New York City’s Pier 94 plays host to a gang of beach loving bulls from South Africa on 24 April when internationally acclaimed shooter, Christopher Rimmer, unveils his latest project entitled ‘Amapondo’ at New York’s prestigious Art Expo in Midtown Manhattan.
Photographed throughout 2013 in an area on South Africa’s east coast known as Pondoland, the series features giant sized portraits of the local cattle who love to visit the beach every day to cool off during the heat of the afternoon.
In most photographs, the subject makes direct eye contact with the viewer, challenging their preconceptions and suggesting an emotional dimension that we, as the audience, may have chosen to ignore.
The protagonist in Christopher Rimmer’s Amapondo series is a living creature whose flesh we eat, whose skin we wear and whose bones we boil down to make glue and yet, here is the same animal perhaps experiencing a certain joy at its own existence.
Amapondo opens Art Expo New York Pier 94, 711 12th Avenue, Manhattan, New York on 24 April at 10am.
More info: www.christopherrimmer.com
Amapondo # 6
Wildcoast Cattle arrive at Mpandi beach on South Africa’s beautiful east coast– The Nguni cattle herds of the Xhosa people are more than just a source of labour and food, they are inextricably interwoven into the very essence of what it means to be Xhosa.
Amapondo # 7
Traditionally, Xhosa cattle are kept in a central corral at night which is a circular palisade of Acacia thorn tree known as a ‘kraal’ around which are located the thatch beehive huts of the family. The way the Xhosa practice of cattle husbandry is subject to elaborate and complex social ritual.
Amapondo # 2
Reflections – the Xhosa and their forebears have a symbiotic relationship with their cattle which stretches back into the mists of time. Strong anecdotal evidence suggests this includes the ability to read each other’s facial expressions.
Amapondo # 9
Heifing fun – Nguni cattle behave in a more animated fashion when they are on the beach. It is almost as though the salt air brings them a sense of joy at being alive
Amapondo # 11
A complex vocabulary has evolved among the Xhosa people as a means of expressing their feelings, both about the social status their cattle infer, but also to articulate their aesthetic appreciation of the grace and beauty they see in their animals.
Amapondo # 20
The Xhosa language contains a large number of onomatopoeic words employed to describe the Wildcoast’s highly variant weather patterns.
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