Recently retired from Michaelis School of Fine Art, where he is a professor emeritus, Malcolm Payne is a key figure in this country's experimental and conceptual practice. Coming to prominence in the early 1970s, Payne has distinguished himself as a sculptor, printmaker and video artist. Seated in his Kalk Bay studio, surrounded by a suite of new beard paintings, Payne considers the early influence of Walter Battiss, Marcel Duchamp and musician Jeff Mpakati on his life and work. Dismissive of the way struggle art collaged stock images of violence, he also ventures a thought on how artistic practice can refashion the way we think and speak about art.

An indomitable figure in the recent history of South African art, Wayne Barker emerged during a period when the neo-expressionist idiom was at its height. Although celebrated for his mixed-media painting, his practice encompasses so much more: printmaking, installation, performance and curation, his various activities typically informed by his bawdy sense for fun and provocation. On the eve of his 25-year retrospective, Barker talks to Robert Sloon about destroying Pierneef, inventing Andrew Moletsi, opening the Famous International Gallery, interpreting the legends of South African life and why the studio remains his most important ally.