KURT CAMPBELL – FEVER SLEEP

This exhibition is titled “Fever-Sleep” and consists of a set of limited edition prints which feature the traditional African headrest as its starting point. Traditionally, headrests are believed to provide individuals who sleep on them with a bridge to the “dream world” of spirits and tribal ancestors.
As indigenous African tribes came into contact with European settlers through the process of colonisation, headrests and other artifacts came to reflect and integrate foreign colonial influence and materials. These materials usually consisted of buttons, beads, nails, bullets and other mundane objects.
Campbell has incorporated these, and other novel materials in his work, culminating in a series of modern headrest sculptures.
These headrests are unique in that they do not offer the usual smooth, inviting surface on which to rest the head – he has created quite the opposite: headrests which offer the user an uncomfortable slumber; a “fever sleep”.
These fever sleep headrests may be interpreted as a statement concerning the uneasy historical legacy that exists between the coloniser and the colonised.
Campbell has produced limited edition prints of the various sculptures he has created, as the final stage in his artistic process.
This exhibition promises to be a thought-provoking experience that will stimulate and educate those who attend.
Campbell lectures in Fine Art at the U.C.T. Michaelis School of Fine Art in Cape Town.

Worldart Cape Town opening: 6pm, 2 May 2007.

Worldart Jonannesburg opening: 7pm, 31 May 2007.