MATTHEW KROUSE

Adam Broomberg at kunsthallo

13 April - 7 May 2021

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PRESS RELEASE

'I was sixteen when I met Matthew. He put his tongue in my ear.'

Adam is telling me about Matthew Krouse: the South African writer, artist, performer and LGBTQI activist. They met in The Dungeon, a gay club in downtown Johannesburg. He was the most censored man in apartheid South Africa. Infamous, Adam says. For all the right reasons.

Matthew began making performances in an old apartment in Johannesburg. In 1984 he became notorious for a play about the architect of apartheid, Hendrik Verwoerd. Following a widely-publicised trial, the play was banned. Subsequent works were equally scandalous, repeatedly censored by the authorities, leading to his detainment.

In the late 1980's he wrote and co-directed two politically-scandalous films: 'De Voortrekkers' and 'The Soldier'. Both launched a fierce attack on apartheid ideology, vandalising the narrative of the Great Trek - its founding myth. In one film, Krouse staged a gay porn scene in the Voortrekker Monument, the sacred heart of Afrikaans Nationalist identity.

In 1990, Matthew joined the Congress of South African Writers at the invitation of the Nobel prize winner Nadine Gordimer. In 1992 he edited 'The Invisible Ghetto', the first LGBTQI anthology from the African continent. From 1998 until 2014 he was the arts editor of the South African Mail & Guardian newspaper.

When I invited Adam to exhibit at Kunsthallo, he left me a long voicemail. He was telling me about a radical artist whose work had been forgotten by a fickle art world. I'm thrilled that Adam has exhumed and ordered Matthew's archive, and that we can present it on this small platform. The first of many shows, I hope.

Two years after Matthew's tongue met Adam's ear, they met again. Borrowing a VHS camera, the anxious student went to interview the legendary filmmaker. Half-way through the interview, Adam realized his subject had nodded off. He left with a 60 minute tape of Matthew Krouse, fast asleep.

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Adam Broomberg (b.1970 South Africa) is a contemporary artist, activist and educator living and working in Berlin. He is a professor of photography at the Hochschule für bildende Künste (HFBK) in Hamburg. For two decades, he was one half of the critically acclaimed artist duo Broomberg & Chanarin. His work is held in major public and private collections including the Museum of Modern Art, Tate Modern, Centre Pompidou and others.

@adambroomberg / www.artistsandallies.art

Kunsthallo is a project space in London curated by artist Jeremy Hutchison. The programme explores the reception and display of art in the post-Covid, post-truth era. Generously supported by a circle of collectors, each monthly exhibition is accompanied by a discussion series. For all inquiries ingrid@kunsthallo.com

@kunsthallo / www.kunsthallo.com

@jeremyhutchison / www.jeremyhutchison.com

“We sneaked a camera into the Voortrekker Monument, the apartheid holy of holies, and began filming there while someone kept a monument guide occupied with a barrage of questions. The rape scene happens metaphorically on the tomb of the unknown soldier, and so the film had to be sneaked out the country to avoid arrest or death. Ironically the lab that processed the film in London burnt down. So all we are left with is a series of rushes on an old VHS cassette.”

Read the Interview of Matthew Krouse by Mark Gevisser

“We are different. I am a dirty queer, I’m not sure there is space for my type in the history of the struggle.”