Steven Cohen's video Maid in South Africa is one of the most challenging artworks I've seen. The artist filmed his old nanny, now 84, cleaning his parents' house in South Africa. The house is run down and dingey. There are no appliances, and she washes the clothes in the bathtub. In South Africa, apparently, even lower middle class white people have a maid that they keep employed for a lifetime. Cohen's camerm follows Nomsa around while she does her regular chores. For the shoot, Nomsa is dressed (or, rather, undressed) in the heels, garters and dangling purple nipple covers of a draq queen/stripper. She is deadpan-serious about the whole thing, except for a brief shot where she chuckles at herself in the mirror, and the end, where she laughs gleefully, some kind of disco light flashing from behind her teeth. Cohen, while seemingly quite tender toward Nomsa, is merciless to his audience, and delivers the debasement of this woman he cares about with unrelenting shots of her cleaning the filthy toilet, crawling on the carpet to sweep up cigarette butts, etc.
I watched the video at V-Tape and was lucky enough to have the screening room to myself. I was extremely uncomfortable. I squirmed and kept telling myself "it's just a video." I was glad I didn't have to take other audience reaction into account, as I was having enough trouble dealing with my own. Of course it isn't "just a video." It's a portrait of exploitation that is very real indeed.
Steven Cohen is the same artist who did the stunning performance, in which he converted a chandelier into an over-the-top glam outfit and wore it, with high heels, into a shanty town in Johannesburg as it was being destroyed (Chandelier, 2001-02).
 
Nomsa raised Steven Cohen. The race dynamics, the power dynamics, the transgressive drag dynamics and the artist/subject dynamics of the video are further complicated by oedipal dynamics. It's all pretty potent. The piece is an indictment of oppression in South African, but it is an intimate tale told from within the loop of the artist's own family experience, embedded in that oppression. As Cohen pointed out in an interview with Lisa Steele (also available at V-Tape), the piece is truly a South African work, and may be hard for audiences in other cultures to fully grasp. At the same time, Cohen is making no excuses, and is fully aware that the video is challenging and extremely hard to watch.
Nomsa herself is fantastic and delivers an unflappable performance. She works away at the dishes, the ironing, the sweeping up with studious absorption. In the interview Cohen describes her delight with the final video, and said that she was keen on showing it to everyone she knew, sometimes, said Cohen, inappropriately. Which is a strange thing to say, considering that I and many others, total strangers on other continents, have born witness to this collaborative enactment of dignity in the face of exploitation.
Steven Cohen's Maid in South Africa is part of the Images Festival, and can be seen at V-Tape until May 10th.
I'm glad you wrote about this, I haven't seen the piece yet, but I did read this Akimblog post by Terence Dick:
Steven Cohen’s Maid in South Africa, my mind is reeling with questions that I’m certain are intended by the artist, followed by doubts as to whether he’s ethically right in creating a situation which forces me to ask them. The situation is a “naïve striptease” performed by his parents’ octogenarian ex-housekeeper (and Cohen’s former nanny) as she cleans their house dressed in lingerie, high heels, and bizarre nipple cups. If it’s about apartheid, why does he feel the need to humiliate this woman? Why isn’t he wearing the nipple cups? If she is, as the artist insists, a collaborator in the work, how do we know she’s not merely enacting to the same oppressive power relationships she’s known all her life? And the whole sexual element of the piece confuses me: the soundtrack taunts, “If you don’t want to fuck me, then fuck off,” but I don’t want to fuck her. And I doubt that she would want to fuck me. Does that make me a racist? And how does that taunt make sense in terms of any analysis of the erotics of racial oppression? Cohen’s entire provocation seems sloppy to me.
Of course a write up like that makes me want to rush over to V-tape and find out if this piece does, indeed, make Terence a racist.
According to the Images Festival site she does have a name, Nomsa Myeni, although elsewhere, Cohen's C/V and artist statement has listed the name of his collaborator as Nomsa Dhlamini.
Either way, Jesus H. Christ On A Cracker, can we respect the fact that she is a collaborator, credit her with some sly wit & a great sense of the ridiculous. Perhaps recognize that only her very closest friends should be allowed to use the pet name South-African-nanny-who's-perhaps-enacting-to-the-same-oppressive-power-relationships-she’s-known-all-her-life.
(only my very closest friends are allowed to use either of my pet names, Sunshine or Lambykins, but they don't)
In an essay about Steven Cohen's performative work, she's also mentioned as a collaborator on at least one previous project "Limping into the African Renaissance".
i keep wondering about the gender here--when a man puts on a woman's clothes, he is not being a woman...what happens when a woman puts on a women's clothes?
what is drag about Nomsa Myeni's performance? (Because it is tied to his history of drag, and by placing these two works together, Sally, you are thinking Myeni works thru the semoitics of drag, right?)
it makes me feel really uncomfortable.
Well, if Cohen isn't using the semiotics of drag in this piece, then I'd say he is at least using the semiotics of play-acting and dress-up. And Myeni is going along with it. In the beginning of the video, she is wearing a brilliantly coloured African print and a fancy looking hat. She takes these off and underneath is her housedress for work. Eventually she takes that off and the stripper stuff is underneath.
I'm really glad you wrote about this, Sally. I've been meaning to go see it but have been worried about the intense discomfort I was sure was going to accompany it (especially after reading Mr. Dick's akimblog). But now I'm going to give it a try and try and make sense of it.
Let us know what you think about it, Gabby!
Keeping in mind that I get embarrassed at re-runs of "I love Lucy" (it always made me squirmy and slightly sick and I'm not the only one), I was expecting to be cringing my way through this work when I went to see it today.
First of all, Cohen's timing and edits were impeccable, he starts by leading us down the garden path with such a sweet elderly shuffling woman, slowly showing us brief glimpses of images and objects in her world that indicate the struggle against apartheid. The tenderness of that sequence, Nomsa's frailty and the subtle indication of the historical events she has lived through made me cry. Of course he's set me up for the cleaning-stripper sequence.
When Sally writes that he "is merciless to his audience, and delivers the debasement of this woman he cares about with unrelenting shots of her cleaning the filthy toilet, crawling on the carpet to sweep up cigarette butts". I can only partially agree with that, I thought he showed incredible restraint, this wasn't twisted cruel granny porn that he was producing. Each shot and angle went just far enough to torment the audience, make us fear what may be exposed next, but he's too much of an artist to debase her as a performer.
I saw the stripper sequence with the disco fuck me soundtrack as defiant, yet that defiance was oddly contradicted by her slow purposeful cleaning activities. She floated above Cohen's art video set-up, and he knows it. Defiant, as well, in the context of a national domestic economy that takes a huge servant class for granted, rendering them invisible, inconsequential and even despised. (That's before you even take into account the national legacy of slavery and abuse.)
I also had less of a problem with the sight of an almost nude 84 year old woman, in fact I was reminded of an early work by Lisa Steele, Birthday Suit - with scars and defects from 1974. She'd probably agree that eventually getting outfitted with an old body is a major sign of success.
I wish there had been a transcript of the phone interview between Steele and Cohen because I had a hard time understanding his accent so I know I missed a lot of additional information, but there were a few things he said that were very powerful. Several times he described her actions as "cleaning the uncleanable" --a brilliant metaphor for the larger political conditions of South Africa-- "with optimism and commitment".
There's one other thing that came to mind with Cohen's statement that the piece is truly a South African work. Participation in a international art scene does not have to simply translate to star-fucking festivals, V-tape has all my admiration for programming an artwork that purposely contains the peculiarities of a specific place, and I am so glad that I saw this video because I left the screening thrilled and moved.
And now I'm going to watch my recordings of this week's episodes of "Dancing With The Stars". Which means that art will never change my despicable TV viewing habits and enjoyment of all that is craptastic.
Nice review, L.M.! Just to clarify, I was not distressed at seeing her body either. I thought she looked great. And, as Lisa Steele pointed out, she's in damn good shape for 84.
In the bit you quoted from me, I did not mean that Cohen was merciless because he revealed her body to us, but because some of the chores she was doing, while revealing her body, were so debasing, cleaning other people's filth. I know people who clean houses for a living, and I'm sure this kind of task is just all in a day's work, but when it's combined with the striptease and put on video then, to borrow a phrase from Anthony, Cohen is "working through the semiotics" of S.&M porn. It's one thing to play doggy to someone else's master as a matter of choice, but when the subject is really employed in that role for then it is horrifying to see the power dynamic offered as a salacious moment.
I didn't think her body was an issue for you either.
ah. good!
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Steven Cohen's video Maid in South Africa is one of the most challenging artworks I've seen. The artist filmed his old nanny, now 84, cleaning his parents' house in South Africa. The house is run down and dingey. There are no appliances, and she washes the clothes in the bathtub. In South Africa, apparently, even lower middle class white people have a maid that they keep employed for a lifetime. Cohen's camerm follows Nomsa around while she does her regular chores. For the shoot, Nomsa is dressed (or, rather, undressed) in the heels, garters and dangling purple nipple covers of a draq queen/stripper. She is deadpan-serious about the whole thing, except for a brief shot where she chuckles at herself in the mirror, and the end, where she laughs gleefully, some kind of disco light flashing from behind her teeth. Cohen, while seemingly quite tender toward Nomsa, is merciless to his audience, and delivers the debasement of this woman he cares about with unrelenting shots of her cleaning the filthy toilet, crawling on the carpet to sweep up cigarette butts, etc.
I watched the video at V-Tape and was lucky enough to have the screening room to myself. I was extremely uncomfortable. I squirmed and kept telling myself "it's just a video." I was glad I didn't have to take other audience reaction into account, as I was having enough trouble dealing with my own. Of course it isn't "just a video." It's a portrait of exploitation that is very real indeed.
Steven Cohen is the same artist who did the stunning performance, in which he converted a chandelier into an over-the-top glam outfit and wore it, with high heels, into a shanty town in Johannesburg as it was being destroyed (Chandelier, 2001-02).
Nomsa raised Steven Cohen. The race dynamics, the power dynamics, the transgressive drag dynamics and the artist/subject dynamics of the video are further complicated by oedipal dynamics. It's all pretty potent. The piece is an indictment of oppression in South African, but it is an intimate tale told from within the loop of the artist's own family experience, embedded in that oppression. As Cohen pointed out in an interview with Lisa Steele (also available at V-Tape), the piece is truly a South African work, and may be hard for audiences in other cultures to fully grasp. At the same time, Cohen is making no excuses, and is fully aware that the video is challenging and extremely hard to watch.
Nomsa herself is fantastic and delivers an unflappable performance. She works away at the dishes, the ironing, the sweeping up with studious absorption. In the interview Cohen describes her delight with the final video, and said that she was keen on showing it to everyone she knew, sometimes, said Cohen, inappropriately. Which is a strange thing to say, considering that I and many others, total strangers on other continents, have born witness to this collaborative enactment of dignity in the face of exploitation.
Steven Cohen's Maid in South Africa is part of the Images Festival, and can be seen at V-Tape until May 10th.
- sally mckay 4-19-2008 9:49 pm
I'm glad you wrote about this, I haven't seen the piece yet, but I did read this Akimblog post by Terence Dick:
Of course a write up like that makes me want to rush over to V-tape and find out if this piece does, indeed, make Terence a racist.
According to the Images Festival site she does have a name, Nomsa Myeni, although elsewhere, Cohen's C/V and artist statement has listed the name of his collaborator as Nomsa Dhlamini.
Either way, Jesus H. Christ On A Cracker, can we respect the fact that she is a collaborator, credit her with some sly wit & a great sense of the ridiculous. Perhaps recognize that only her very closest friends should be allowed to use the pet name South-African-nanny-who's-perhaps-enacting-to-the-same-oppressive-power-relationships-she’s-known-all-her-life.
(only my very closest friends are allowed to use either of my pet names, Sunshine or Lambykins, but they don't)
In an essay about Steven Cohen's performative work, she's also mentioned as a collaborator on at least one previous project "Limping into the African Renaissance".
- L.M. 4-20-2008 11:25 pm
i keep wondering about the gender here--when a man puts on a woman's clothes, he is not being a woman...what happens when a woman puts on a women's clothes?
what is drag about Nomsa Myeni's performance? (Because it is tied to his history of drag, and by placing these two works together, Sally, you are thinking Myeni works thru the semoitics of drag, right?)
it makes me feel really uncomfortable.
- anthony (guest) 4-21-2008 10:53 am
Well, if Cohen isn't using the semiotics of drag in this piece, then I'd say he is at least using the semiotics of play-acting and dress-up. And Myeni is going along with it. In the beginning of the video, she is wearing a brilliantly coloured African print and a fancy looking hat. She takes these off and underneath is her housedress for work. Eventually she takes that off and the stripper stuff is underneath.
- sally mckay 4-21-2008 6:17 pm
I'm really glad you wrote about this, Sally. I've been meaning to go see it but have been worried about the intense discomfort I was sure was going to accompany it (especially after reading Mr. Dick's akimblog). But now I'm going to give it a try and try and make sense of it.
- Gabby Moser (guest) 4-24-2008 3:51 pm
Let us know what you think about it, Gabby!
- sally mckay 4-24-2008 6:34 pm
Keeping in mind that I get embarrassed at re-runs of "I love Lucy" (it always made me squirmy and slightly sick and I'm not the only one), I was expecting to be cringing my way through this work when I went to see it today.
First of all, Cohen's timing and edits were impeccable, he starts by leading us down the garden path with such a sweet elderly shuffling woman, slowly showing us brief glimpses of images and objects in her world that indicate the struggle against apartheid. The tenderness of that sequence, Nomsa's frailty and the subtle indication of the historical events she has lived through made me cry. Of course he's set me up for the cleaning-stripper sequence.
When Sally writes that he "is merciless to his audience, and delivers the debasement of this woman he cares about with unrelenting shots of her cleaning the filthy toilet, crawling on the carpet to sweep up cigarette butts". I can only partially agree with that, I thought he showed incredible restraint, this wasn't twisted cruel granny porn that he was producing. Each shot and angle went just far enough to torment the audience, make us fear what may be exposed next, but he's too much of an artist to debase her as a performer.
I saw the stripper sequence with the disco fuck me soundtrack as defiant, yet that defiance was oddly contradicted by her slow purposeful cleaning activities. She floated above Cohen's art video set-up, and he knows it. Defiant, as well, in the context of a national domestic economy that takes a huge servant class for granted, rendering them invisible, inconsequential and even despised. (That's before you even take into account the national legacy of slavery and abuse.)
I also had less of a problem with the sight of an almost nude 84 year old woman, in fact I was reminded of an early work by Lisa Steele, Birthday Suit - with scars and defects from 1974. She'd probably agree that eventually getting outfitted with an old body is a major sign of success.
I wish there had been a transcript of the phone interview between Steele and Cohen because I had a hard time understanding his accent so I know I missed a lot of additional information, but there were a few things he said that were very powerful. Several times he described her actions as "cleaning the uncleanable" --a brilliant metaphor for the larger political conditions of South Africa-- "with optimism and commitment".
There's one other thing that came to mind with Cohen's statement that the piece is truly a South African work. Participation in a international art scene does not have to simply translate to star-fucking festivals, V-tape has all my admiration for programming an artwork that purposely contains the peculiarities of a specific place, and I am so glad that I saw this video because I left the screening thrilled and moved.
- L.M. 4-25-2008 6:44 am
And now I'm going to watch my recordings of this week's episodes of "Dancing With The Stars". Which means that art will never change my despicable TV viewing habits and enjoyment of all that is craptastic.
- L.M. 4-25-2008 6:50 am
Nice review, L.M.! Just to clarify, I was not distressed at seeing her body either. I thought she looked great. And, as Lisa Steele pointed out, she's in damn good shape for 84.
In the bit you quoted from me, I did not mean that Cohen was merciless because he revealed her body to us, but because some of the chores she was doing, while revealing her body, were so debasing, cleaning other people's filth. I know people who clean houses for a living, and I'm sure this kind of task is just all in a day's work, but when it's combined with the striptease and put on video then, to borrow a phrase from Anthony, Cohen is "working through the semiotics" of S.&M porn. It's one thing to play doggy to someone else's master as a matter of choice, but when the subject is really employed in that role for then it is horrifying to see the power dynamic offered as a salacious moment.
- sally mckay 4-25-2008 7:36 pm
I didn't think her body was an issue for you either.
- L.M. 4-25-2008 9:11 pm
ah. good!
- sally mckay 4-25-2008 9:24 pm