Willie Bester

Willie Bester (born February 29, 1956) is a South African painter, sculptor and collage artist. He is best known for his role in the protesting of the apartheid system through his artwork. He currently lives in Kuilsrivier, South Africa with his wife, Evelyn and their three children.

Life of Willie Bester. Bester was born in Montagu, Western Cape, a town located in the Western Cape province of South Africa about 180 km east from Cape Town. His father was Xhosa and his mother was classified Coloured under the apartheid system. He was born before they were married and was therefore categorized as Coloured, taking his mother's name.

During childhood, Bester showed a natural talent for art. He was known to create and sell toy cars and animals from wire, creating headlights from candles and discarded tin cans. He won an interschool art competition after encouragement from a school teacher who recognized his interest in painting. However, with his parents categorized as a mixed-race relationship, Bester faced many challenges growing up. They were denied housing in “Coloured” neighborhoods of Montagu, while the only lodging for Black workers were single-sex hostels. In order to live together as a family within the township, they often lived in other people's backyards. Work Bester works in a variety of mediums, such as paint, photography especially in works depicting individuals. In his work Tribute to Chris Hani, Bester responds to the assassination of Chris Hani, then-president of the South African Communist Party in 1993, who played a large role in the anti-apartheid movement. In these works, he not only brings attention to the accomplishments of the individual, but also the unjust actions of the National Party. He has also used his works to express his own personal reactions to these events—in the case of Tribute to Chris Hani, he expresses his anger at the violence through the burnt state of wood in the center of the piece.

Bester also is conscious of the materials and their placement in his pieces. Often, his collection of found objects are discarded refuse from townships, which are then assembled to represent life and settings within townships. In his work Migrant Laborer’ he uses the life Semezaki, a retired migrant worker in the township of Crossroads, to show the life experiences of all migrant laborers under apartheid. The bed coils in front of a figure double as a jail cell, highlighting how Semezaki, like many others, were often apart from their families, supporting them with jobs they find in townships. Within this same piece, he also includes the image of a bible physically connected with a replication of Semezaki's passbook, to highlight the irony of the National Party's claims of being run on Christian principles. He revisits this in his work Die Bybel. Migrant workers like Semezaki were required to carry their passbook in order to work in a township until the Pass laws were repealed in 1986. Even after they were repealed, Semezaki continued to carry his passbook until he was killed by gangsters, one month after the completion of ‘’Migrant Laborer’’ in 1993.

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions (selection)

1982 Forum, Cavendish Square, Cape Town. 1991 Gallery International, Cape Town 1992 Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg 1993 South African Association of Art, Cape Town 1994 Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg 1998 Emporain, Dakar 1999 Opere Recenti, Studio d'Arte Raffaelli, Trento, Italy 1999 Archivio Della Scuola Romana, Introdotto da Achille Bonito Oliva, Roma, Italy 2000 Arte Assortite, Torino 2001 Centre D'Art Contemporain, Brussels, Belgium 2002 SASOL Museum, Stellenbosch 2003 Association for Visual Arts, Cape Town 2005 34 LONG, Cape Town 2007 Montagu Museum 2008 Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town 2009 Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg

Group exhibitions (selection)

1989 Baxter Gallery, Cape Town 1990 Gallery International, Cape Town 1991 Operation Hunger Exhibition, Cape Town 1991–92 ZABALAZA FESTIVAL, Museum of Modern Art, Oxford 1992 Primart Gallery, Cape Town 1993 Venice Biennale, INCROCI DEL SUD: An exhibition of works by 27 contemporary South African Artists 1993–94 INCROCI DEL SUD, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam 1994 UN ART CONTEMPORIAN D'AFRIQUE DU SUD, Galerie De L'Esplanade, La Defence, Paris 1995 DIALOGUES OF PEACE, Exhibition for the UN's 50th Anniversary, Palaise Des Nations, Geneva 1996 Basel Art Fair, Basel, Switzerland 1996 Contemporary Art from South Africa, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin 1997 Galleria d'Art Moderna e Contemporanea di San Marino, San Marino 1998 Biennale de l'Art Contemporian, Dakar, Senegal 1999 Claiming Art Reclaiming Space, National Museum of African Art, Washington DC. 2000 Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, New York 2001 Barcelona Contemporary Cultural Center, Spain 2002 Passport to South Africa, Centro Culturale "Trevi", Bolzano, Italy 2003 Suidoos Festival, Peninsula Technikon 'Coexistence- Contemporary Cultural Production in South African' Rose Art Museum, USA 2004 Africa Remix - Düsseldorf, Museum Kunst Palast: 24 July–7 November 2004 2005 London, Hayward Gallery 2006 Tokyo, Mori Art Museum 2007 Rocca di Castagnoli, Biennale Internazionale d'Art, Italy 2009 34 LONG FINE ART, Cape Town

Literature

House, Gloria, Alison Kenzie.und Art Gallery of Windsor. Willie Bester: apartheid laboratory : Art Gallery of Windsor, February 24-June 17, 2007. Art Gallery of Windsor, 2008. Lee, Donvé. Willie Bester: Art as a Weapon. Awareness Publishing, 2008...