Max Wolpe

MAX WOLPE, BY LLOYD POLLAK on 'BURLESQUE'

Max Wolpe is one of Cape Town's best known and most immediately recognizable characters - once seen and never forgotten! That he is a maverick is obvious from the moment one first claps one's eyes upon him and sees the untrimmed shock of long white hair, dishevelled shirt flapping outside his unwashed jeans and unlaced shoes.

As an artist Max is a true Baudelarian fláneur 'botanizing on the asphalt' and obsessively assessing the passing parade. An acute observer he forever treads the city streets analysing the urban scene and portraying the eccentrics, misfits, lay-abouts, oddballs and freaks who form the focus of his oeuvre. The medium is an incisive blend of satire and caricature vaguely reminiscent of Rowlandson and Cruickshank, but there is no finger-wagging moralizing. Criticism is muted and leavened by affection and sly, waggish humour.

Take 'Cat's Conversation' for example. This is a study of two oddly attired female Michealis art or drama students enjoying tea and perhaps a whiff of pot within a drab Woodstock bedsit. Both girls make sweeping histrionic gestures and the artist indicates that their actions are all posture and pretence. They are heatedly discussing some currently fashionable topic such as the LGBTQ community, and both are pretentious poseurs attempting to outdo each other in an effort to appear far more with it than they really are. The artist does not censure them: he is merely amused by their immaturity and vapid verbiage. The classical composition is based on an inverted T dividing the painting into two complimentary sections following the golden section.

Max's 'Burlesque', which provides the title for the exhibition, is another balanced tripartite design. It contains strong elements of strip-tease, peek-a-boo and naughty-naughty. A rather louche scene of lewd, uninhibited student revelry it centres around a delinquent girl, clad only in her skimpy knickers. She adopts an excretory seated pose, parts her legs wide apart and exposes her body with shameless glee and exhibitionistic zeal. A huddle of prurient onlookers enthusiastically participate and outdo each other in showing off. They form part of the act and want to prove just how hip they are as they applaud her performance and take obvious delight in the spectacle of her naked flesh and brazen defiance of all accepted standards of conduct.

The 'Remittance Man' reveals there is pathos too. A 'Remittance Man' is, or used to be, a familiar colonial type. He has disgraced his family in England by becoming embroiled in some resounding sexual or financial scandal and is being paid an income to remain abroad so as not to further tarnish the family name. The subject is portrayed seated in a dignified pose typical of an old-fashioned English gentlemen, and it is obvious he is trying to keep up appearances and appear ultra-respectable. Despite his misdemeanours, he remains a fervent Empire loyalist as the coronation mug and portrait of Diana and Prince Charles attest. His loneliness and longing for home are hinted at by the gin hidden in a paper bag and tucked away in the bedside cupboard. This tell-tale detail suggests he is attempting to drown his sorrows.

Joy too enters the equation. 'Eh... too much' and 'Balkanology' depict the informal weekly dance held by the Michaelis students and their sidekicks. This is a great explosion of energy and high spirits in which the intoxicated dancers whirl, swirl and twirl across the floor. While the former works are fairly tight, static and controlled, Max here adopts a far more loose, free and improvisatory idiom. He lets go and wields his brush in an utterly spontaneous manner. The dancers move in swift trajectories across the floor and the mood is one of wild Bacchanalian revelry. Such unabashed funsy-wunsy arouse a chuckle in the viewer, and like so much else of Max's oeuvre, it tends to drollery and wacky humour. The painting reveals Max's passionate identification with youth, and it is this that explains his ability to remain continually fresh and impressionable and his ability to continually renew his art, experiment, embrace change and pursue new directions.

Max Wolpe

'BOHEMIAN SAFARI', MAX WOLPE

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