SING FOR OUR EXECUTION COLLECTION

The Book: Wopko Jensma (1973) Sing for Our Execution, Johannesburg: Ravan Press, soft cover with black and white illustrations, signed with inscription on the title page, size: 24,5 by 18 by 1cm

The Prints are all uniformly framed:

(1) Woodcut print on paper, signed with the artist's initials, dated 72 and numbered 9/15 in pencil in the margin, image size: 19 by 20 cm; 65,5 by 50,5 by 4cm including frame

(2) Woodcut print on paper,signed with the artist's initials, dated 72 and numbered Proof in pencil in the margin, image size: 30 by 14cm; 65,5 by 50,5 by 4cm including frame

(3) Woodcut print on paper,signed with the artist's initials, dated 72 and numbered 1/10 in pencil in the margin, image size: 30 by 20cm; 65,5 by 50,5 by 4cm including frame

(4) Woodcut print on paper, signed with the artist's initials, dated 72 and numbered 3/10 in pencil in the margin, image size: 30 by 13,5cm; 65,5 by 50,5 by 4cm including frame

(5) Woodcut print on paper,signed with the artist's initials, dated 72 and numbered Proof in pencil in the margin, image size: 26 by 17,5cm; 65,5 by 50,5 by 4cm including frame

(6) Woodcut print on paper,signed with the artist's initials, dated 72 and numbered 1/10 in pencil in the margin, image size: 29,5 by 19,5cm; 65,5 by 50,5 by 4cm including frame

(7) Woodcut print on paper,signed with the artist's initials, dated 72 and numbered 1/10 in pencil in the margin, image size: 25,5 by 17cm; 65,5 by 50,5 by 4cm including frame

(8) Woodcut print on paper,signed with the artist's initials, dated 72 and numbered Proof in pencil in the margin, image size: 25 by 17,5cm; 65,5 by 50,5 by 4cm including frame

(9) Screenprint on paper,signed with the artist's initials, dated '71 and numbered 13/20 in pencil in the margin, image size: 52,5 by 34cm; 66 by 51 by 4cm including frame

(10) Woodcut print on paper,signed with the artist's initials, dated 72 and numbered Proof in pencil in the margin, image size: 25 by 17,5cm; 65,5 by 50,5 by 4cm including frame

Since the edition numbers for the original woodblock prints are very low and the book effectively acted as a marketing brochure for them, they sold out quickly back in the day and remain tightly held in family collections of South African resistance poetry and/or art, coming onto the market very rarely on an individual basis and never before as such a comprehensive and almost complete (10/13) collection. (We are pursuing several leads to procure editions of the 3 outstanding works and will give the successful bidder the first option to acquire these in order to complete the collection).

Jensma responded to the demand for more of the works used to illustrate the book by producing a larger series (numbered edition of 55 plus an unknown number of artist's and printer's proofs) of colour screenprints of the most popular ones. They were printed at the Egon Guenter Studio/ Gallery on sheet size 64 x 48cm. The much more commonly available screenprints have sold for as much as R50,000 each at auction.

Provenance:

Various fine art auction houses over several years - details will be provided to the successful bidder.

Recommended Sources:

Source 1: Sheik (Ayub), WOPKO JENSMA: A MONOGRAPH (The Interface Between Poetry And Schizophrenia), Not published (Submitted in accordance with the requirement of the degree of Doctor of Literature In the Centre for the Study Of Southern African Literature and Languages (CSSALL) UNIVERSITY OF DURBAN-WESTVILLE), July 2002

"This thesis is a monograph of South African poet and artist, Wopko Jensma. Jensma's published anthologies, Sing for Our Execution (1973), Where White is the Colour, Where Black is the Number (1974) and Have You Seen My Clippings (1977) together with the relatively unknown and unpublished, Blood and More Blood deal with issues of identity relating to race and class within the context of apartheid South Africa in the nineteen seventies. These four anthologies represent a poetics of resistance conceived as an antidote to personal and social suffering as a result of the racist oppression of blacks in South Africa.

This study begins with a detailed biography of Jensma. A survey of published sources indicate that apart from newspaper reviews and reports, cursory citations in poetry and art anthologies, no comprehensive biography of Jensma exists. This biography has been reconstructed primarily by interviews with people who knew Jensma, occasional newspaper reports and by Jensma's correspondence in the archives of the National English Literary Museum in Grahamstown."

Please see the thesis (readily available online) for the detailed biography.

Some pertinent quotes and salient points from the thesis that may help with interpreting the work:

“Jensma's experimental poetry harnesses the signatures of jazz lyrics, concrete poetry, the avant-garde as well as African dance forms in bizarre cameos of underclass misery and racial oppression.”

“Jensma was also a graphic artist who worked mostly with woodcuts, but produced \linocuts and monotypes as well. In a letter to Horn he confided: ‘I was trained as an artist but express myself better as a sculptor. My work is not non-figurative, but provisionally abstract.’"

“Being deeply interested in African mythology and iconography his fascinating forms suggests the influence of Michaux and describe "human-animal-plant-spirit-creatures". Of note are Jensma's three woodcuts entitled, Mythical green-eyed creature, Mythical red-eyed creature and Mythical toothed creature...”. (The three works referenced here are some of later screenprints that were produced in response to the popularity of the very limited edition of Woodcut prints that were produced to accompany Sing For Our Execution and are included in the collection on offer.)

“As a little known artist in 1967 Jensma caught the attention of Dan Rakwati, a Fine Arts student at the University of South Africa:
‘Wopko was amongst the few if not the only white at this point in time who depicted art in an African motif. This can be discerned particularly in the woodcuts. He also had an inclination towards mysticism. His early work was done primarily in a realist style and as he matured as an artist his work assumed a surreal and expressionist influence with a difference - it was executed in an African style. Wopko was influenced by contemporary artists such as Ben Enwona from Nigeria, Vincent Kofi from Ghana and Malangatana Valent from Mozambique.
His poetry was a form of protest poetry written during the time of apartheid – at least he indicated as much in his letters to me.’”

“As co-editor, Peter Horn was so impressed by the quality of the poetry that Jensma submitted to the journal, Ophir that he proposed a special issue which appeared in 1971 with ten poems entitled Sing For Our Execution.”

"In 1972, Jensma held an exhibition of graphics, entitled Wail for the Beast, at Gallery Y. Woodcuts from this show were incorporated into the 1973 Ophir/Ravan collection of 41 poems entitled Sing for Our Execution. By April 1973, according to a report in Oggenblad, Jensma had had twenty four exhibitions of his work. He excited the interest of poets, editors and gallery owners such as Wolf Weineck and Harold Jeppe.

“Sing For Our Execution (1973), was reviewed by at least thirteen newspapers and journals to print reviews, often accompanied by reproductions of woodcuts from the collection.

Mary Morison Webster wrote in a review in The Sunday Times in 1973:
‘The reader's initial and, indeed, lasting impression is that Jensma is an African possibly of Sophiatown. Use of words and phrases nevertheless seems, at times, that of an American Negro than of a man from the Transvaal.
Surprisingly, it turns out that this versatile poet (he writes with equal facility in both official white languages) is a European in his mid thirties (son of a Dutch father and an Afrikaans mother) who has so closely identified himself with the African and his cause that he thinks and feels like a blackman (Webster 1973).’

Writing in Rapport, Stephen Gray said:
‘It is now time to assert clearly that Wopko Jensma is as important a creative artist as anyone produced by South Africa. His book is not only a collection: it is a phenomenon. It stands at the centre of South African life (1973: 12).’”

“Lionel Abrahams, in the Rand Daily Mail, 6 January 1975 observed:
‘At a time when people are more than ever aware of their colour, even in the arts, Wopko Jensma is the only South African artist in any medium who has transcended the barriers. His work is neither English or Afrikaans, black nor white.’

The Oggenblad review concurs:
‘To characterise this collection in a brief review is almost impossible. The motives and techniques vary too much; the world from which the poetry emerges is sometimes too strange for the white reader: but one can say this: these are verses of our time, these are verses of Southern Africa - not merely poetry for black or white (Van Dis 1973).’

Peter Wilhelm elaborated:
‘This is the clue to Jensma. He stays together, in shape, alchemically combining enormously diverse cultures and experiences, He is a terrifying, new sort of human, he is the first South African (Wilhelm 1973).’

It was perhaps Anita Moodie’s review in Rapport which most accurately summed up the significance of Jensma's first volume of poetry:
‘sorg, smaak en noulettendheid het hierdie boek een van die fraaise en genotvolste produkte van die Suid-Afrikaanse drukkuns gemaak. Dit vestig Wopko Jensma se naam in Suid-Afrika as 'n sterk en kontensieuse digter en beeldskepper. Hy het nie oornag opgeskiet nie. Hierdie gedigte is 'n keur uit 'n oeuvre wat oor die afgelope dekade ontstaan het.
Dit is nou die tyd om dit duidelik te stel dat Wopko Jensma net so 'n belangrike skeppende kunstenaar is as enige wat Suid-Afrika nog voortgebring het.
Gevolglik is dit 'n boek wat ons netjiese indelings deurmekaarkrap. Ten eerste veronderstel dit dat alle Suid-Afrikaners eentalig is. Ten tweede skep dit vreugde uit die waarneming dat ons in ons poesie skeppend sal moet kreoliseer uit Engels, Afrikaans, Amerikaans "slang" uit die "blues", Tswana, Johannesburgse straattaal, spreektaalvorme van Lourenco Marque - en verder alles wat in swang is.
Dit sal die leser nie lank neem om agter te kom wat aan die gang is in Jensma se poesie nie, want sy werk is onmiddellik toeganklik. Hy is beslis nie-literer. Hy is 'n naiewe digter in die goeie sin van die woord en so 'n natuurlike surrealis dat mens dit skaars opmerk - die pyn, ontwrigting, fragmentering van groot onderwerpe in plofbare miniature, die vulgere satiriese klappe vanuit onverwagte oorde: as mens eers gewoond raak aan die vreemde rangskikking van die taal, is dit maklik verteerbaar (Moodie 1973).’

The woodcuts in the book also provoked comment:
I find it difficult to analyse my reaction to Jensma's hideously skeletal woodcuts. At first one feels compulsive fascination together with a horrid bewilderment. One cannot assess their merit; they appear to be neither decorative nor illuminating - except perhaps by contrast, for by contrast the poet speaks with a clarity that the artist has not deemed it necessary to attain. But while reading the poems one begins to understand something of the frustration and the brutality of the illustrations which gradually begin to achieve significance as a visual accompaniment to the verse (Smailes 1974:29)”

"In 1979 his works were amongst those displayed in an exhibition called South African Printmakers in the South African National Gallery. His work is currently represented in the South African National Gallery, Cape Town, the Durban Art Gallery and the University of the Witwatersrand Gallery as well as the William Humphrey Gallery in Kimberley.”

“In 1983 Jensma was one of the winners of the Creative Writing Awards sponsored by Mr. Ad Donker of Johannesburg, to mark the tenth anniversary of his publishing firm. The award was to honour three authors who had made a notable contribution to South African literature in English in the last ten years. Jensma was awarded the five hundred rands prize money and a certificate for:
‘originality of voice and vision.’
The other awardees were Mongane Wally Serote and lM. Coetzee.”

Source 2: Van Rensburg (Wilhelm) (Editor and Curator), WOPKO JENSMA: POSSESSING TOOLS/PROFESSING ARTISTRY , Exhibition Catalogue, GALLERY AOP, Johannesburg, April 2013

Despite having only 20 pages, this catalogue also provide some pertinent quotes that is helpful in the appreciation of Jensma's aty in general and the collection on offer in particular.

Wilhelm van Rensburg: “After Steven Sack included Wopko Jensma in his pioneering exhibition, The Neglected Tradition: Towards A New History of South African Art at the Johannesburg Art Gallery in 1988, and despite numerous literary accolades for Jensma’s poetry over the years, he is still neglected as a fine artist in the local art scene.
Many of the neglected, mainly black artists included in the Sack exhibition have subsequently been honoured with art awards, retrospective exhibitions, and publications, notably Dumile Feni, Jackson Hlungwane, Noria Mabaso, Ernest Mancoba, Pat Mautloa, Azaria Mbatha, Gladys Mgudlandlu, Tommy Motswai, John Muafangejo, Bonnie Ntshalithsahli, George Pemba, and especially Gerard Sekoto. No such accolades for Wopko Jensma, though.

On the literary front Jensma fared better: he published four highly acclaimed poetry anthologies, one of which, where white is the colour, where black is the number (1974) was banned under the apartheid regime. Peter Horn wrote a seminal article about Jensma’s poetry, “The psychological pauperization of man in our society” in the literary journal, Quarry ’77 that is as relevant today as when he first published it. Jensma received the English Academy award for creative work in 1983 and his poetry has since been included in anthologies of South African poetry.

Today, the ‘one shape’, or style of Jensma’s art works is instantaneously recognizable, but in many different forms. These forms are, as Wilhelm continues in his statement, “like strange mind things, small creatures creeping off the page and settling in your head and sit there.” Jensma thus traverses the verbal and the visual in his art, equally dexterous as, and comparable to William Burroughs’ famous cut-ups, cut-ins, and cut-outs. Jensma’s art starts with the verbal poem and morphs into a visual art work. His highly evocative poems, conjuring very vivid imagery, often have art as subject matter, such as ‘Lo Lul #4’ (p25), and ‘Portrait of the artist’ (p72) from the anthology, Sing for our execution (1973).

In many instances, Jensma’s poems are accompanied by visual images of his own art works. One could argue that they purportedly serve as ‘illustrations’ of the poems, but they could well have other functions. For example, reproductions of twelve of Jensma’s woodcuts are interleaved with the poems in Sing for our execution (1973). (The first version of Sing for our execution (1971, Ophir Publications, with 10 poems, not 40 as in the case of the 1973 version) only has a Jensma woodcut on the cover, but printed upside down). The woodcuts are ‘poems’ in their own right, presented autonomously in the anthology, standing on their own, not facing any one of the poems.

Many interpretations have been offered in the past about his work. First and foremost, Jensma was associated with the trend in art in the sixties with regard to the so-called mysticism of Africa, pioneered by such artists as Cecil Skotnes and Alexis Preller. Richard Cheales, for example, describes Jensma as attempting “to ‘think’ as would an African who has power, with paint, to evolve colour-poems of praise for his tribal land and life”. Such lyricism would make Jensma a modern day Bushman artist, or an imbongi or praise poet. It is not difficult to identify the origins of such an interpretation. Jensma was associated with Egon Guenther’s Amadlozi Group, with members such as Guiseppe Cattaneo, Sydney Kumalo, Cecily Sash, Cecil Skotnes, and Eduardo Villa, and Guenther printed many of Jensma’s woodcuts.

Secondly, Jensma was considered to provide, through his art, deep psychological insight into the human psyche. Chris van Wyk wrote in 1973 about Jensma’s contorted motifs or “beasts” as symbolizing the universal tormented human psyche. Jacques Lacan’s psycho-analytical approach to the (visual) text could be in this regard an apt theoretical framework for such an interpretation. Such an interpretation captures political overtones of people being turned into animals because of oppression.

Thirdly, the art world looks at Jensma as perhaps one of the first conceptual artists of this country, preceding such conceptual artists as Willem Boshoff, Michael Goldberg and Claude van Lingen. Aligned with this conceptual streak is another interpretation, namely that nowadays, Jensma is considered by Van Wyk to be a neo-Dada artist, included in the seminal Dada South? exhibition at Iziko in 2010. Van Wyk mentions in his Chapter on ‘Art, subversion and the quest for freedoms’ (Visual Century, Volume 3, 2011) the fact that Jensma was strongly influenced by Dada artist, Hans Arp. If one takes his famous poem, ‘Idi Amin Dada’ in consideration, as well as integrates his verbal output with his visual art, there is a case to be made for such a position."

Sheila Roberts: “Jensma is “the first wholly integrated South African”.

Elza Miles: “Wopko was thoroughly familiar with the ideal proportions of the human body in Western art. Yet he chose the African norm.”

André P. Brink: “‘Wie nie kennis neem van Wopko Jensma se poësie nie, is uit voeling met die ingrypendste en sterkste kreatiewe werk wat daar vandag – in weerwil van sensuur en reëlreg teen sensuur – in Suid-Afrika verrig word’”

Michael Gardiner: “Jensma’s visual and literary works – which need to be seen and read together – do not, as Peter Horn has pointed out, speak on behalf of discarded, rejected and oppressed people. Jensma’s work comes from within the experience of being discarded, rejected and oppressed and it expresses as few other artists have achieved the manifold horrors and pain of that condition.”