YOUNGBLACKMAN HAS THE BIGGEST BALLS IN CAPE TOWN

YOUNGBLACKMAN is a non-commercial gallery in Cape Town exhibiting everything from their own smashed window display to trashed floors to armies of tiny vaginas to blood to some dude disguised as money shaving people’s heads. They never know who they're showing next and they lose money on every single show. They've also been evicted at least four times. Despite that, they're still putting on shows and stirring up the city's almost non-existent art scene. I spoke with Matthew Blackman and Ed Young, the guys in charge, about what their gallery is all about.

Vice: How did YOUNGBLACKMAN come about? Matthew Blackman: This guy who wanted to start a project space approached us about two years ago, and we became involved in that. Then he ran away from the whole idea, mainly because of the name--he didn't want to be associated with a project called YOUNGBLACKMAN.   I like the name. Ed Young: We were quite keen on it because it’s, you know, our surnames. So then the guy left in a huff and we were left with the residue.

  I get the feeling there's quite a commercial art scene in Cape Town. That's the thing, YOUNGBLACKMAN is basically a space where artists can do what they aren't able to do in a commercial gallery.  MB: For example, Kendell Geers, who is possibly one of South Africa's most famous artists, threw bricks through our windows. It was something that he had done in 1993, and he came back for the World Cup and wanted to do a retrospective. We had several issues with the landlord after that. Once he discovered that his windows had been smashed in he wasn't particularly happy with us. EY: He just had to fucking get over it...

MB: And then, in the last show, a guy called Stuart Bird destroyed our floor. It was actually a collaboration between three artists. After Stuart jack-hammered the floor, Belinda Blignaut made these bizarre sculptural things with it using this famous South African bubblegum, and Linda Stupart had the windows crying. But that didn't go particularly well with the landlord either. I think he evicted us about four times during the night. EY: Cameron Platter’s exhibition was great too, we managed to show animated woodcut porn for about a month without anyone really worrying about it.

  I bet people are really excited about the gallery, do you get a lot of visitors? MB: I think the only way we can actually attract people to come to us is by throwing a good party, so the openings are always crowded. In Cape Town the art scene isn't very big, so the only way you can get people to come out to an event is by having free booze for a bit, and then tell people that you can go over across the road to the Kimberley Hotel... EY: For cheap booze. The Kimberley forms quite a logical counterpart to the space because it's a place where a lot of young artists, gallerists, designers, and fashion people hang out. No one likes it but everyone seems to hang out here. MB: It's one of the last traditional pubs where you can meet anybody from heroin addicts and dropouts to sort of famous artists, so it works quite well with YOUNGBLACKMAN in that I suppose that's kind of where we lie. EY: Yeah--but everyone always seems to go home with the wrong people afterward. MB: Particularly you.

  What’s next for you guys? Any big shows coming up? MB: We'd love to work with overseas artists. We've tried a couple of times, but funding out here for the arts is a difficult game. We're a profit-loss organization. We lose money on everything we do. Like everything in life it's down to the money you have in the bank which we don't have. BY JARED DAVIS