Wolf Weinek - Walter Saunders - Wopko Jensma - opening at Gallery Y -
image© taken from the website : http://www.art-archives-southafrica.ch/JENSMA.htm
SPANNER IN THE WHAT?WORKS
i was born 26 July 1939 in ventersdorp
i found myself in a situation
i was born 26 July 1939 in sophiatown
i found myself in a situation
i was born 26 July 1939 in district six
i found myself in a situation
i was born 26 July 1939 in welkom
i found myself in a situation
now, when my mind started to ticki noticed other humans like me
shaped like me: ears eyes
hair legs arms etc ... (i checked)
we all cast in the same shackles:
flesh mind feeling smell sight etc...
date today is 5 april 1975 i live
at 23 mountain drive derdepooirt
phone number: 821-646, post box 26285
i still find myself in a situation
i possess a typewriter and paper
i possess tools to profess i am artist
i possess books, clothes to dress
my flesh; my fingerprint of identity
i do not possess this land, a car
much cash or other valuables
I brought three kids into this world
(as far as i know) . .
i prefer a private to a public life
(i feel allowed to say)
i suffer from schizophrenia
(they tell me)
i'll die, i suppose, of lung cancer
(if i read the ads correctly) '
i hope to live to the age of sixty
i hope to leave some evidence
that i inhabited this world
that i sensed my situation
that i created something
out of my situation
out of my life
that i lived
as 'human
alive
i
i died 26 July 1999 on the costa do sol
i found myself in a situation
i died 26 July 1999 in the grasslands
i found myself in a situation
i died 26 July 1999 in the kgalagadi
i found myself in a situation
i died 26 July 1999 in an argument
i found myself in a situation
Wopko Jensma,born on 26 July 1939 was a South African poet and artist.
As a privileged,white artist, he spoke openly about the injustices that were experienced by Black people during apartheid. His poems Once and Now, speaks about racism experienced by young girls working as domestic workers. Written around the 1970s, these poems could also be read as an extension of his personal experiences with the South African government. He had a mixed racial marriage that was not allowed or even recognized by the South African laws. But, Once and Now, is not the only poem in which Jensma displays his distaste of apartheid laws, in Where White is the colour/Where Black is the number, critically looks at the meaning of being Whiter and Black in South Africa. Written in 1977, this poem was banned. He often makes use of multiple languages in his poems to empahsise his points.
Later in life, Jensma was diagnosed as a schizophrenic, which incapacitated his artistic skills and may have led to his becoming a vagrant. He was last seen at a shelter, the Salvation Army Men's Home, in August of 1993 before disappearing without a trace.
Prior to this he had been a family man married to an African, Lydia, with whom he had two children, a son and a daughter.
Poems
1973 Sing for our Execution
1970 Ophir 12
1975 Snarl 1
1977 I must show you my clippings
1977 Where White is the colour/Where Black is the number (banned)
Exhibitions
1968 New York USA
1970 UNISA (Sik-Screen Exhibition)
1971 DAM (Art SA)
1972 Wail for the Beast
1979 SANG (SA Printmakers)
Content for this posting has been taken from the following 2 sites :
http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/wopko-jensma
http://www.art-archives-southafrica.ch/JENSMA.htm
