Paper short abstract:

Mofokeng, Boshoff, Munyai, three prophets or diviners, have accepted that the artistic form of expression permits to translate their inventiveness. Their essential approach to representation seems to be conducted in a mode of “remembering something that we did not yet know”.

Paper long abstract:

Any interlocutor of these three artists will comment on the vast imagination emanating in any words they will utter. Munyai will transform these imaginings into images captured in the form of enigmatic wooden sculptures, submitting himself to an intense struggle with the material before it will release tangible form. Willem Boshoff has developed the fiction of "Gardens of Words". By remembering the names of extinguished plants, or words gone out of usage, he is able to prolong their lives. As long as they exist in his memory, they have not ceased to exist. The memory is the pivotal position where probing tools extending far into the past can be turned towards the future and be projected beyond that which is as yet visible. Santu Mofokeng has developed the idea of "Blind Photography", while seeing everything in perfect photographic clearness we do not see the essential, which is provided by our memory.

These three approaches speak of a gaze turned inward, a mental space generating newness, a powerhouse for the future, nourished by past experience, extending towards the generations that have gone before us. The philosophy of memory of Henri Bergson has inspired several artists of the twentieth century, it has never been tested for its potential in the understanding of artists working from Africa. The idea of prophetic memory as the essential characteristic of artistic invention was elaborated by Jean-Philippe Antoine who insists that the only approach to this concept is through "individuation". Any idea holds good for one artist at a time.