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Daily Maverick
a day ago
- Politics
- Daily Maverick
Tony Leon's new book delivers an insider's account of South African and global politics and personalities
Tony Leon's new book contains fascinating observations about previous foreign and South African leaders and their successes and failures. It also offers insider views on the negotiations to achieve the Government of National Unity. The book reads just like he would sound in a congenial conversation over dinner. We meet over coffee, just before Tony Leon goes to speak at the memorial service for his long-time friend and political colleague Douglas Gibson. At that service, Leon said of Gibson, in speaking of their party, post-1994, that: 'Reduced to just seven MPs and three senators, each of us had to juggle dozens of competing roles. His included chairman of the Federal Council, chief whip, spokesman on Justice and Transport and member of the rules committee. In navigating the revival of our party, Douglas was my essential partner and my closest collaborator, and in the snake pit of politics we forged a durable and deep friendship for which I am so deeply grateful.' His comments regarding his long-time friend's life and works highlight Leon's political trajectory as well. Even if some think Leon was too in-your-face for the politics of the new South Africa, (a political life that, to be fair, is pretty hard-knuckle) he deserves credit for helping set his party on its journey to being South Africa's official opposition, instead of being the marginal political force that it was, back in 1994. The party is now the second largest partner in the Government of National Unity, the second multiparty government since 1994 and in the first days of the country's racially integrated politics. We quickly get on to the business of speaking about his new book, Being There, and his thinking about the current and future challenges of South Africa's political and economic landscape. I remind him that we first met at a mutual friend's home over dinner in the years before the 1994 election. Back then, he was a junior parliamentarian and I was working at the US embassy, trying, like every diplomat assigned to this country, to gauge its rapidly changing political texture and what it would mean for the future. As a backbencher MP, Leon's reputation was as a new, bold — and even arrogant, for some — politician. Back then, it seemed he had crisp, definitive answers for every challenge. If he still has answers for many questions, he has also been tempered by a lifetime in politics. For those who may not remember, Leon was a member of the Progressive Party through its various iterations as it became, successively, the Progressive Federal Party, the Democratic Party and eventually the Democratic Alliance, or DA. Along the way, he may be best remembered as the face of a feisty party that once campaigned on the slogan, 'Fight Back!' For some, while that was read as a pushback against the new, all-race, democratic dispensation in South Africa, Leon would certainly have insisted, au contraire, it was a principled, succinct protest against the growing corruption, the lack of effective government administration and policing, and floundering efforts to build a strong economy and nurture job creation. But that is now old news. We have all moved on. Youngish elder Leaving Parliament, Leon served as South Africa's ambassador to Argentina — on behalf of an ANC government, nogal. More recently, he has moved away from government service and joined the corporate world. But earlier this year, the DA was poised to become a key element of the new Government of National Unity (GNU), as the ANC's faltering lock on national politics and the electorate had made one-party government impossible to maintain. His old party then called on Leon as a youngish elder to be a leading participant in the negotiations over the formation of that GNU. His description of those efforts comprises a significant portion of his new book. Leon believes the DA is becoming increasingly well-placed to position itself, in the future, as the core party of a new political landscape, as the governing party or leader of a coalition of like-minded political groups beyond the current political landscape. The first section of his book delivers insights about the lives and careers of several Middle Eastern leaders, including Yasser Arafat, Ariel Sharon and Shimon Peres (and, by contrast, the actions of the current Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Palestinian Authority leader, Mahmoud Abbas). There is also a more expansive essay on the essential nature and requisites of leadership — or the lack of it, nowadays. As Leon writes towards the end of Being There: 'In many ways, we inhabit — in the true sense — a leaderless world. Mostly, our leaders are either pedestrian placeholders or titanic ego-driven populists who use high office as an engine for self-enrichment or as an instrument of revenge against enemies, real or perceived. The Peronists in Argentina, the Zumas in South Africa, the Trumps in America and the Netanyahus in Israel — all are political grifters who set one section of society against the other. They weaponise differences and grievances, ride roughshod over rules and respect for others, and hijack public institutions for personal ends.' Leon's thoughts about populism ring about right, especially his thoughts over what he terms 'cakeism' — the appeal of would-be populist leaders and their promises that can destroy an economy. (Cue those apocryphal remarks of the queen of France about bread versus cake.) It seems entirely reasonable that such views were strengthened as he observed the glowing embers of Peronism when he was South Africa's ambassador in Argentina. Collectively, thoughts like these can easily be read as a critique of the current leaders in the Middle East. The second part of the book plays off Jesse Unruh's crisp summing up of the inevitable mix of money and politics: 'Money is the mother's milk of politics.' Unruh was a major figure in California state politics for decades, and he is on target, although there are occasionally other nutritional elements in that mix as well. (My favourite novel of politics is Robert Penn Warren's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel All the King's Men. There, Warren added the inevitability of sex as the third leg of the political triangle along with money and the temptations of power, although Leon left that third element out of his equation.) In this section, several chapters recount his fraught fundraising experiences for his party — especially since in the early days of the new dispensation, the Progressive Party/PFP/DP/DA was a minnow in a smallish pond that was also inhabited by a large shark. Another chapter includes a dissection of the public saga of Ronnie Kasrils, an approach that may have been encouraged by Kasrils' cheerleading for the Hamas militants in their 7 October 2023 attack on southern Israel. (Leon's spouse is Israeli-born born and Kasrils' language clearly infuriated Leon.) As Leon tells it, through the years of the South African liberation struggle, in exile, Kasrils had quietly been receiving a retainer from his brother-in-law, a prominent businessman in South Africa. But after Kasrils' comments on the 7 October massacre, that tap closed. Revenge, they say, is a dish best served cold, and so it has been served. Complex negotiations For many readers — those interested in the negotiations for the birthing of the GNU, and even more so, commentators and historians of South Africa's contemporary politics — Leon's detailed description of the complex negotiations between the ANC and the DA, together with some other parties leading to the formation of the GNU will be of genuine interest. Leon kept a diary throughout this entire engagement, and almost 100 pages of his book form a narrative built on those diary entries. In the future, it will be an important source for evaluations of those negotiations. Leon's recollections will be read together with those of all the others who participated in the negotiations, after they write their versions. The remaining pages of Being There include short essays on the successes and failures of FW de Klerk, Mangosuthu Buthelezi and Nelson Mandela. There is also a series of more personal reminiscences, labelled by the author as The Nostos. These include a deconstruction of the false charge that Leon's father had been responsible for sentencing the ANC operative Solomon Mahlangu to death years ago. In particular, Leon's experiences as an ambassador in Argentina during the desperate days in that country's last (so far) Peronista regime are particularly interesting, as Leon positions them as a cautionary tale of what happens when a country augers towards the ground economically and politically. Of special interest to this reader (because of his own experiences) were Leon's non-specialist but trenchant observations on Japan after visiting there. Japan has surmounted its World War 2 experience (and managed to put much of the resulting horrors aside), even as it continues to embrace many ancient traditions together with its contemporary political and economic policies designed for the benefit of a majority of its citizens. Beyond the book, our conversation also covered other topics, key among them being the current difficulties between the US and South Africa. I ask Leon who he thinks should be South Africa's ambassador to the US, or, perhaps, what kind of person should they be? Leon observes that the ambassadorial role has been diminished over the years (the recent presidents' meeting had no ambassadors present from either nation, as would usually have been the case in a meeting between two national presidents). Beyond the traditional diplomatic roles, more and more, Leon says, the job of an ambassador is to be their country's chief salesperson, instead of one of those old-style diplomats. Any new South African ambassador assigned to Washington will have a difficult policy to sell, especially given the two countries' Middle East positions. A key question now is that the Trumpian dog whistle to its Maga constituents is over DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) and, by extension, over South Africa's Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment policies. Speculating in the immediate wake of the presidential meeting, he notes that the approach of a possible equity equivalent for Starlink operations in South Africa may lead to changing the discussion. (Of course, crime is something that is always in the air in any discussions about South Africa, and it came up in that presidents' meeting as well. It was instructive, per Leon, that rebuttals about crime in that meeting came from a white South African billionaire.) We turn to the often-repeated accusation that the DA has a problem with black leaders. Leon responds that it is unfair to call every black leader's departure from DA leadership roles a failure of black leadership in the party. People leave political bodies for many reasons. However, he adds that the party needs to make it easier and more enticing for expatriated South Africans to return to the country and make real contributions. What of the DA's future? Leon says he is most interested in matters of policy rather than party management, as he is no longer an officer-holder. He believes that by being in the GNU, the DA has improved its legitimacy and prospects with many people. Its participation in the GNU has made it more 'kosher,' so to speak, and it may well gain further traction. He thinks that if the DA can maintain this trend, it will grow even as the ANC continues to make further reversals in support. The key question, of course, is how he views South Africa's future. Leon argues that most countries, except for places like Afghanistan or Sudan, don't explode or disintegrate. He acknowledges that there still is a lot of ruin in South Africa, but citizen action is stepping forward wherever it can. Taken as a whole, Leon seems cautiously optimistic about the country's future prospects, regardless of its current problems and its challenges. DM
The Citizen
26-05-2025
- Politics
- The Citizen
Man of influence still a player?
Being There reads like a backstage pass to the past 30 years or so of SA politics. Few politicians have had the kind of influence and staying power Tony Leon, 68, has. He's been there, done that and got the T-shirt more than once. He also notched up a few firsts; most notably helping bury the National Party and turning a small party into the official opposition. None of them small feats. While Leon has not held public office in years, when politicians need to call a friend, they call him. Leon back in politics Last year, he found himself back in the thick of things. The DA asked him to help with the negotiations that led to the formation of the government of national unity. It was a high-stakes moment in South Africa's political history – one that required experience, institutional memory and calmness under pressure. 'You're making big decisions with imperfect information and not enough time,' Leon said. 'There was propaganda coming from all sides and we weren't even sure a deal was possible. But the alternative to a bad deal would have been disastrous.' ALSO READ: ANC 'outsmarted' in GNU, says analyst To be back in the game was never the plan Although he never planned on returning to the fray, he understood the gravity of the situation, he said. 'This wasn't a choice between good and bad. It was between a mediocre deal and a catastrophic alternative. 'If things had gone the other way, the economy would have taken an irreparable hit.' Leon kept a detailed diary throughout the process, something he had not done before. 'Not just fragments or scraps. I wrote everything down this time,' he said. New Book It's all captured in Being There, his new book which reads like a backstage pass to the past 30 years or so of South African politics. Leon's role in shaping the DA and, by extension, the country's political environment, stretches back to a different era. When he was 18 years old, he was already actively involved as an organiser for the Progressive Party just before he studied law at Wits University. Leon's political career started pre-1994, when he was elected to represent Bellevue in Joburg as a councillor. The Progressives at that time became the Progressive Federal Party – PFP. It was, as he described it, a time when being persistent about service delivery and getting things done could yield results. 'I was attentive and I was probably a bit of a pain to the municipal officials. But if you wrote to them, they responded. Problems got sorted out,' he said. ALSO READ: SA politics is not for sissies First parliamentary seat He went on to win his first parliamentary seat in 1989, for Houghton by a margin of just 39 votes. 'Had I lost, I would probably have stayed in law. I might have been richer, but I would not have had the same depth of experience.' Eventually the PFP became the Democratic Party (DP) when the Independent Party and the National Democratic Movement joined hands under then leader Zach de Beer Before Leon assumed the leadership role at the DP, he was actively involved in shaping South Africa's democracy at the multiparty Convention for a Democratic South Africa negotiations before the 1994 elections. Leon led the Democratic Party As Nelson Mandela became president, Leon led the Democratic Party into a new era, most notably at first through the Fight Back campaign of 1999, a slogan that became shorthand for his brand of combative, unapologetic opposition politics. Under his watch, the DP rocketed from a marginal voice in parliament to the official opposition. Then, 14 months or so later. the DP consumed the remnants of the National Party and became the DA. 'It was hard, hard graft,' he said. 'We worked very hard and often for very mediocre or suboptimal rewards. But you do what you've got to do.' ALSO READ: Maimane slams Tony Leon for calling him 'an experiment that went wrong Leaving politics After leading the DA for seven years, he stepped down in 2007, leaving active politics at 50. 'I had done everything I could do. I wasn't going to hang around until I got pushed. Knowing when to leave is a very underrated political skill.' He said politicians often have large egos, but there are checks and balances. 'Every politician's a narcissist. Some more than others. I'm not immune, but if you're in it just for the press coverage or a job title, your career won't last.' For Leon, looking back, the formation of the DA was one of the most consequential moves of his career. 'We took a splintered opposition and turned it into something that could actually hold the government to account,' he said. 'It wasn't perfect but without it, we'd have a very different country, that would be all the poorer for it, today.' What happened after politics? After politics, he became South Africa's ambassador to Argentina, cofounded the communications firm Resolve, and started writing columns for news organisations and books. He also picked up a regular side gig lecturing on cruise ships. 'You don't make money from it, but you get to see incredible places. I've been from the Antarctic to New Zealand,' he said. He reads voraciously, walks his dogs daily and tries to stay active. 'My wife gave me a cushion once with a picture of our dachshund and the words, 'Be the person your dog thinks you are'. It's the most honest standard to live by.' Golf is off the table these days. 'I was hopeless,' he said. NOW READ: WATCH: 'The president appoints ambassadors,' says Ramaphosa
Eyewitness News
12-05-2025
- Politics
- Eyewitness News
Leon believes the tensions between the DA & ANC in the GNU will benefit both parties in some form
CAPE TOWN - Former Democratic Alliance (DA) leader, Tony Leon, believes however the tensions between the African National Congress (ANC) and the DA play out in the Government of National Unity (GNU), it will have benefited both parties in one way or another. Speaking to the Cape Town Press Club on Monday about his sixth book, titled Being There , Leon believes an "anti-DA" sentiment can have political mileage for both parties as they head to their respective elective conferences. Leon, who was one of the DA's GNU negotiators, said it was part of healthy political debate for both parties to have disagreements over the DA's presence within the GNU. While Leon doesn't believe the GNU has yet made any notable achievements in turning the country's misfortunes around, he said praise was due for keeping the partnership together, considering the battles it's already faced. "I think that in itself shows a degree of maturity on both sides, because they are both relatively big parties, who have differences of opinion, and to still have maintained the government is an achievement." He predicted two upcoming stress points for the two major parties, the next local government elections and the ANC's 2027 leadership contest. "I think if someone like Paul Mashatile is elected as the president of the ANC, which must have some prospect, I would be surprised if the GNU lasts to 2029." Leon said that even within the DA itself, where the party is not unanimous on whether the GNU has been a sage political move, there should be ongoing descensus and debate over whether it should stay, go, or renegotiate its terms.
New European
29-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New European
Jerzy Kosiński, the writer whose last act was to plagiarise himself
Chance the Gardener, aka Chauncey Gardiner, was the naif whose love of horticulture and television spirited him to the White House in Kosiński's latest novel Being There, which in the summer of 1971 had just become a New York Times bestseller. 'So I rang,' recalled Kosiński, 'and Peter Sellers answered'. Jerzy Kosiński had never received fan mail like it. The telegram contained six words ('Available my garden or outside it') and a telephone number. The sender was listed as C Gardiner, who Kosiński knew quite well because he had created him. And so the strangeness began. 'Peter said that I had invaded his life,' Kosiński said. 'For the next seven and a half years, Peter Sellers became Chauncey Gardiner. The name on his calling card was Chauncey Gardiner, the name on his stationery was Chauncey Gardiner. 'I thought he was joking – here was an actor going after a novelist to try to get a movie made of a novel he liked. Then, one day, he stopped by my house and said: 'You don't understand. I AM Chauncey Gardiner!'' What Peter Sellers certainly wasn't in the early 1970s was a movie star big enough to get a film of Being There off the ground. There was some irony in the fact that, to play one moron, the actor was obliged to re-embrace another, Inspector Clouseau. A string of smash-hit Pink Panther sequels made Sellers bankable again by the decade's end. And all the while, the dialogue with Jerzy Kosiński continued, much to the author's consternation. 'Peter was a simplified man, almost a reductive man. No one knew anything about him. People assumed he was a brilliant actor who was also an intellectual. Well, he was a brilliant actor but he was extremely reductive.' Then, as Hal Ashby bellowed 'action!' on the first day of filming, the truth dawned on Jerzy Kosiński. 'During the shooting of Being There, Peter Sellers – for the first time in his life – became himself. Being There was his spiritual portrait. For once, he did not have to pretend.' By the time Being There reached cinemas – to decent box-office and considerable acclaim – Jerzy Kosiński had been 'married' to Peter Sellers for almost eight years. As relationships go, it was longer than all but the first of the actor's marriages. And like those unions, it ended in acrimony, with Kosiński forced to fight for a screen credit and the former Goon furious that the writer spilled the beans about his recent facelift. A fractured relationship, a credit dispute, a wealth of lies and insults, but a beautiful end result – for all Peter Sellers might have insisted that Being There was a commentary on his life, it's impossible to ignore the frightening resemblance between the making of the movie and the life of Jerzy Kosiński… He was born Józef Lewinkopf in Łódź in 1933, adopting the name under which he'd become famous while living in rural Poland and posing as a Catholic while his parents prayed the townsfolk wouldn't dob them in to the Nazis. Kosiński's undeniably fraught childhood was the inspiration for his breakthrough novel, The Painted Bird (1965), in which the six-year-old protagonist is witness to and victim of acts of unspeakable cruelty. It brought him huge fame (he already had fortune, thanks to his marriage to socialite heiress Mary Hayward Weir). But the reality of his childhood was not quite as traumatic as the novel suggested, and the film's release brought the first wave of allegations against the writer. These would grow and come to encompass claims that he had fabricated a sponsorship to get a US visa (true), that his works had been written by someone else (false, but Kosiński did work with uncredited editors), that The Painted Bird had been written by Kosiński in Polish and then translated by another anonymous collaborator (true), that it and Being There had lifted some plot points from obscure Polish novels (possible), that his earlier non-fiction works had been sponsored by the CIA (false) and that he had lied about a near-miss with Charles Manson's Family at Sharon Tate's house (Kosiński had been invited, but was mistaken about the night when the murders took place). The writer and his supporters claimed that, whatever white lies or co-opted stories might be contained within The Painted Bird, the novel as a whole deals with a truth as immense as it is incomprehensible. They have a point, and so did the reviewer of a biography of Kosiński who wrote: 'Nice people who don't tell lies are not likely to write great novels… The pain of using more directly the material he really knew may have been too great for him to bear.' What is also undeniable is that however his works might have been assembled and whatever dissembling he did when talking about his life, Jerzy Kosiński was a master storyteller. He was also a celebrity who relished his status, and his friendships with the likes of George Harrison, Henry Kissinger, Tony Bennett and Warren Beatty, who cast him as the Stalinist Grigory Zinoviev in Reds. His fame was fuelled by a willingness to go on The Tonight Show or David Letterman to discuss his work, or his loathing for Poland's communist regime, or talk about his other enthusiasms – among them polo, alpine skiing, photography and sadomasochism. 'I like to watch' – it's a line that crops up almost as often in Being There as it does in Jerzy's interviews. He was a regular visitor to the sex clubs of Manhattan, though Kosiński's second wife Kiki was always quick to point out that he did so with her blessing. In fact, she described one of Kosiński's 'companions' – 'Cynthia' – as 'wonderful'. 'I really go there to write,' he told a baffled David Letterman, who promptly asked him where he kept his pencil. These kinds of exchanges kept Kosiński in the spotlight, which made it easier for his opponents – including the Polish government and fellow travellers – to hand out the rocks to be thrown at him. One gets the impression Kosiński threw himself at life to avoid being pinned down or being overwhelmed by the events of his past. Little wonder too that he became exhausted. With his health, his reputation, even sexual appetite slipping from his grasp, it's tempting to suggest that his suicide in May 1991 as an act of submission in the face of diminishing returns. As the note he addressed to Kiki demonstrates all too clearly, Jerzy Kosiński's gift for writing remained with him until his last breath: 'Kiki… you are the prime victim of my decrepitude and you are the very last person I would want to hurt now or ever… Embrace our friends and remember that, no matter what ever crossed your mind at times, you and only you mattered as much to me as did my life.' That line – that last line – bears a close resemblance to words Kosiński wrote in Being There. A man who had to face down various accusations of plagiarism, his last act was to plagiarise himself – a final two-fingered salute to a world that never understood how Jerzy Kosiński understood the world.
Japan Times
17-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Japan Times
Kyotographie 2025 opts for laughter and levity in the face of global strife
In staid and overstuffed Kyoto, every year documentarians come bearing news from beyond the old Japanese capital. This year, despite a grim global outlook, they've brought mostly cheerful tidings. Kyotographie, the annual month-long international photography festival now in its 13th edition, opened April 12 under the theme 'Humanity.' Artists from Japan, the U.K., Cote d'Ivoire, Taiwan, Mexico and India, among others, interpreted the brief with a surprising amount of humor and lightness, perhaps as a response to what has seemed like an endless march of darkness over the past few years. Celebrated 73-year-old British photographer Martin Parr brought his satirical eye to sakura (cherry blossom) season in Kyoto, arriving the weekend before the festival opened to document the peak. 'There's a sort of fever that crosses the city when cherry blossoms are at their best,' he says. With images such as "Athens, Acropolis, Greece," British photographer Martin Parr brings his satirical eye to the waste and excess of overtourism. | © Martin Parr / Magnum Photos The result is hardly the sakura photos that fill our Instagram feeds this time of year. Parr is known for his deeply unflattering photos of tourists and crowds of people caught in moments of absurdity, shots that can range from cheeky to searing. In the Time's building he screens a slideshow of 140 photos of hoards viewing pale pink petals through the screens of their gripped phones. Set to relentless, goofy recorder music, what feels light and funny in the beginning soon becomes uncomfortable and even nauseating, the sight of tourists clutching their dogs in froufrou outfits, plastic charms clacking against long acrylic nails. Parr brings out the waste and excess of overtourism in the city as part of a larger body of work that began in the late 1980s. For anyone who's been through cherry blossom season in Japan, there is only one appropriate response to Parr's Kyoto shots: 'Too real.' As a chronicler of humanity, I wonder, does Parr have any hope for our species? 'Not particularly,' says the photographer. 'It's all a bit grim — wars, climate change, floods, fires — it's a bit depressing. But one has to remain upbeat.' Tourism is a great escape, for example, he says, but the scale of our hunger for experience drains Earth's resources. 'It's all our fault because we've all got too much money.' Senegalese photographer Omar Victor Diop slips his figure into 1950s archival photos in 'Being There,' a collaboration with Lee Shulman, founder of the archival Anonymous Project. | © Lee Shulman & Omar Victor Diop In fact, many of the artists showing at the festival this year laugh their way to or out of discomfort. Lee Shulman, founder of the archival Anonymous Project, and Senegalese photographer Omar Victor Diop collaborate on 'Being There' at Shimadai Gallery Kyoto East. Diop slyly slips his figure into 1950s archival photos showing very white middle class Americans smiling at dinner parties and on cruise ships, just another member of the family; the seamlessness of his entry amuses and unnerves. It's immediately recognizable: This is fiction. This complements real photographs of 1970s Okinawa, from Mao Ishikawa's debut 'Red Flower' series, at Kondaya Genbei Chikuin-noma. Ishikawa, born in 1953, still works and resides in Okinawa and is outspoken about her contempt for mainland Japan given the relationship between the former kingdom and the government. The artist doesn't aim to be a documentarian or to make political work, says Taro Amano, who curated a large-scale show of her photos at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery in 2023. But the fact is, her nonjudgmental depictions in black and white of life in postwar Okinawa are deeply political. The photos heavily feature women who worked at a bar that exclusively served Black American soldiers stationed on the island, often joyful and wild, at a time when tensions between the United States and Japan were high. Mao Ishikawa's debut 'Red Flower' series portraying life in postwar Okinawa is subversive through its honest intimacy. | © Mao Ishikawa Rather than pointed satire, Ishikawa's photos are subversive through their honest intimacy. After all, photographs are not screenshots of reality but active and considered choices. As critic John Berger once wrote of the role of the photographer, 'I have decided that seeing this is worth recording.' Drama and irony blend in Graciela Iturbide's expansive retrospective exhibit at Kyoto City Museum of Art Annex, the 82-year-old Mexican photographer's first major show in Japan. 'Death is something very particular in Mexico. The way that it's played with, the sense of humor, at the same time can be very sarcastic, as Graciela shows in her photos,' says the exhibit's curator, Elena Navarro. This playful morbidity is crystallized in a work from 1992: In response to a commission from French newspaper Liberation for an issue on interpretations of happiness, Iturbide sent a photo of a child in western Oaxaca grinning over the corpse of a goat, which had been killed in a ritual sacrifice. JR poses in front of his newly unveiled mural of 500 locals at Kyoto Station for Kyotographie's 13th edition. | Thu-Huong Ha Although one pleasure of Kyotographie is that there's often something for everyone, there are a few misses. At Pushpamala N.'s exhibition at the Museum of Kyoto Annex, the artist's multilayered, highly referential performance work demands too much prior knowledge and feels out of step with the rest of the festival. Which is a shame, as her criticism of India's nation state and orientalist art tropes would clearly illuminate in the right context or for the right audience. A mural at Kyoto Station and its related exhibit at the Kyoto Shimbun Building by bonafide anonymous celebrity JR, though highly contextualized in place, feels overly slick and superficial. Though the portraits he took of 500 locals in various states, expressions and professions, the painstaking work by his team of 10 to 12 people, is surely a crowd-pleaser, the depth of care and intimacy taken with each participant is lost in the flat and crowded mural. Keijiro Kai's "Clothed in Sunny Finery" shows men taking part in a "kenka matsuri" (fight festivals) in Okayama. | © Keijiro Kai On the more earnest end of the spectrum are human-focused works by Keijiro Kai at Karuchiku Makura and Taiwanese artist Liu Hsing-Yu at Gallery Sugata. Kai, who shoots kenka matsuri (fight festivals), shows men in various rituals of, well, manliness. The still images of bodies in formation, which lack the sound of Kai's videos, make sporting events look like war or disaster zones. Fear, stress and exhilaration are scrawled across the faces of men, bringing out a raw and moving animalism that's nonetheless very human. Liu, who won the KG+ Select award in 2024 for promising photographers, shows images of his mother and father swapping gender roles, a project the family worked on together as part of his journey as an artist and in his own coming out. His drily expressionless parents make for poignant subjects. The exhibit that feels most urgent in its portrayal of humanity is by Palestinian American photographer Adam Rouhana. Photographs and acrylic screens replacing shoji in Hachiku-an show the artist's version of Palestine, which is soft, green and full of life and water, not the piles of rubble and mutilated bodies that now flood our feeds. Rouhana began this work in 2022, before the Oct. 7, 2023, start of the latest war between Israel and Hamas, and, more than resilience or resistance, they show simple, quiet life: kids playing in water, a rich field of wheat, a boy going to town on a watermelon. His work is perhaps best understood not as a hopeful tonic to grim war footage of Gaza but as a 'post-apartheid imaginary,' as he puts it, a response to 20th-century photographers who he believes have played a crucial role in romanticizing and perpetuating Zionist settler colonialism through their images. 'Somehow the liveability of Palestinians, the fact that we are still alive in the face of a genocidal regime of death, is extremely powerful,' says Rouhana. 'And so focusing on life is my approach.' Kyotographie runs until May 11 at various venues around Kyoto. For more information, visit . Transportation and accommodation for the Kyotographie press tour were provided by Kyotographie International Photography Festival.
