gaelen pinnock

“Right of Admission Reserved” formed part of an exhibition called “The Main Complaint” at the Zeitz MOCAA. The installation created a physical barrier at the entrance of the exhibition space. The work was an attempt to distil the sense of exclusion that so many South Africans feel while navigating securitised landscapes. It transformed the uneasy, disquieting sense imparted by less overt expressions of power, control or authoritarianism in the built environment, into something physical and explicit…. in a space where the leisured classes are accustomed to ease of access.

Museum-goers who wanted access to the exhibiton area had to press a button that rang a bell to request access. There was an automated delay with the sounds of someone fumbling with an intercom system. After this the gate lock opened and people could enter. All the while there was audio playing of sounds typical of Cape Town suburbs: barking dogs, passing cars, alarms and the sounds of labour: gardeners digging and builders hammering.

This installation forms part of an ongoing series that carries the same name. Like many cities of the south, Cape Town is experiencing a widening rift between rich and poor. This maw has its origins in the economic, legislative and spatial planning policies of three accumulating power forms, colonialism, segregation and apartheid. Although progress has been made to build a more inclusive country, the divisive tendencies of our social, economic and physical landscape are still racially entrenched.

Furthermore, what was meant to be a silver bullet, neoliberalist economic policy, has exacerbated the problem. If you look at Cape Town today in terms of wealth and access to resources, not much has changed since the height of apartheid in the 1980’s… except now it is considered misfortune rather than human rights abuse.

At the forefront of this is urban development. The proliferation of coffee shops, shopping precincts, “creative hubs,” hotels and residential towers is considerable. The “world class” urban living afforded to wealthy citizens is created through the usurping of public space by private means. Public land is sold to private developers. Parks are fenced off. Public space is surveyed and policed. Streets are monitored by civilian patrol groups. Public schools are replaced with private ones. Affordable cafés are replaced with trendy bars. Spaces under bridges are turned into skate parks. What remains is pseudo public spaces in which one’s right of admission is reserved. If you don’t have money to participate, you are not welcome. In fact, you may be forcibly removed by private security.

In pseudo public spaces, one’s right of admission is reserved.

What we are really seeing here is the exertion of power by the wealthy over the poor, ipso facto white minority capital over the black and coloured poor. In this project I have been making sculptures out of some of the components of this division, either the divisive elements themselves: walls, gates, spikes, electric fences and security bars, or the things that built this landscape: construction material, cement, reinforcing bar, formwork and scaffolding. I want the sculptures to impart some of the hostility that their components once accomplished.

*   *   *

“Right of Admission Reserved” was on display at the Zeitz MOCAA (Museum of Contemporary African Art) from November 2018 to February 2019.