Art Formes is proud to present Sanctity, a joint exhibition exploring spirituality and clay through the woks of South African ceramic artist Sbonelo Luthuli and photographer Paul Weinberg.
Spirituality is a primordial facet of the human condition — a dig towards some ancient imperative to make meaning from the world. Our exploration of spirituality ultimately leads to an exploration of the land, home to the remnants of life itself. In this exhibition, this interconnectedness finds form in the work of ceramic master Sbonelo Luthuli, and is archived through the lens of photographer Paul Weinberg.
Clay — the flesh of the earth — is a sacred material within Zulu culture. Similarly, ancestral connections are paramount to their way of life. Traditional clay vessels become the bridge between the physical and spiritual world: through form, motif and the blackened smoke-soaked surface, these vessels communicate with the spiritual realm — inviting the ancestors to visit and to guide. Descending from a line of traditional ceramic practitioners in the Eastern Cape, Luthuli channels this connection to his ancestors into his work. This is not art for art’s sake — his practice is one of ritual, representing an interconnectedness between the clay and his spirituality.
Weinberg’s photographs reveal that this connection between spirituality and the land, in one way or another, extends across all cultures and faiths. Extracted from two bodies of work, Moving Spirit (1996 – 2006) and EarthSongs (2019 – 2021) Weinberg’s work portrays religious rituals and spiritual practices around South Africa, and celebrates how people of all persuasions, faiths and spiritual engagements partake in rituals, both formal and informal, that mark the land.
“Paul Weinberg’s photographs are a reflection of our human desire for sanctuary. When the eye meets the stillness of a river estuary, or the isolation of a San rock painting, or the pantheon of deities decorating a Hindu temple, it is not ‘God’ that comes to mind but the image of the believer, the faithful, the acolyte who comes to this place to seek the soothing balm of absolution.” — Prof. Hlonipha Mokoena
Paul Weinberg
Paul Weinberg (b. 1956) is a South African photographer, filmmaker, writer, curator, educationist and archivist. Weinberg studied photography at Natal Technikon and has a masters degree from Duke University. He began his professional career by working for South African NGOs, and photographing current events for news agencies and foreign countries. He was a founder member of Afrapix and South, the collective photo agencies that gained local and international recognition for their uncompromising role in documenting apartheid, and popular resistance to it. From 1990 onwards, Weinberg increasingly concentrated on feature over news photography, with his images being widely exhibited and published, both locally and abroad.
Sbonelo Luthuli
“One cannot create without any guidance or past reference because what occurred then shapes and informs what becomes of our work in the future,” says ceramic artist Sbonelo Luthuli, whose full name is Sbonelo iHubo leNgebadi Luthuli-Njiyela. Both his name and work speak to the complexity of identity in South Africa, a country charged with intricate questions around cultural lineage and tradition. Luthuli was born in the Eastern Cape and grew up in and around Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, where he graduated with a National Diploma in Fine Arts from the Durban University of Technology in 2011. His work is a testament to his indigenous and spiritual heritage, descending from a line of traditional ceramic practitioners in the Eastern Cape. Luthuli’s work does not conform to a notion of art for art’s sake, nor is it restrained by the principle of form follows function. His work is conceptual in its Bantu aesthetic, principles, and ideologies, and pays tribute to the ancient cosmological significance of vessel-making within the complex histories of South Africa. Luthuli’s works can be found in numerous collections such as the Durban Art Gallery, the William Humphreys Art Gallery and the Iziko Museums of South Africa.
