Notes

Gary Brewer in conversation with Simphiwe Ndzube in his studio in Los Angeles: ‘As we spoke, I mentioned Beckett’s ‘Waiting for Godot’, saying that the space the figures inhabited with the cast-off refuse of the pedestrian world, and the strange barren light, felt like a stage set for Beckett. Simphiwe smiled and said, ‘The title of this series is ‘Waiting for Mlungu’, or ‘Mungu’, a reference to the god of creation and bureaucracy, one who is remote and detached from man and living beings, in the beliefs of the Yao people of Mozambique and the Bantu people of Sub Saharan Africa. The word Mlungu was later altered to refer to white people as the dominant ruling class, and now it is used on the street among black south Africans to mean that you are doing well financially, that you are making some money.’¹

1. Gary Brewer (2017) Art and Cake: A Contemporary Art Magazine with a Focus on the LosAngeles Art Scene, ‘Studio Visit: Simphiwe Ndzube, A Journey Through the Theater of theAbsurd’, 11 August, https://artandcakela.com/2017/08/11/studio-visit-simphiwe-nzdube-ajourney-through-the-theater-of-the-absurd/

Exhibited

WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town, Everyday Anomaly, 9 September to 21 October 2017.