Daniel Naudé: Animal Farm

Daniel Naudé... Africanis 18. Murraysburg, 10 May 2010 (C-print). From the exhibition Daniel Naudé: Animal Farm at Michael Stevenson Gallery in Cape Town. "...Naudé began this series during a road trip from Cape Town to Mozambique in 2008. In the desert plains of the Karoo, he saw a feral Africanis dog which stared back at him for a spilt second before lurking away with its mouth foaming, its manner expressive of rebellion. The encounter led Naudé to contemplate the nature of mankind's dominion over animals, and the way in which the histories of man, animals and the landscape have become entwined and indivisible over centuries. The naturally crossbred Africanis, with a lineage extending back to ancient Egypt, seemed to Naudé to reflect our complex South African culture and identity in an inexplicable way. While taking his initial series of Africanis portraits, the quote by Franz Kafka: 'All knowledge, the totality of all questions and all answers, is contained in the dog', resonated in his mind."