THE MAIN COMPLAINT [Nov 2018 - Feb 2019] was a self-reflexive exhibition at the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa conceived of in the institution’s inauguration. The project explored questions around the museum’s origins and possible futures, speaking to a more broad speculation about systemic failures in the functioning and form of public institutions and who they cater to or consider. This also came at a time of pronounced identity politics and ethical debates surrounding key international institutions related to their staffing, collections, and exhibition practices.

The project existed in the form of a core space with site-specific, commissioned artworks, accompanied by a sprawling series of interactive interventions, performances, workshops and off-site programming across and beyond the museum, in order to build and map a way forward through dialogue, transparency and collaboration. Museum staff collaborated on interventions reflecting on ideas of access, ownership and value. The interactive nature of the artworks fostered active participation among visitors.

The title of the exhibition is adapted from William Kentridge’s 1996 film, ‘The History of The Main Complaint’, where surgeons mine the unconscious of fictional white property magnate Soho Eckstein, as he lies in a coma in a hospital bed. The film (created 2 years into South Africa’s democracy and end to the apartheid regime), looks at white capital, power and responsibility, and through the process of Eckstein’s self-reflection, questions what progress has been made. The technique of hand-drawn scenes, continuously erased and re-drawn, was also a key conceptual reference.

Curated by Michaela Limberis