STATEMENT
I grew up on the building sites that my father worked on, and in his workshop that he seldom allowed me into. He was a private man, and his seclusion captured me. He created alone. On humid summer evenings in Glen Anil, as Apartheid lumbered towards its end, my father, smoking forbidden cigarettes, would tinker, build, design, draw. Alone in his workshop. His solitude, his silence and his ability, combined to form a very strong impression, in my mind, of what an artist looked like. These early years in the suburbs, to the north west of Durban, set the stage for what would become a lifetime of decoding my creative identity. The first part of my identity solidified early on.
I longed for my adventure, a solo quest, unmatched I hoped.
For the destiny of lonely fate, dictates a single path.
And so alone I stepped aboard the bird of paradise.
I create alone.
As my father navigated life as a closet-oil-painter, of considerable talent, he told me one balmy afternoon that I would never be an artist until I could draw a cow. For the next 20 years, this equation of cow = artist, replayed itself in my mind. I built and shaped, but never drew. I was intimidated by that image of a cow that my father had presented to me as a boy. As the years passed, my father fell victim to those illicit cigarettes, and my reverence for the mantle of artist faded. I found myself building a career in the design industry, leading a variety of well paid, high profile, creative projects around the world. Production Designer, Art Director, Creative Director, Corporate Art Designer, Director, Producer, Writer. So many titles. Creative was my language, my meditation, my revenue. I was drifting. I was lost.
Through this all, I never mastered that cow. It remained a gap in my non-existent portfolio. After 20 years of designing and building, at the highest levels, documenting very little, publicising even less, I was asked to present my portfolio for a visa application. At the time I wasn’t sure I had enough material to create one. When I submitted the application, I had three unique portfolios, compiled of materials collected from friends and colleagues from around the world. I was surprised, not only by the volume of work that I had completed, but more strikingly by the fact that I still did not consider myself an artist. This mantle seemed lost to me. It was in this moment, that I knew that it was time to express myself, on my own terms, despite the cow. To investigate a solo contribution. To decode the mantle, sans cow. I began finalising designs for the Niemand Collection.
For the next five years, I bounced between South Africa and Los Angeles, working by day as a fabricator, and by night and every weekend, as an artist, a solo contributor. Late into the nights, I would hammer and weld, grind and polish. I had almost no money, and the little that I had was dedicated to completing Niemand. I lived on simple food, and slept on the workshop floor, on packing blankets, with a flask of tea and a Bluetooth speaker beside me. I slept on construction sites, in derelict buildings, on couches, in trucks and vans. I always felt wealthy with my flask and speaker beside me. They were home.
Living on the periphery of Los Angeles, I slid into the shadows of this crowded, lonely city. I had no space for community, although I longed for it. I flirted with the outsiders, the minorities, the foreigners. I flirted with the geriatric homosexuals of Mid-City, the beach bums of Santa Monica, the van-lifers of Eagle Rock, the Ethiopians of Fairfax, the vaquero of Sunland. Glancing encounters with an incredible tapestry of humanity, bottle-necked in this sprawling, smoky city. I met a few amazing people during these years, mainly foreign. They offered me their homes, hot meals, a sense of belonging. They hired me to fix fences, translate books, and tutor children. They helped drive Niemand forward. They helped drive me forward.
The arc of my solo contribution, of my expedition into the realm of the artist, despite the cow, was unpredictable, productive, fascinating, familiar. I was captivated by the process, unsure of the goal, but ultimately engaged and happy. It all felt right. And then Covid hit. In March 2020, South Africa locked down, the borders closed and I was unable to return to the US, to complete Niemand. As if in a dream, with what felt like war approaching, the course of my life was changed by a profound moment. Difficult to explain, perhaps best described as a deep sense of knowing, I’m not sure. I found myself compelled to act, to face this enemy, head on. I started feeding the hungry in South Africa, and inadvertently created a social justice movement, Ubuntu Army. With the support of around 8000 people, globally, Ubuntu Army fed hundreds of thousands of vulnerable South Africans. An ethereal, surreal experience, I let Niemand go, immersed in a new sense of deep purpose.
By October 2020, after 6 months on the frontline of desperation, and with Ubuntu Army operating as an effective, independent organisation, I decided to return to Los Angeles to complete Niemand. A gruelling and extremely challenging experience. With no design or fabrication work available, and with four key pieces of the collection incomplete, I retreated to the San Gabriel mountains, and used the little money I had left to build an off-grid cabin next to a small river. It was from this humble base that I launched the final assault on the collection. I spent 7 intense months, through a harsh winter and extremely lonely lockdown, living alone, working alone, completing the collection. A dark and exhilarating chapter, I cried often for my sons. I create alone.
As I completed Niemand, my future in the design industry shifted over a spring lunch meeting at a neighbourhood Mexican restaurant in east LA. As I stood at the crossroads, presented by that meeting, with industry sitting comfortably to the left, and independence to the right, I veered right. In that moment, the pieces in the Niemand Collection featured here, and built over the previous five years, suddenly became all that I had. Niemand was to be my revenue. But, there was something more. I silently repeated the words to myself, as I sat at my table, “all I have is my art”. I have my art. Wait a minute! My art. I had always had my art. I thought back to my three portfolios, to all the pieces I had designed and built over the years, spread around the globe, in museums, galleries, corporate headquarters, retail stores. I thought about my lack of attachment to these pieces. My lack of concern at their critique, or their press. The pieces themselves were unimportant. Niemand was irrelevant. It wasn’t the image of the cow, that mattered, it was the process of its birth. Its gestation. The cow was a myth. I had immersed myself in the process of creating, in various forms, for over 40 years. I had been a practicing artist for 40 years, who had been distracted by the mirage of a cow, an imaginary image, an illusion.
In truth, most of the pieces in the Niemand Collection, have been developed over decades, in a process of design, re-design, counter-design. Very old Ideas moving slowly towards the workshop floor. A slow gestation in line and form. Their fabrication has taken weeks, months, years. Never days. I have bled, and cried and laughed and danced in my workshop. I have apologised to my sons for my absence. Delayed by Covid, coup and flood, the birth of Niemand, on every level, is long overdue. Now that it is here, I am heading back into the cerebral world of design, re-design, counter-design. There are new pieces knocking. New materials. New environments. Working titles: Airheads, Exposure, Radiation, Arrows. I have cows to birth.
I am Clint McLean. I am an artist. I have always been one. I present the Niemand Collection. I will be presenting future collections. I may or may not build these pieces again. I hope you like my work, although to be honest it doesn’t really matter, as I am dedicated, captured, enamoured by this process of creating, by the adventure. I will continue to create, for that is all there is. I hope you buy these pieces, although that also doesn’t really matter, as I am an artist, of considerable talent, who will create and live well, regardless.
Iemand (Zavora, Mozambique 18 June 2024)
“Niemand” means “nobody” in Afrikaans.
Smothered in early abandonment, I ceased early.
No sense of my self. No sense of me, I never existed.
Niemand.
In-stead, stood compulsion, a salve for a fragmented mind.
And
In the shadow of a giant brother-cousin, the last steps out of sight were taken.
To the place where compulsion itself has no ground beneath its injury.
“Slegs Blankes” means “Whites Only” in Afrikaans.
Fragrant neighbors in the afternoon, nothing, nobody in the morning.
Go-karts in the afternoon, nothing, nobody in the morning.
Niemand.
We weren’t allowed to live next to each other.
Embossed on public benches, “Slegs Blankes” defined our separation at a furniture level.
We weren’t allowed to sit next to each other either.
How very strange.
Niemand
In the loam of this fragmented country, in the moist loam of apartheid, abandonment merged with the separation, and disconnection grew.
Strong.
To become the hammer with which the Collection was forged.
Created in the dark.
For no reason.
For every motherfucking reason.
Niemand was.
It was.
Just.
Before narrative. Before reason. The Collection stood alone.
Niemand provided shelter.
Camouflage.
Niemand provided anonymity.
The Collection belonged to nobody.
Niemand.
I could skip my self, I could skip me.
i could skip ownership.
The Collection would speak where I wouldn’t.
Niemand mitigated the risk, the getting it wrong, the abandonment, the beginning.
I could skip the beginning.
Niemand.
A justification.
From the shame of not owning up. A good excuse.
A justification.
All shapes already have owners.
All shapes.
We borrow. We bend. We alter. We own.
Yet we do not own the shapes.
Or the colours.
Or the textures.
Or the lines.
We borrow them.
We join them together.
We alter them.
Some own them, I choose not.
Nobody owns them.
Niemand.
“Ubuntu” means “I am because we are” in isiZulu.
In the loam of this fragmented country, in the moist loam of failure, heart merged with the separation, and connection grew.
Strong.
To guide the hammer with which the Collection was forged.
Ubuntu.
Created in the dark.
For many reasons.
Niemand was.
It was.
Here.
In process, an arc.
Light-er.
Perhaps a self, perhaps me.
Perhaps not.
It doesn’t matter.
The truth. Today, perhaps tomorrow.
Disconnection drove the hammer that forged the Collection.
The hammer fell. Again. And again.
115000 times, In search, the hammer fell.
Cradled by the anvil, by the heat. Cradled by the seperation.
Connection was forged.
Connection became the guide to the hammer.
Connection became my self, became me.
Iemand.
“Iemand” means “somebody” in Afrikaan