf, Germany

2009    3rd Arts In Marrakech Biennale, Museum of Marrakech, Morocco

2009    L’effacement des traces, Musée d’histoire contemporaine, Paris, France

2009    Melbourne International Arts Festival, Melbourne, Australia

2009    Open Frame, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia

2009    CAPE 09, Cape Town’s 2nd biennale of contemporary African culture, Cape Town, South Africa

2009    This Is Now 2, L’Appartment 22, Rabat, Morocco

2008    Delusions Of Grandeur, Unit B Gallery, San Antonio, Texas, USA

2008    Jozi & The (M)Other City, Michaelis Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

2008    Home Bound, Stiftung Kunst:Raum Sylt Quelle, Sylt, Germany

2008    za, Giovane arte dal Sud Africa, Palazzo delle Papesse Centro Arte Contemporanea, Siena, Italy

2008    Light Show, Bank Gallery, Durban, South Africa

2007    Sakra!, St. Andrä, Graz, Austria

2007    9th Biennale d’Art Contemporain de Lyon, Lyon, France

2007    3C, Critic’s Choice Exhibition, Association for Visual Arts, Cape Town, South Africa

2007    (In)visible Sounds (with Brandon LaBelle), Netherlands Media Institute, Amsterdam, Netherlands

2007    Afterlife, Michael Stevenson Contemporary, Cape Town, South Africa

2006    MTN New Contemporaries, Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

2005    Aqua Art Sound Broadcast, Aqua Art Hotel, Miami, USA

2005    Gallery Puta, Cape Town, South Africa

2005    Incidental Amplifications, Various venues, Melbourne, Australia

2005    CCA Kitakyushu Open Studio, Kitakyushu, Japan

2004    Typhoon, Maeda Gallery, Kitakyushu, Japan

2004    The Brett Kebble Art Awards (with Matthew Kalil), CTICC, Cape Town, South Africa

2004    Listening to The World Today, BBC Radio 4

2004    A Decade Of Democracy, Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

2004    Zèppelin 2004-Festival de Arte Sonor, Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, Spain

2003    Mooimark, Mooimark House, Johannesburg, South Africa

2003    YDEsire, The Castle of Good Hope, Cape Town, South Africa

2002    The Long Night Of Radio Art, Ars Electronica Festival, Linz, Austria



selected installations


There’s No Place Called Home (Hökarängen), Konsthall C, Stockholm, Sweden

Nothing here does not hear you, National Arts Festival, Makhanda, South Africa

The dreamer in me meets the dreamer in you, Norrtälje Konsthall, Norrtälje, Sweden

Let Me Lose Myself, Skogskyrkogården, Stockholm, Sweden

There Is A Light That Never Goes Out, Darat al Funun, Amman, Jordan

There’s No Place Called Home (Amman), Darat al Funun, Amman, Jordan

There’s No Place Called Home (Pommery), Vranken-Pommery Monopole, Reims, France

There’s No Place Called Home (La Villa Demoiselle), Vranken-Pommery Monopole, Reims, France

Untitled, Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

Siren, Main Street Life, Johannesburg, South Africa



selected commissions


2021    As Yet Untitled, sound installation, Norval Foundation Sculpture Garden, Cape Town, South Africa

2014    The Shadow Of The Hummingbird, written and directed by Athol Fugard, Fugard Theatre, Cape Town, South Africa

2013    The Conversation, time capsule to be opened on 4 August 2103, Egebjerg, Denmark

2013    Die Laaste Karretjiegraf, written and directed by Athol Fugard and Riana Steyn, Fugard Theatre, Cape Town, South Africa

2011    Telephone Voice, Répondeur, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France

2011    The Bird Watchers, written and directed by Athol Fugard, Fugard Theatre, Cape Town, South Africa



residencies


2018    SWAP, SPACES, Cleveland, United States of America

2017    Fountainhead Residency, Miami

2017    Atelier Mondial, Basel, Switzerland

2016    IASPIS, Stockholm, Sweden

2011    Nirox Foundation, Johannesburg, South Africa

2011    Darat al Funun, Amman, Jordan

2010    USF, Bergen, Norway

2009    Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, France

2009    KIT – Kunst im Tunnel, Düsseldorf, Germany

2009    Visby International Composers’ Centre, Götland, Sweden

2008    MediaLab Prado, Madrid, Spain

2006    MALAB, Amazonas, Brazil

2004/5 CCA Kitakyushu, Yahata, Japan



prizes + grants


2016    IASPIS grant, Sweden

2013    Turquoise Harmony Institute Art Award, South Africa

2009    Art Moves Africa Travel Grant

2008    ABSA L’Atelier Award

2006    Nominated for the MTN New Contemporaries Award

2006    ABSA L’Atelier Top 5 finalist

2002    ABSA L’Atelier Top 5 finalist



selected public collections


The Art Institute of Chicago, United States of America

MAC VAL Musée d’Art Contemporain du Val-de-Marne, Paris, France

MAXXI Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo, Rome, Italy

FRAC Champagne Ardenne, Reims, France

Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

The Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

Wits Art Museum, Johannesburg, South Africa

The Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Art Museum, Port Elizabeth, South Africa

Kaiser Wilhelm Museum, Krefeld, Germany



selected private collections and foundations


Darat al Funun, Khalid Shoman Foundation

A4 Arts Foundation, South Africa

Jordan Vranken Pommery Monopole

Rennie Museum, Vancouver, Canada

The Life Collection, Johannesburg, South Africa

Nirox Foundation, Johannesburg, South Africa

Ellerman House, Cape Town, South Africa

Gordon Schachat Art Collection, Johannesburg, South Africa

UNISA Art Gallery & Collection, Pretoria, South Africa
—publications

2020 JAMES WEBB: . . . , blank projects, South Africa.

2015 JAMES WEBB: Xenagogue, Hordaland Kunstsenter, Norway. 


—selected press

2023 Moloi, N. Time is an exaggeration: ‘The Future Is Behind Us’ at A4. ArtThrob [online] (published 17 April 2023).

2023 Foley, H. At Mona Foma, I encountered death rituals, underwater soundscapes, worship – and transcendence. The Conversation [online] (published 23 February 2023).

2023 Proctor, RA. From darkness to everlasting light: all you need to know about the first Islamic Arts Biennale. Wallpaper Magazine (published January 2023).

2022 O’Toole, S. Listen to this Sekoto Painting - it is not silent. Mail and Guardian (published 14 October 2022).

2022 O’Toole, S. South African artists taking over Chicago, Bonteheuwel style. Mail and Guardian (published 6 May 2022).

2021 Mann, D. Nothing here does not hear you: Voices from the Monument. The Critter [online] (published 22 July 2021).

2021 Meighan, C. Exhibition uses arresting artworks to explore impact of pandemic. The National [online] (published 17 May 2021). 

2021 Mansfield, S. Art reviews: The Normal at Talbot Rice Gallery | Emma Talbot at DCA. The Scotsman [online] (published 14 May 2021). 

2020 Leibbrandt. T.  Ghost in the Hotel: On James Webb, Guy Tillim, and Liza Grobler. ArtThrob [online] (published 28 October 2020).

2020 Seals, J. The Other. James Webb’s Prayer & Janet Cardiff’s The Forty Part Motet. ARTPULSE [online] (accessed 12 May 2020).

2020 Kuijers, I. Sympathetic Magic: On James Webb and Donna Kukama. ArtThrob [online] (published 12 May 2020).

2020 Thurman, C. James Webb's What Fresh Hell is This: the art of interruption as shown up by reality in yet another long take. Business Day, South Africa (published 24 April 2020).

2019 Biles, J. Prayer (Chicago). Art Exhibition. By James Webb. The Art Institute of Chicago, 2018. Religious Studies Review.

2019 Scemama, P. kindness. La République {de l’art} [online] (published 11 September 2019).

2019 Stevens, N. The Inverted Funnel/ James Webb’s ‘Three Dreams of the Sinking World’. ArtThrob [online] (published 7 May 2019).

2019 Elizabeth, M. ‘James Webb’s ‘3 Dreams of a Sinking World – reflections on the Carlton Hotel’. Bubblegum Club [online] (published April 2019).

2018 ‘Prayer’ by James Webb at Art Institute of Chicago. BLOUIN INFO [online] (published 25 October 2018).

2017 Coussonet, C. The sound artist making a call for resilience. Apollo Magazine [online] (published 12 January 2017).

2016 Potts, D. James Webb: We Listen for the Future, Aesthetica, Issue 74 (published December 2016).

2016 Forrest, N. James Webb’s Sound Art Symphony at Yorkshire Sculpture Park. BLOUIN ARTINFO [online] (published 9 November 2016).

2016 Leibbrandt, T. Reverberating Sound of Things to Come: James Webb’s Ecstatic Interference’. ArtThrob [online] (published 1 March 2016).

2016 O’Toole, S. Bassdrum: Predictions from the heart of the sun. Sunday Times, South Africa (published 23 February 2016).

2016 O’Toole, S. Critics Picks: James Webb. Artforum (published February 2016).

2016 Minaar, M. Webb se konseptuele minimalisme tref. Die Burger, South Africa (published 18 February 2016)

2015 Buys, A (ed). Xenagogue. Hordaland Kunstsenter, Norway.

2014 Jauhianen, I. The Sound of James Webb. Another Africa [online] (published 14 November 2014).

2012 Bester, R. James Webb. Art South Africa, Vol 11.1 (published 7 September 2012).

2012 Buys, A. James Webb: MMXII, this is tomorrow [online] (published 6 September 2012).

2012 O’Toole, S. Young African Artists. Business Day Wanted magazine, South Africa (published September 2012).

2010 Voice in the Wilderness. Mail & Guardian, South Africa (published November 2010).

2010 O’Toole, S. Black Landscape: An Argument in Three Parts. Art South Africa, V9.1 (published September 2010).

2010 Simbao, R. One day, all of this will be yours. ArtThrob [online] (published March 2010).

2010 Minnaar, M. Artist of the imagination. The Argus, South Africa (published 20 February 2010).

2009 Davis, J. James Webb. 2009 Melbourne International Arts Festival – Visual Arts Program catalogue (published 2009).

2009 Karlsen, A.S. Hacking and Hiding, “A Proposal for Articulating Works And Places” 3rd Arts In Marrakech Biennale catalogue text (published 2009).

2007 O’Toole, S. A Sweet and Tender Hooligan, “The history of a decade that has not yet been named”, catalogue to the Lyon Biennale (published 2007).

2006 Hardy, S. That Subliminal Kid. Art South Africa, Vol 4.3 (published March 2006). 
James Webb, This is where I leave you (2020) | Installation view, blank projects, Cape Town James Webb, This is where I leave you (Madonna of the suffering. The origin of the universe) (2020) | Wrought-iron Madonna statue, vitrine, plinth, 156 x 30 x 30 cm James Webb, This is where I leave you (Mother of the lost; the one who hears the cries of the world) (2020) | Wrought-iron Madonna statue, vitrine, plinth, 156 x 30 x 30 cm James Webb, This is where I leave you (Mary of shipwrecks. Terms of surrender) (2020) | Wrought-iron Madonna statue, vitrine, plinth, 156 x 30 x 30 cm (detail) James Webb, This is where I leave you (Most humble, most perfect. Offering diamonds for food. A leather hat cooked) (2020) | Ceramic Buddha statue, vitrine, plinth, 150 x 50 x 50 cm James Webb, This is where I leave you (Most humble, most perfect. Offering diamonds for food. A leather hat cooked) (2020) | Ceramic Buddha statue, vitrine, plinth ; 150 x 50 x 50 cm James Webb, This is where I leave you (Radiant guide. Equanimity in the harsh storm) (2020) | Brass Buddha statue, vitrine, plinth, 161 x 46 x 64 cm James Webb, This is where I leave you (Radiant guide. Equanimity in the harsh storm) (2020) | Brass Buddha statue, vitrine, plinth ; 161 x 46 x 64 cm (detail) James Webb, This is where I leave you (Radiant guide. Equanimity in the harsh storm) (2020) | Brass Buddha statue, vitrine, plinth ; 161 x 46 x 64 cm (detail) James Webb, This is where I leave you (A map of the heavens; manmade, fallible. A tower of celestial Babel) (2020) | French bottle dryer, vitrine, plinth, 176 x 64 x 64 cm James Webb, This is where I leave you (Crown of fishes) (2020) | Coral, vitrine, plinth, 142 x 35 x 35 cm James Webb, This is where I leave you (Crown of fishes) (2020) | Coral, vitrine, plinth, 142 x 35 x 35 cm (detail) James Webb, This is where I leave you (Milarepa) (2020) | Found postcard, glass, frame, 53 x 37 x 13.5 cm James Webb, This is where I leave you (Milarepa) (2020) | Found postcard, glass, frame, 53 x 37 x 13.5 cm (detail) James Webb, A series of personal questions addressed to five litres of Nigerian crude oil (2020) | Crude oil, glass, speaker, audio, installation dimensions variable, plinth height 102 cm, duration 00:30:00 (detail) James Webb, A series of personal questions addressed to five litres of Nigerian crude oil (2020) | Crude oil, glass, speaker, audio, installation dimensions variable, plinth height 102 cm, duration 00:30:00 (detail) James Webb, A series of personal questions addressed to five litres of Nigerian crude oil (2020) | Crude oil, glass, speaker, audio, installation dimensions variable, plinth height 102 cm, duration 00:30:00 James Webb, There is a voice other than the one you are hearing (2020) | Brushed aluminium, 90 x 90 cm James Webb, The Skipping Needle (2020) | Astrological prediction, certificate, site-specific star charts, installation dimensions variable, duration 30:42:00 James Webb, The Skipping Needle (2020) | Astrological prediction, certificate, site-specific star charts, installation dimensions variable, duration 30:42:00





blank is pleased to present What Fresh Hell is This, a solo show by James Webb.

The exhibition, Webb’s fifth with the gallery, gathers his recent conceptual, visual and sonic works in a constellation exploring the relationships between frustration, disruption and belief.

Departing from many points, the exhibition may seed its concerns in the story of the Nossa Senhora Dos Milagros – a Portuguese sailing vessel, which, on the 27th April 1686, was shipwrecked close to Struisbaai en route from Goa to Lisbon. Bound for the Portuguese court of King Dom Pedro II, the ship contained treasure in coins, artefacts and precious gems for various European courts. Amongst her passengers were three French Catholic priests sent to study the astronomy of South East Asia, as well as a group of Siamese Buddhist monks, travelling with an ambassador of King Narai the Great, the 27th monarch of the Ayutthaya Kingdom. Eight crew members drowned in the shipwreck, and the surviving guests and crew members made it ashore – starting a perilous and uncertain journey by foot to the VOC settlement in the Cape. This strange tale marks a bizarre injection into religious landscape of the early colonial Cape,  including the first recorded arrival of Buddhism in South Africa.

What Fresh Hell Is This engages the Milagros as a case study, considering belief not only as a religious instrument, but also as a transitory historical, political and sociological technology used in the construction of societies and individuals. This exhibition questions what happens when these belief overlap, unfurl or fray.

Webb teases our customary modes of learning: known objects, methods and mythologies are placed under interrogation and moved into new environments, keenly awaiting what perspectives may be revealed. If asked, what may oil divulge about the Earth’s psyche? How do internal monologues interfere when externalised? Strange and unsteady links may be drawn in this new setting. The politics of the extractive industries are echoed between the treasure sunk off the South African coast, and the crude oil pulled from deep below the Niger Delta. A handless clock becomes a spiritual symbol, while an astrological chart functions as a timepiece. Webb’s approach suggests fluidity, transitory configuration and multiplicity. History becomes a palimpsest upon which new inquiries and provocations are superimposed on older narratives.

If belief functions as a cognitive bias that encourages reliance on familiar tools of meaning making, then Webb throws this familiarity into disarray. Here, a new, fresh hell is polyphyletic, uncertain and curious; questioning its own proclamations, interrupting its own statements, and anticipating the arrival of new perceptions.
James Webb, Ecstatic Interference (2016) | Installation view at blank projects, Cape Town James Webb, Untitled (with the sound of its own making) (2016) | Solar-powered, multi-channel loudspeaker system broadcasting recordings of hands beating on doors ; 3 x 5 x 1 m, duration 00:18:13 // Edition of 2 + 1 AP James Webb, Untitled (with the sound of its own making) (2016) | Solar-powered, multi-channel loudspeaker system broadcasting recordings of hands beating on doors ; 3 x 5 x 1 m, duration 00:18:13 // Edition of 2 + 1 AP James Webb, Ecstatic Interference (2016) | Installation view at blank projects, Cape Town James Webb, All that is unknown (2016) | Audio recordings of two hearts beating, installed in two speakers separated by the length of a room ; 21 cm (speaker diameter), duration infinite // Edition of 3 + 1 AP James Webb, All that is unknown (2016) | Audio recordings of two hearts beating, installed in two speakers separated by the length of a room ; 21 cm (speaker diameter), duration infinite // Edition of 3 + 1 AP James Webb, Threnody (2016) | The isolated vocal track of Helter Skelter (The Beatles, 1968) was reversed and given to the vocalist Zami Mdingi to sing as such, and broadcast from a circular, hyper-directional speaker visually echoing Kazimir Malevich’s Black Circle (1915) ; 100 cm (diameter), duration 00:02:59 //. Edition of 3 + 1 AP James Webb, Scream (2008) | Signed certificate, CD player, speakers, assorted wires and audio ; dimensions variable; duration 00:00:30 James Webb, Threnody (2016) | Circular, hyper-directional speaker ; 100 cm (diameter) (detail)

Ecstatic Interference, James Webb’s latest solo exhibition at blank projects conjures a syzygy of unspoken inter-relational dynamics, somatic energy, and psychological undercurrents. The exhibition will feature 3 new sound installations: a multi-channel, monolithic speaker stack, a stereo array, and a single-channel Holosonic audio beam. The show is composed together to create a dynamic body of aural and minimalist, monochrome physical forms.

Three new sound installations are presented in this exhibition: Untitled (with the sound of its own making), a solar-powered, multi-channel loudspeaker system broadcasting recordings of hands beating on doors; All that is unknown, featuring audio recordings of two hearts beating, installed in two speakers separated by the length of a room; and Threnody, where the isolated vocal track of Helter Skelter (The Beatles, 1968) was reversed and given to the vocalist Zami Mdingi to sing as such, and broadcast from a circular, hyper-directional speaker visually echoing Kazimir Malevich’s Black Circle (1915).

The exhibition title, Ecstatic Interference, a double reading on the term for radio noise (static interference), is here reimagined as a form of transcendental intervention and joyous interruption. Visually, the works are monochromatic circular and square speaker boxes: minimalist shapes in a white cube. Aurally, the exhibition has been staged around the dynamics of rhythm and transmission, as well as the subliminal image of a body through the aural presence of the hand, heart and mouth.

Writing on Webb’s practice, the artist and theorist Brandon LaBelle, says, “the works of James Webb circulate around a complex mixture of emotional and affective states; of longing and despair, of the ecstatic and of hopefulness, states of bodies and minds that move throughout his practice to raise questions of individuality and community, belonging and displacement, fragmentation and recuperation. Webb consistently and methodically captures a multitude of figures and forms – bodies, and especially voices of contemporary existence at their most tenuous. Yet what he reveals, through acts of recording and of transmitting, is how such tenuousness is often so profound.” (LaBelle, 2015)1

In Untitled (with the sound of its own making), Webb worked with various drummers who used their hands to activate doors as a sonic material, conceptually evoking images of access, escape, and agency. The audio is housed in a monolithic loudspeaker stack made up of 15 black cubes, and is solar-powered, allowing the artwork to be independent from the municipal grid, and run constantly. The title alludes to Robert Morris’s seminal Box with the Sound of its own Making (1961), and is here reconsidered as an undefined state with the sound of its own becoming. Participating drummers include Adrian Langeveld (The Summer Underground), Barry van Zyl (Johnny Clegg band), Bronwen Clacherty (Tholakele Project), Caitlin Mkhasibe (Morning Pages), Jason Jardim (Wildernessking), Ross Campbell (Benguela, Urban Creep), Thokozani Mhlambi, and William Mosima (Sonic Mmabolela). The speaker box was designed and constructed by Brett Netherton, and the solar power was generously sponsored by PVI Solar.

In All that is unknown, a stereo array of speakers pulse with recordings of two human heartbeats; one per speaker. The naked speaker cones are placed apart, facing each other through a doorway, with a distance of 10m between them. Referencing signs of life, the pair pulse incessantly at the threshold of audibility within the cacophony of the accompanying works on the exhibition, their rhythms phasing in and out with each other like a hushed call and response, only accessible to the audience by touching the speakers to register the vibrations therein.

In Threnody, Paul McCartney’s vocal take for the proto-heavy metal song, Helter Skelter (The Beatles, 1968) was isolated and then reversed so as to create a backwards speech adrift from its musical accompaniment. This sonic artefact was scrutinised and used as the guide track for the vocalist Zami Mdingi to sing. Webb worked with Mdingi, and ethnomusicologist, Cara Stacey, to transcribe the inverted phonetics, melodies and lyrics – occasionally reimagining the new words in an isiXhosa framework for Mdingi to best articulate. The result revealed itself as a glossolalic lamentation, quite different from the tumultuous confusion suggested in the original song and its associations to Charles Manson. The artwork is broadcast from a hyper-directional speaker visually echoing Kazimir Malevich’s Black Circle (1915), and projecting the sound out like a beam into the space.

1LaBelle, B. 2015. The Precarious Body, Xenagogue, Hordaland Kunstsenter, Norway.



—

Click to listen to extracts of the audio on SoundCloud (headphones recommended):

Untitled (with the sound of its own making)

All that is unknown

Threnody
James Webb, Untitled (Al Madat) (2014) | Carpets, tripods, speakers, audio, dimensions variable, 00:15:56 | Installation view, blank projects, Cape Town | link to audio James Webb, Children of the Revolution (2014) | Wood, steel, speakers, audio, dimensions variable, 00:02:46 | Installation view, blank projects, Cape Town | link to audio James Webb, There is a light that never goes out (2014) | Neon, 45 x 420 cm | Installation view, blank projects, Cape Town



The Two Insomnias, James Webb’s latest solo exhibition of new work, invokes themes of addiction, revolution and romance. Webb will show three works; Untitled (Al Madat), a recording of a Sufi dhikr by patients at the Sultan Bahu Rehab Centre in Mitchell’s Plain; Children of the Revolution, Webb’s re-working of the T.Rex glam rock anthem of the same name into an isiXhosa protest song, which was commissioned for the 2013 Venice Biennale; and There Is A Light That Never Goes Out, a Chinese neon text piece. As is typical of Webb’s practice, these works sample, reframe and repurpose language and cultural capital, often concealing the ‘spirit’ of one culture inside the body of another. The Two Insomnias, which takes its title from the poet Rumi, seeks to untangle the relationships between nationalism, the individual, and the headiness of belonging.

In Children of the Revolution, the meaning and power of the original lyrics are transformed and amplified by the legacy of political protest, revolution and trauma in South Africa. Through the voices of a different time and place, and a rearranged score by composer and choir leader Bongani Magatyana, the T.Rex song is counter-colonised, plucked from its sparkling Glam Rock origins and used as a rallying cry into the past, present and future of this country. The piece is broadcast from 9 custom-made speaker cabinets visually echoing the Intonarumori noise generating machines of the Italian Futurist Luigi Russolo. Russolo designed the Intonarumori as an instrument that would reflect the aural progress of a new era. In “The Art of Noise” manifesto, he wrote about sound in the context of the Industrial Revolution, and the emergent ‘noise aesthetics’ of the time. This document was published in the same year the 1913 Land Act was passed in South Africa, and the artwork allows the early Modernist radical politics of change and revolution to speak to the socio-political unrest of South Africa then and now.

The recorded chants of recovering drug addicts from the Sultan Bahu Rehab Centre in Untitled (Al Madat) provide a different perspective on the idea of the chorus. Their voices are joined in a shared experience of sublimation and community healing, as they use the dhikr to move through a space of intoxication into one of transcendence. Dhikr (literally, “remembrance”) is a traditional Islamic recitation, where the names of God are chanted with special breathing techniques, often with trance-like effects, brought to the Cape by the Malay Slaves from the 1600s. This ritual is used by the Rehabilitation Centre as an augmentation to the curative process. “Al Madat,” the specific dhikr used for this installation, translates as “help,” and is here used to implore the Prophet for assistance. This work draws on the history of Malay slaves in the Cape, and the modern day struggle with drug abuse, illness and gang violence in the Cape Flats and Mitchell’s Plain.

Alternating between local and globalized forms of community and nationhood, There is a Light That Never Goes Out brings to bear the figure of China as a looming industrial giant, as well as expressing a lived experience of Chinese influence in terms of its role in the economy and imagination of the West. This work plays out a dual sense of Romance and Fear associated with Chinese cultural and commercial expansion, while continuing to develop the ideas of nationalism, translation, and ‘pop’ sampling found elsewhere on the show.