Object BiographyHART 4018/7024

Megan Kidd

Student Number: 329449

Isiaiah“Good Morning Gentlemen Give me a CUT”

Mixed Media on Metal49 x 60cm

Signed: “Isiaiah” (Lower/Right)

Acquired: 16/11/1993 by Peter Schütz from a barbershop in MaiMai Market, Johannesburg.

Exhibited: 17/6/1998 – 25/7/1998 in 100 Contemporary Works from theStandard Bank African Art Collection, Standard Bank Gallery.

(Photo image by Megan Kidd)

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Introduction

The object biography approach is a theoretical framework that

allows one to create a research question out of an object. By

maintaining one’s focus on an object throughout the research

of its life, one is encouraged to peer at it through different

lenses and to expand on social, economic and political

discourses that have had an impact on the course of the

object’s existence. Although the findings and insights

reflected on in this paper are ongoing, this is an object

biography in its most finished form at present. Elizabeth

Mansfield likens art history to detective work in a way that

resonates with the object biography approach:

Investigation is provoked by a work of art. Like the crime

story victim, the work of art mutely offers itself as testimony

to a hidden motive. The site of the artwork’s discovery –

whether an artist’s studio, a collector’s cabinet, a museum’s

galleries, or a dealer’s vault – may offer information about

the work’s production or reception (2002: 21).

The investigative aspect of this theoretical framework is what

makes it rewarding, frustrating, and always interesting.

The object discussed in this paper is a re-purposed piece

of metal that once existed as a Pepsi-Cola advertisement. The

metal sheet, at an unverified point in its life, had a crude

wooden frame nailed onto it by an anonymous framer. An artist

named Isiaiah then used this framed piece of metal as a

support for his painting titled “Good Morning Gentlemen Give

me a CUT”. Isiaiah painted what appears to be a still-life

and/or an advertisement for a barbershop. The artist depicted

several everyday objects in his composition and pasted a paper

cut-out onto the surface of the metal sheet that features a

popular motif included in African barbershop signs. According

to the Wits Art Museum database, the object was collected by

Peter Schütz on the 16th November 1993 from a barbershop in the

Mai Mai Market in Johannesburg and was subsequently added to

the Wits Art Museum Collection. The object was exhibited from

the 17th June 1998 to 25th July 1998 in the exhibition titled

100 Contemporary Works from the Standard Bank African Art Collection at the

Standard Bank Gallery in Johannesburg. These are the only

confirmed facts that are currently available on this object’s

biography, but they are facts that lead to a wealth of

fascinating ideas, understandings and insights.

Isiaiah’s artwork has been cautiously placed in the

category of barbershop signs, but the object biography to

follow illustrates that the only category comfortably suited

to this object is that of re-purposed objects. Due to the

layered nature of the information that has come to light

during the research of this object, the structure of the paper

shall follow that of a palimpsest. A palimpsest is a

manuscript or writing surface from which the original text has

been erased or partially removed so that it can be used again

(Dillon 2007: 332). The strata of the object are examined in

this paper from the deepest layer to the most superficial: the

Pepsi-Cola surface, the frame mounted onto the Pepsi-Cola

surface, the painting by Isiaiah, the paper cut-out and

finally the environment and events surrounding the object’s

life path. By unpeeling the layers of physical and implied

content of the object, I discuss the larger discourses

surrounding its production, collection and display.

Layer One: Pepsi-Cola Sign (Circa: 1946)

Close inspection of Isiaiah’s “Good Morning Gentlemen

Give me a CUT” reveals a raised Pepsi-Cola logo underneath the

paint. The curved writing of the logo spreads across the

centre of the board, surrounded by a smooth, raised circle.

The circle is bordered by raised, curly shapes, which

represent the edges of a bottle cap. Placed upright, in the

portrait layout intended for the display of the Pepsi-Cola

sign, the words “QUALITY” and “QUANTITY” are barely legible at

the top and bottom of the metal board. The cursive font in

which the words “Pepsi-Cola” are written, the bottle-cap

motif, and the words “QUALITY” and “QUANTITY” served as

excellent clues in the process of dating the Pepsi-Cola sign.

I discovered another Pepsi–Cola sign including the words

“Quality” and “Quantity” in its design on an auction website

named Sporting Collectibles that sells memorabilia and

collectable items. The website labelled the object as follows:

“Porcelain Pepsi Enamel Sign, 13 1/4" x 13 1/4".  Full Color

Raised or Embossed Image of The Pepsi Bottle Cap.  Found In

The Netherlands.  Made Just After WWII, Circa 1946.  Thick

Heavy Finish, Great Luster.  Some Scratches.  Scarce Piece. 

$450” (www.sportingcollectibles.com).

The similarities between the Sporting Collectibles item

and the sign painted over by Isiaiah lead one to assume that

the two objects were produced in the same era. There are

marked differences between the two objects, for instance the

sizes of the two objects are different and the Sporting

Collectables item consists of porcelain and enamel whereas

Isiaiah’s Pepsi-Cola sign is a type of zinc metal, but the

assumption could be made that the Pepsi-Cola company would

produce one logo brand to market its product at one time.

The history of the Pepsi-Cola logo and advertising

strategy, as well as the history of the drink itself, is

accessible via the Pepsi–Cola website. In order to understand

how the Pepsi-Cola sign painted over by Isiaiah came into

being, the history of the product itself must be appreciated.

Pepsi-Cola was invented in the early 1890s by Caleb Bradham, a

pharmacist based in North Carolina. The drink was first named

“Brad’s Drink”, but as it gained popularity it was renamed

“Pepsi-Cola” and given a cursive typeface. As the brand grew,

the logo evolved into a modified script logo in 1905. Once the

United States entered World War Two in the late 1940s, Pepsi-

Cola’s logo was re-designed to show support for the U.S

troops. The Pepsi Globe was revealed as a bottle cap motif

that surrounded the cursive Pepsi-Cola lettering in curved red

and blue colours on a white background. The use of the colour

scheme of the American flag was meant as a show of patriotism

to the United States of America. The script pressed out from

the metal sheet researched for this paper matches the script

illustrated on Pepsi-Cola’s website as the late 1940’s logo

(www.pepsico.com). With this information, as well as the

similarities to the Sporting Collectables object dated 1946,

one could deduce that the Pepsi-Cola sign painted over by

Isiaiah was produced in the late 1940s.

The lack of information on the artist Isiaiah has left a

vacuum of knowledge regarding how, why, where or when the

artist painted “Good Morning Gentlemen Give me a CUT”. Whether

it was painted locally or abroad, we know for sure that it was

collected by Peter Schütz in South Africa in 1993. The

significance of the Pepsi-Cola brand in South Africa before

the birth of South Africa’s democracy in 1994 is discussed by

John Spivey in his thesis titled Coke vs. Pepsi: The Cola Wars in South

Africa during The Anti-Apartheid Era (2009). According to Spivey (2009:

17), Pepsi-Cola arrived in South Africa the late 1948. The

fact that the sign used by Isiaiah also came from the late

1940s should not be overlooked, but this does not serve as

proof that this sign was an accompaniment to one of the first

South African Pepsi-Cola batches, or that Isiaiah was based in

South Africa. Spivey elaborates on how Pepsi-Cola and Coca-

Cola both “attempted to ingratiate themselves with black South

Africans – and American investors – as being leaders in the

movement that gave birth to a new and democratic age” (2009:

13). Pepsi-Cola left South Africa in 1985 in protest against

the apartheid regime, leaving a small portion of the company

to be run by black Sowetan businessmen. Soon after this

transition took place, however, Pepsi-Cola failed financially,

and Pepsi-Cola was no longer available in South Africa. After

Nelson Mandela (1918 - 2013) became President of South Africa

in 1994 Pepsi-Cola officially returned with great pomp and

ceremony (Spivey, 2009).

The sign painted by Isiaiah was collected in 1993, two

years before Pepsi-Cola officially returned to South Africa.

If this painting was indeed painted locally, one could deduce

that the Pepsi-Cola advertisement was rendered useless by the

withdrawal of Pepsi-Cola from South Africa, and thus put to

better use as a still-life painting or barbershop

advertisement by Isiaiah. Pepsi-Cola was marketed directly to

black South Africans (Spivey 2009: 13) and as this object was

collected in 1993, it was definitely painted in a time when

the black South African population was suppressed. One

interpretation of this sub-surface layer being painted over is

that a feeling of helplessness or frustrated surrender induced

the removal of the Pepsi-Cola sign from its advertising post.

By accepting that the stocks of a brand that “implicitly

peddles democratic ideals” (Spivey 2009: 5) and that so

strongly identifies with black South Africans does not need

advertising, the artist, on some level, could have been

conceding that the Pepsi-Cola brand no longer had a place in

the then still undemocratic South Africa. Of course, another

interpretation could be that the need for the painting by

Isiaiah simply outweighed the need for the Pepsi-Cola sign, or

that the artist used the Pepsi-Cola sign as a means to express

himself. In any scenario, a point made by Byrne et al. rings

true here: “Thus, artefacts are involved in a complex web of

agency, as they produce and are produced by their interactions

with other agents and the world” (2011: 6). The first layer of

this multifaceted object provides copious material for

research and investigation.

Layer Two: The Frame

Close examination of the object reveals that Isiaiah

painted “Good Morning Gentlemen Give me a CUT” once the frame

had already been crudely mounted onto the Pepsi-Cola sign.

Strokes of paint from Isiaiah’s brush spill over from the

support of the metal sheet onto the wooden frame, implying

that the Pepsi-Cola sign was dismounted from its advertising

post, had a frame nailed onto it, and was then painted over by

Isiaiah. We do not know if this was of the artist’s own accord

or if it was a commission, but the addition of the very

Western tradition of framing to this object encourages a

conversation surrounding notions of African art in relation to

European artistic traditions and expectations.

Information on the exhibition in which this object was

exhibited, 100 Contemporary Works from the Standard Bank African Art

Collection (1998), is severely lacking. It has not been possible

to identify the curators of this exhibition or to locate a

published catalogue for the show. It is therefore impossible

to examine the context in which this object was displayed in

the exhibition. However, the mere fact that this object was

included in such an exhibition is significant. It is

unconfirmed whether this object was created as an artwork or

as an advertisement, but it has nevertheless been established

as part of the Wits Art Museum Collection and has been

displayed in one of the finest art galleries in the country.

The display of African objects, that were not necessarily

created to be appreciated in a Western artistic context,

within traditionally Western art historical spaces such as

museums or galleries, draws on notions explored by Kasfir:

Historically there have been two kinds of distinctions

entangled in (European) belief, that between art (supposedly

non-utilitarian) and craft (utilitarian) and a second between

art (supposedly non-commercial) and commodity (commercial).

Neither of these methods of categorization, which derive from

European aesthetics and artisanal traditions, are, however, an

accurate reflection of African cultural realities (1998: 102).

This statement resonates with the questionable

classification of this object, as it teeters tentatively at

the intersection of artwork/commodity. Vorster & Kumeke’s

chapter on barbershop signs in Lifelines: Object Biographies from the

Standard Bank Art Collection (2013) examines the transition of an

object’s existence as an advertisement for a barbershop to an

artwork stored at Wits Art Museum in Johannesburg and

currently on display at Standard Bank Gallery. The authors

assert that it “demonstrates the shifting values in collecting

African art objects” and illustrates that “the object has

lived two lives that have been made tangible and shared with a

broader audience through research” (2013: 54). The object

researched in this paper may have experienced similar shifts

in its own life, but whilst the object discussed by Vorster &

Kumeke was definitely a barbershop sign, Isiaiah’s painting

has more than one possible original use. Speaking about

African objects that could be classified as art or artefacts,

Susan Vogel claims that “the category of African objects

defined as art has steadily expanded throughout the twentieth

century” (1988: 12).

The frame mounted onto this African object stimulates

questions about Western ideas of art display versus African

ideas of art display. The discourse surrounding the

differences between these visual cultures is explored by

authors such as Arthur Danto who examines how Western curators

and museums display African objects as art as it suits their

own agency because of “aesthetic similarities” to Western

artworks, thus re-classifying “objects that do not enjoy that

status (of artworks) in the societies they come from” (1988:

32). As Isiaiah’s painting was not necessarily created with

the intention of being collected and displayed in a Western

museum context, this discussion is highly relevant to its

biography.

Layer Three: The Painting by Isiaiah

Isiaiah’s “Good Morning Gentlemen Give me a CUT” consists

of a still-life arrangement including a vase filled with red

flowers, a pipe and a book on a table. Beneath the edge of the

table the artist has painted the words “Good Morning Gentlemen

Give me a CUT.” A green curtain hangs behind the table to the

right, and to the curtain’s left hangs a painting of a

mountainous landscape in its own painted frame. Beneath the

landscape painting the artist has pasted a paper cut-out

featuring a motif popular with barbershop sign painters. I

liaised with Dr. Doran Ross, a knowledgeable documenter of

African barbershop signs, regarding Isiaiah’s artwork. Dr.

Ross informed me that the hairstyle section is an image based

on the famous artist Joel Ola Wouwo Odunmaruna from Abidjan,

whose recognisable compositional trait is a heart shaped

outline around the human heads that he paints. The pipe

painted by Isiaiah could be seen as a visual reference to the

pipe painted by René Magritte (1898 - 1967) in Ceci N’est Pas Une

Pipe (1929), as although the pipe is not precisely the same it

is painted in the same palette and is structured in the same

way. Both pipes have a brown bowl, a silver metal band and a

black tip. The painted words “Good Morning Gentlemen Give me a

CUT.” have been painted in careful cursive writing, similar to

the script used in Magritte’s artwork. The red flowers in the

vase could be stylistically compared to Henri Matisse (1869 -

1954).

The painting gives the impression that the artist is

making reference to a number of different sources, assembling

everyday objects and allusions to modern European art masters

in a still-life composition. The reference to René Magritte,

and possibly Henri Matisse, could imply that Isiaiah is or was

an art history student, or just someone aware of modern

European masters. Magritte’s painting is, however, reproduced

in hundreds of publications and posters, making it possible

that the artist spotted it in passing. It is fitting that this

painting by Magritte, so multi-layered in its meanings and

implications, has been referenced in this veritable

smorgasbord of media, messages and meaning, as is illustrated

by Tom Hardy’s statement that:

René Magritte’s play with meaning (i.e. this is not a pipe, it is a painting) heralded the post-structural wrestle with

linguistic reliability and, in turn, the postmodern quest by

visual artists for interactive dialogue and playful ambiguity

(2006:17).

The notion of borrowing in African art lies in direct

contrast to the European tradition of originality associated

with fine art. Kasfir questions notions of copyright in an

African context by saying: “Not only are Western ideas and

goods appropriated, but extensive cultural borrowing and

reinterpretation also occurs” (1999: 18-19). Kasfir claims

that the Western belief is that an artwork ought to be unique

whilst African art “is marketed unpretentiously as

merchandise. It only begins to take on an ‘art’ status when it

becomes part of Western or elite collections” (1999: 22). This

statement correlates with Isiaiah’s painting, which explicitly

alludes to other works of art, and has now become part of a

museum collection. Another author who investigates this idea

is Karin Barber, who points out that the responsibility of the

artist to produce a once-off creation is “important to the

understanding of art in Western bourgeois society” (1997: 102)

but that in African society, artists “may have given birth to

forms, but these forms did not become the bearers of the

artist’s social identity. And the artist held no copyright

over any form unless politically authorized to do so” (1997:

102).

Certain facts surrounding aspects of Isiaiah’s chosen

subject matter remain unknown; we do not know why he chose to

represent those specific everyday objects in his composition.

The object biography approach, however, allows one to approach

the subject matter featured in this object in a different way,

working through and around the absence of information. As

Parsons says “The object biography concept provides a useful

framework for dealing with materials that have lost their

archaeological context” (2003: 54). Although this object was

not recovered in an archaeological context, this statement

highlights the support that the object biography approach

gives to fleshing out various areas of an object’s lifeline.

Layer Four: The Paper Cut-Out

The paper cut-out that Isiaiah has pasted onto the

surface of the metal Pepsi-Cola sign features a design popular

with barbershop sign painters. The motif, attributed to Joel

Ola Wouwo Odunmaruna, consists of five portraits advertising

five different hairstyles, between which winds a leafy vine

with red daisy-like flowers. Each hairstyle name is detailed

in French, one of them being “Azazou”. Azazou is a famous

rapper from the Ivory Coast, prompting one to ask if this

image was cut out from a magazine from the Ivory Coast. This

does not solidify any assumptions as to the artist’s location,

as he could also have obtained an Ivory Coast publication

anywhere in the world. It is this small cut-out, along with

the word “CUT” painted by the artist that has led to this work

being categorised as a barbershop sign.

This problematic categorisation has had a significant

impact on the biography of the object. It has been displayed

alongside the barbershop sign researched by Vorster & Kumeke

in the Standard Bank Exhibition Lifelines: Object Biographies from the

Standard Bank Art Collection (2013). The choice to display this

object as a barbershop sign harks to the need for hasty

categorisation within the Western art historical tradition.

The semiotic territory that this object occupies is debateable

and the original intention for the painting is still unclear.

What this pasted cut-out signifies then is that factors or

elements added on or attached to an object can raise more

questions as opposed to clarifying questions.

Layer Five: The Layers Beyond the Physical Artwork: The

Collection and The Collector

Although it has not been determined how the object came

to be at the Mai Mai Market, this location, the year in which

this object was collected, and the collector himself are all

full of interesting facts and insights. Alberti states that

“the prehistory of the object, its original context, changes

radically when it is collected” (2005: 562). This paper has

already engaged in the discourse surrounding African objects

being placed into a Western art historical context, but

Alberti’s statement is also applicable to the idea that the

process of collection has a significant part to play in an

object’s biography. The object was collected from the Mai Mai

Market in Johannesburg. Established in the early 1940s, the

market is one of the oldest in Johannesburg and is often

referred to as “Place of Healers (Ezinyangeni)”

(www.joburg.org.za). At the Mai Mai Market, one can find a

remarkable range of self-employed traders, such as herbalists,

carpenters and carvers of traditional African objects such as

snuff boxes and sjamboks. The shops are teeming with herbal

remedies, animal parts and other traditional African objects.

The Mai Mai Market is also home to approximately 600 people,

many of whom have lived there for decades. The culture of the

Mai Mai Market is not a static tourist-orientated environment,

but is rather a contemporary, African experience that

encapsulates the intersection between modern, urban African

and traditional beliefs (www.joburg.org.za).

The texts on the Mai Mai Market make no mention of any

interference from the apartheid government, suggesting that

the Market has existed in a political bubble over the last 80

years. The apartheid government had vested interests in

keeping traditional cultures celebrates and practised by black

South Africans culture alive, as one of their policies was to

expand and highlight the actual and constructed differences

between white and black South African culture (Berger 2002:

2). The “African-ness” of the Mai Mai Market could have been

what saved it from political meddling, as it was left

comfortably alone.

Peter Schütz was an artist, a collector and teacher at

the University of Witwatersrand. Schütz passed away in 2008,

entailing any investigation of the collector to consist of

published texts and interviews with those who knew him. I

conferred with Fiona Rankin-Smith, who was close friends with

Peter Schütz. Rankin-Smith often accompanied Schütz to the Mai

Mai Market and remembers the Market as being a place where

fascinating items could be found and purchased, but does not

recall a barbershop ever being there. Peter Schütz, according

to Rankin-Smith, found it to be a veritable treasure trove and

frequented the Market often. No barbershops currently exist at

the Mai Mai Market, and the informality of the setting up and

shutting down of the businesses there make the traceability of

the 1993 barbershop difficult.

The significance of 1993 being the year of collection is

that South Africa was undergoing major political upheaval at

the time. It was a time of change, insecurity and disruption

of the status quo. With racial tensions running high, for a

white, German professor to venture into an area of downtown

Johannesburg occupied by black residents, to purchase an

African artwork, was fairly risqué. It illustrates the avant-

garde, liberal state of mind of the collector. As Byrne et al.

says “Each transaction between creator communities and

collectors has its own peculiar and distinct history and

historicity; each is fixed in a particular moment in time”

(2011: 16). 1993 was a difficult time for South Africa, on the

cusp of democracy the nation was hanging in the balance and

any radical behaviour was seen as suspicious. Byrne et al.

makes another point that relates to Schütz’s collecting habits

in saying “in addition to the personal histories of

individuals in understanding their collecting practices, we

must also consider the political context and personal networks

in which individuals were involved as part of their collecting

process” (2011: 17).

I consulted with one of his fellow professors, Walter

Oltmann, who was a close friend of his. According to Oltmann,

Schütz’s office was an installation itself; the walls, floors

and any available surface were covered in strange and

wonderful objects. Reingard Nethersole has written a paper

based on Schütz’s collecting habits titled Visions and Recollections

of the Commonplace (1995). Nethersole writes that:

The artist enjoys rummaging through flea markets, junk shops

like Mai-Mai in Johannesburg, old churches, and galleries and

museums abroad. Constantly in search of visual pleasures, he

adds to his ever growing archive all sorts of images and

objects that delight him for many reasons (1995: 49).

Schütz used his collected objects as a direct reference

for his own art, thereby creating his own palimpsestic

artworks as he re-used and re-cycled the ideas behind these

collected items. “’Collected things’, Schütz confesses, give

him the ‘confidence to do it myself’” (Nethersole 1995: 50).

According to Nethersole, “the emergence of Schütz’s artistic

career with the painted fibreglass wall-hanging Look Out! in the

early seventies coincided with the spread and steady

acceptance of Pop Art” (1995: 43). One of the defining

principles of Pop Art is the use and depiction of everyday

objects (www.moma.org). The inclusion of commonplace, mass-

produced objects in “Good Morning Gentlemen Give me a CUT” can

be compared to visual language used in Pop Art in this way. As

Schütz resonated with the aesthetics and ideas of Pop Art,

these everyday objects could have been what caused Schütz to

purchase it. Kasfir mentioned the depiction of everyday

objects when writing about barbershop signs in a way that

suggests it is common practice for barbershop sign painters:

For the works are not so much expressions of events and

feelings as recollections of existing visual references drawn

from the artist’s locale, high art, popular culture, and the

taxidermist’s workshop among others (1999: 45).

Baudrillard (1994) talks about the nature of collecting

and how value is ascribed to objects because of their absence

from a collection. From Nethersole’s text (1995), as well as

Rankin-Smith’s interview (2014), I have gleaned that Schütz

was not a systematic collector attempting to compile a

complete series of objects. He was what I have called an

“obsessive acquirer”. Baudrillard mentions that once an object

is no longer “defined by its function, its meaning is entirely

up to the subject. The result is that all objects in a

collection become equivalent, thanks to that process of

passionate abstraction we call possession” (1994: 8). Schütz’s

office, which I described earlier, can be mirrored in

Baudrillard’s statement that: “Surrounded by the objects he

possesses, the collector is pre-eminently the sultan of a

secret seraglio” (1994: 10). My interview with Rankin-Smith

concluded with her digging through her office cupboards,

pulling out numerous objects that many would consider to be

rubbish. The objects were mostly broken, dirty and had no

functioning uses, but she had kept them all. One last poignant

statement made by Baudrillard relates to Schütz’s collected

objects, as he writes:

In our daily lives, we will continue to enact the mourning for

our own person through the intercession of objects, and this

allows us, albeit regressively, to live out our lives. The man

who collects things may already be dead, yet he manages

literally to outlive himself through his collection, which,

originating within this life, recapitulates him indefinitely

beyond the point of death by absorbing death itself into the

series and the cycle (1994: 17).

The theory around the notion of collecting is very interesting

as it contributes to an understanding of the context in which

the sign was collected. The potential this object had to

function as inspiration for another artist was activated as

the prolific collector, Schütz, decided to acquire it.

Conclusion

Throughout their lives, people, objects and spaces

collect memory. They move through time, as Donald Preziosi

says, “preserv(ing) a memory trace of all that life has been

on this planet” (2002: 30). This accumulation of experiences

allows for a rich tapestry of research potential, each thread

a possible avenue for investigation and discovery for the

researcher. The absence of information on particular aspects

of the object's life can diminish the chronological structure

of the biography, but the flexibility that the object

biography approach allows for encourages a non-sequential

organisation of information and interpretations. As mentioned

in the introduction, the research process required by the

object biography approach can be likened to detective work,

encouraging investigation of comprehensive topics and broad

issues surrounding the numerous phases of an object’s life,

or, in this case, the various lives of an object.

Word count: 4595

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