Appointment at Spaza Shop

Title: Appointment at Spaza Shop
Medium: Five colour lithograph
Paper size: 50 x 64.8 cm
Image size: 40 x 57 cm
Edition size: 35

Appointment at Spaza Shop could be a meeting up of friends, a get together to discuss business opportunities, a romantic liaison or something more sinister. The open-ended titles of the prints leave the interpretation up to the viewer, allowing us to each bring our own experiences of waiting to the work.

In these lithographs, Sam Nhlengethwa explores the topic of waiting. Most South Africans are good at being patient to beyond the limits of endurance. South Africans spend a lot of their lives in line waiting for public transport, waiting to be served at clinics, waiting to receive their pensions, waiting for water to be installed in their street, waiting at Home Affairs for documents, waiting for answers from corrupt politicians and business people. We are a nation of people who wait. "We all see people waiting and sometimes we become victims of waiting," says Nhlengethwa. In these prints, Nhlengethwa explores some aspects of the experience of waiting, South African style.

Sam Nhlengethwa Print Archive