Archive: Issue No. 33, May 2000

Brett Murray and his new work Photo credit: Andrew Ingram
Courtesy of The Argus

Click here to view the Quicktime movie of the event (2.2MB)

Brett Murray's Africa
by Sue Williamson

Rain threatened as Cape Town tourism head Sheryl Ozinsky 'unveiled' Brett Murray's sculpture Africa on St George's Mall in the city centre. As all Africans know, rain on an important occasion is auspicious, a sign of the approval of the gods, and so it seemed last Friday. A large crowd was on hand to applaud this new addition to the urban landscape, there was no sign of the threatened protesters, and the 'unsettled patina' on the bronze surface of the sculpture which had driven the artist almost crazy in the days leading up to the unveiling had finally been brought under control.

That the sculpture reached its final destination at all was a minor miracle. Readers tracking back through the archives of ArtThrob will discover that certain elements within the Cape Town City Council had done everything possible to prevent the prize-winning sculpture going ahead on the grounds that Murray's use of an African fetish figure might offend the religious sensibilities of West African communities. A lawyer engaged by the J.K. Gross Trust, the Cape Town Urban Arts Foundation and the AVA, initiators and managers of the project managed to fight this one off, pointing out that the little wooden figure Murray was using as a resource was tourist art, and getting affidavits from respected academics to say that the intended piece could not be construed as in any way offensive.

Erupting from the smooth bronze limbs and heads of Africa, are stylized heads of American cartoon anti-hero Bart Simpson, enameled bright yellow, and giving rise to any number of speculations as to the exact meaning of the sculpture. "The mixed message will provoke and stimulate." said Ozinsky in her launch speech. "What it isn't, is wallpaper. It will never fade into the background." She went on to laud Cape Town for being the first South African city to adopt an outstanding piece of contemporary art as a public monument.

Brett Murray
Shack as Metaphor

Brett Murray
Dance routine of the white male psyche

Brett Murray
Protect and Serve

Brett Murray at Brendon Bell-Roberts
by Sue Williamson

Should Brett Murray be a) sent to re-education camp to have beaten out of him the impulse to make art that treads hard on the sensitive toes of the politically correct or b) lauded for his irreverent attempts to deconstruct the careful endeavours of various players like manufacturers, fellow artists and foreign curators to change old patterns and negotiate the shark infested waters of the new South Africa?

Item: Two identical metal cartoons rendered in Tintin style show an African chief facing a pith-helmeted white man. Caption 1: (Chief talking): "If another white artist brings me a portfolio of guilt, crisis of identity and memory, I'm going to throw up." Caption 2: ( Pith helmet talking): " If your work romanticises poverty or uses the shack as metaphor, you'll be on my next show in London." Item: Three boxes of Ouma rusks. An examination of the logo shows that the white-haired apple-cheeked aproned cook one seems to recall from yesteryear has now metamorphised into a cook more representative of the current demographic breakdown of the country. Three incised plastic markers next to the boxes ask the question: "Mommy, why is Ouma getting browner?" Three different responses are given: "Economics, dear". "Politics, darling". "African renaissance, skattie." Item: Spiky haired juvenile anti-hero, Bart Simpson, appears with a perky erection apparently brought on by his love affair with Africa and its crazinesses in various situations. In one grouping, plaques below Bart read "Identity" "Guilt" and "Memory". My own favourite is an endearing nod to the blackboard lines Bart writes at the opening of every episode. Five sentences below one another, read: "Imust learn to speak Xhosa".

On opening night, a group of visitors who claimed to be from the American embassy cornered Murray, and in an exchange which left the artist shaken, accused him of racism, and told him that his work was unacceptable. This was followed by a threat to demonstrate at the unveiling of his public sculpture next Friday (see listings) . The embassy later averred that no staff members had attended the opening. Those anxious to blast Murray for his abrasiveness might note that Murray works in a spirit of irony, and is quite prepared to subject himself to his own inquiries. The piece Murray showed on the 1997 Robben Island show, 'Thirty Minutes' was called The Rivonia Years1960-1990: Guilt and Innocence. In this piece, Murray showed photographs from his family album, by implication contrasting his own white suburban upbringing with the experience of those incarcerated on the Island. One might also recall here the response of Nelson Mandela to Jonathon Shapiro when the cartoonist apologised for any offence he might have caused with his depictions of the then-president. "That's your job, Zapiro", Mandela replied, laughing, "That's your job."

Bold, witty, immaculately crafted, operating on a number of levels, Murray's work is an indispensable and important part of the South African art scene. In the brand new Brendon Bell Roberts Gallery, an extremely handsome ground floor space in upper Loop Street, the work is seen to fine advantage, and Johannesburg viewers will be next in line for Murray's bracing cultural cocktail when the work moves to the Goodman Gallery next month.

Ends June 5.

Brendon Bell-Roberts Fine Art Gallery, 199 Loop Street, Cape Town

Godfrey Setti at the AVA
by Sue Williamson

In a first solo show in Cape Town, the Zambian-born Godfrey Setti, currently completing his Masters degree in Fine Art at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, is showing a series of oils. The palate Setti uses seems almost northern - there is a soft creaminess to his colours - but the terrain mapped out is familiar: the hustle and bustle of township life as it eddies to and fro from busstop to market to taxi rank. With the exception of a painting of two cycle riders on a country road (and even here a bus is appearing around a distant corner), Setti's paintings are thronged with people busy about their daily life. What lifts Setti's work above the usual portrayals of such scenes is his careful observation of his hurrying subjects and the dynamic composition of his work, so the eye is led from one point of the canvas to another. This compositional skill is not infallible: one of the weaker paintings features a group around the edge of a pond, a hestitantly painted white man seated akwardly amongst them. But on the whole, Setti's work displays a high degree of charm and a pleasing energy. His work is represented in many public and private art collections in Lusaka and abroad, and potential viewers should not be put off by the totally uninspiring detail in dull grey of the invitation card.

The exhibition closes at noon on Saturday, 27 May 2000.

Andile Thsongolo and Patrick Madzinga Boxing match
Click here to download Quicktime movie (1.8MB)

Breakdancers organised by Black Noise
Click here to download Quicktime movie (904K)

Makunda Michael Dewil
'Happymeal' - Installation
Click here to download Quicktime movie (1MB)

'Soft Serve II' dishes it up at the National Gallery
by Sue Williamson

Art may never have been more fun than it was at the South African National Gallery on Friday night May 5 at the second edition of the Public Eye organised event, 'Soft Serve'. More than 3 000 visitors of all ages and from every section of the city participated, with hundreds waiting patiently outside the doors to get in, watching the youngest patrons twirling ecstatically on a wildly inventive merry-go-round made by the Oude Molen Malpitte at the foot of the gallery steps.

In what is surely a world first for an art museum, two of the boxers listed in the world's top twenty in their weight division, Andile Thsongolo and Patrick Madzinga powerfully and gracefully slugged it out in a professional ring set up in the centre of the atrium, conflating art and sport, and giving new meaning to the phrase 'exhibition fight'. Situated in the setting of the gallery, the event generated a hot current of excitement, though not everyone was equally enthralled. 'So sport has triumphed again', said one woman viewer, caustically. An early plan to invite members of the audience to enter the ring was abandoned in the face of the horrid prospect of bloodied noses. Post fight, the boxing ring assumed a new function as dance floor for the boogeying masses.

In the Lieberman room, performers Melody Budd and Carla Grauls, painted, powdered and crinolined as 'French revolutionaries', stood stiff as jointed dolls, allowing viewers to manipulate and direct their movements, to the endless delight of the score of children who attended. These mannered movements were followed by breakdancing demonstrations organised by the rap group Black Noise.

Somewhat outside the 'Art at Play' theme of the evening, Mukunda Michael Dewil, a vegetarian and Hare Krishna monk, presented his trenchant comment on carnivores - a Hirstian cows head submerged in an open tank of water had the familiar smile logo of a hamburger chain screened on the side - and carried the title of Happy Meal. McDonald's were in fact one of the sponsors, and initially were incensed at this use of copyrighted logos. According to a story on the front page of the Metro section of the Sunday Times, legal action was threatened . In a diplomatic intervention, organiser Robert Weinek pointed out that that kind of defensive reaction was going to be counterproductive. Reactions from viewers to the head, slowly turning the water a cloudy pink, ranged from amused to revolted.

Room after room was filled with ingenious interactive performance pieces, but certainly one of the star attractions was the hairdressing salon in the front gallery, where for R15 one could get a vodka and a haircut from two professional hairdressers or artists Veronique Malherbe and Mara Verna. Malherbe seemed to be specialising in the nibbled look, while Verna made tonsorial sculptures. In a link to Red Eye Art at the Durban Art Gallery, cell phone numbers on the gallery walls in both cities gave diallers a choice of seven aural artworks to listen to.

The whole event was organised by Public Eye co-ordinator Weinek, with curation by Zayd Minty and p.m.inc-ers Heath Nash and Colin Payne. Sponsors included the National Art Council, Teljoy, Pennypinchers, the Scanshop and Lucky Strike, to mention only a few. Did Soft Serve 11 fulfil its purpose of providing an excellent art-slanted evening to an audience who in many cases were strangers to the gallery? On that count, one would say yes, definitely. Were all the artworks and performances given proper attention by viewers? Maybe not, but are they ever?

Soft Serve 111, with new curators and a different theme is pencilled in for November.

Jo O'Connor
Installation view

Jo O'Connor
Installation (detail)

Jo O'Connor at The Mark Coetzee Fine Art Cabinet
by Paul Edmunds

It has been said that, as a sculptor, one is either a "modeller" or a "carver". The modeller, in manipulating a raw material gives it form and guides it toward a certain interpretation. The carver, by contrast, takes a raw material and reducing it, reveals what was always inside. A similar dichotomy exists in Jo O'Connor's show 'Muscle', both in terms of its formal rendering and the ideas which she explores. O'Connor uses the mouth and the tongue to continue her investigation into ingestion, nourishment and expression.

The show occupies both of Coetzee's spaces. The larger part consists of a square inscribed on the floor in blackboard paint over which are strewn hundreds of tongue-like objects. Some also hang from the ceiling. In the smaller cabinet space, O'Connor has framed series of pale impressions on small squares of paper held in deeply recessed frames.

The sight of the tongue-like objects scattered across the floor brings to mind as much a scene of fallen petals as Antony Gormley's Field. Made of diverse materials, such as clay, soap, dough and fur, the objects contrast in pose, texture and tone but are for the large part coloured a reddish hue. Apparently ripped from mouths, or at least without the company of their host, some lash out, some roll lasciviously and others recline limply. The public showing of something which is so private and particular is immediately startling. Looking at them longer one starts attaching meaning to their gestures and responds intuitively to their materiality. My eyes soon picked out a number which were carved from soap. Their colour was saturated and their surface was vigorous and tactile. By contrast, the clay objects, which formed the majority, seemed formally unresolved, they didn't have the feeling of muscle inside them and their surfaces seemed tired, even flaccid. Although the poses of the soap tongues were less gestural, they seemed more self-possessed and a viewer's sensual response to their material - foul tasting, yet ironically used to clean oneself - was more powerful than the clay which seemed laboured. Also, the introduction of colour foreign to the clay, or dough in some cases, seemed to assault its very nature.

The prints which O'Connor exhibited in the other space are, I believe, the stronger part of the show. Made by pressing her flour coated mouth onto pieces of paper, they are more elusive, evocative and startlingly beautiful. The impressions left by her mouth as she apparently made various sounds or actions are often difficult to see, often being tonally similar to the ground on which they were made. Insistant (sic) Phrasing shows a series of impressions on a light fleshy coloured paper. We can only guess at what the phrase may be, and this is frustrated further by the glass which distances us more from the event. It seems that, literally, what is left unspoken is what is most powerful. Syllable presents us with a similar problem and the title suggests that even the gesture behind this work is only meaningful as part of a larger whole. The space and lightness which O'Connor leaves around the work renders it rich and fertile for interpretation. It is almost as if the "carving" is incomplete, even as she has partially revealed what is there, and the audience will inevitably complete the act.

The tongue and mouth, site of sensual and verbal experience, is explored as the interface between the personal and the public. The images in O'Connor's vocabulary are rich in metaphor and also invite a very direct, sensual interpretation. This use of a very "real" organ, literally of flesh and bone, to explore complex personal and sociological issues is brave and original. Where it is light, spacious and non-specific, where O'Connor holds back and her acts and materials speak for themselves, it is successful and refreshing. Where she imposes her hand a little heavily and perhaps doesn't quite master her craft, the work lets itself down. Like carving, it is in processes of reduction and revelation, to various degrees, that the work reveals itself best and this is where O'Connor renders the viewer complicit most effectively.

Show closes May 13

Mark Coetzee Fine Art Cabinet, 120 Bree Street, Cape Town

Phillipa Duncan
Showing in the Long Gallery at the AVA

Phillipa Duncan, Christopher Slack and Michael Chitter
by Sue Williamson

Three artists are currently taking up the exhibition space at the AVA: Phillippa Duncan, Christopher Slack and Michael Chitter. It is Chitter's and Duncan's first solo show, and Slack's second. Christopher Slack tackles the un-subtle language of mass media and the "arrogance of Western consumer culture". Utilising ads torn from old magazines and painted images taken from the media collaged with expressive passages of clashing dripped and whorled paint in primary colours, Slack attempts to give us his perception of the barrage of mixed messages through which we must form our world view. Some are moderately successful. Others come off looking like Robert Rauschenberg rejects from the early 60's, when this kind of put-it-all-down approach looked quite fresh. It no longer does.

Phillippa Duncan 'working in an alchemical manner' lithos scripts from the pages of thinkers from the previous millennium onto sheets of paper, tints her paper to shades of brown, waxes the paper to the consistency of oil cloth, embroiders into it, stitches down photocopied images like little books. At the end of it all, although Duncan has produced a number of attractive sheets, the work seems to veer towards the kind of surface that would look great used as the basis for a book cover design, but somehow insubstantial over the long haul. The processes through which the artist has worked have simply ended as a collage, and do not provide a new point of departure.

Michael Chitter concentrates his efforts on the phrases 'Rainbow Nation' and 'Melting Pot', trying with frantic and clumsy brushwork to wring new import from these tired and clicheed phrases. He does not succeed.

AVA, 35 Church Street, Cape Town

Robert Hodgins
Blazer 2000
Oil on canvas
91x122cm

Robert Hodgins
The Orator 1998
Oil on canvas
155x61x17cm

Robert Hodgins
Punchbag 1999/2000
Oil and collage on canvas
91x122cm

Robert Hodgins
Three men waiting 1998/99
Oil on canvas
91x122cm

A Sumptuous Feast: Robert Hodgins at the Goodman
by Kathryn Smith

Goodman Gallery owner Linda Givon describes Robert Hodgins as her "superstar matinee idol". This is his sixth solo show at her gallery. And Hodgins has just turned 80.

This last detail has engendered him some new fans, who have been a little slow on the uptake in discovering our greatest contemporary painter. But, it is certainly better late than never. And if this is your first taste of Hodgins, what a taste it is. If you are a returning fan, you'll discover that not only does he maintain his mastery of colour and wit, his scope of production has grown to include several brave 'sculptural' paintings, aspects of which intrude from the walls. Successful to greater and lesser degrees, in one case he includes objects forming an interactive still life with the image portrayed behind them. Off to the Charity Ball is a firm favourite, with its livid pastels against bright white, the skulking figures throwing dark, tactile shadows onto the projecting shelf below.

You could say that the razor-sharp twinkle of perception in his eyes has gained an extra edge. Although Hodgins has admitted in the past to "paint guiltily" from the darker realms of our desperately progressive yet maimed society, the paradoxical moments in this exhibition of good-natured sarcasm and ironic self-criticality are the ones that stay with you. A favourite Hodgins maxim is "If you've got it, flash it", and in a painting with this title sits a hulking mass of a figure in an orange and brown pin strip suit set against a pink and green pinstriped wall, with an amorphous, liquid-wash head.

This 'bleeding' wash technique carries through most of the works on this show, the most iconic of which are probably Woman at a Goodman Gallery Opening, and Please�no pictures. In the former, Hodgins collages reproductions of his own works onto the yellow walls of the painting's interior space, to be stared at by a huge pink blob of a woman, martini glass in hand. The latter resonates with equal amounts of wry self-reflexivity and acknowledgement of issues concerning representation and cults of personality. In a blue-washed industrial space, a top-heavy man in a black suit holds out a fleshy pink hand, palm facing viewer. A yellow room-within-a-room to the left offers a potential escape route.

'Hodgins-humour' is certainly not light and fluffy. Four figures for a Sistine, submitted for last year's FNB Vita Art Prize, makes a welcome reappearance. The murky threats implicit in such prison-like interiors recur throughout other works, indicated by stark spaces and a grid-motif. And there's no holding back in Punchbag, where two semi-naked figures face the viewer, collage-dissected (black) faces staring back from below a looming black mass.

Hodgins at 80 is irrepressible and indomitable. The exhibition is a feast of eye (and soul) candy, a lush banquet of colour, depth and intensity. The fact that Hodgins loves to cook gives the Epicurean metaphors an added nuance. And the gallery responded to this obvious invitation by hosting a real banquet in his honour on the eve of the show, complete with red velvet tablecloths and silver candelabras. To entrench the importance of this epic birthday, the Goodman staff produced an extraordinary catalogue for him. Special not only because it documents almost the entire show in full colour, but also because instead of 'art speak' essays, friends of the artist have contributed anecdotes in the form of personal tributes that echo the sentiments of all who know him.

But it is Norman Catherine's reworking (with apologies to the author) of Lewis Carroll's famous 'Father William' verse that truly takes the cake in terms of capturing the sly humour that is Hodgins':

"You are old, Brother Robert", the younger man said,
"And your art has become very hot;
And yet you incessantly dance and make bread -
Do you think, at your age, it is rot?"

No, Robert, we certainly do not. And it's Hodgins' own signature that was first to grace the visitors' book, reading "Fucking amazing!"

Ends June 3, 2000.

Robin Rhode at Levi's Sandton City
Repeat performance May 20 & 21

Robin Rhode takes on Levi's Sandton City. One-day performance
by Kathryn Smith

"Hey! Why are you throwing labels at me?" yelled a dangling speech bubble in the empty store window of Levi's Sandton City. Empty Black Label quart bottles were scattered across the internal floor. Searching for the artist himself, I made a beeline for an eager-looking shop assistant. "Have you seen Robin?" I ask. "Who?" she answers. Uh-oh. This did not bode well. A live art performance is happening in this very shop - does it go so unnoticed? I return a few minutes later to find him back from a smoke break, ready to take on the mall rats again, out in droves this Saturday morning.

Rhode is one of a select group of young up-and-coming artists that Levi's have handpicked to add an edge to the marketing strategy of the Vintage range. It's a high-end brand - a pair of jeans sells for R1000, a sum certainly not for the fainthearted or lean-of-pocket. Rhode, with typical enfant terrible panache, has painted this expensive pair of trousers with a thick layer of white PVA, and drawn the pockets back on in charcoal, transforming the pants into a wearable drawing. Labels ripped from his trademark and now-iconic zamalek beer bottles haphazardly adorned his forehead and white button-up shirt.

And this is the rub: Rhode firmly believes that despite all the label-mongering and design-aesthetic, jeans are designed to be lived in. In Rhode's view, art and life are inextricably intertwined, a view made clear in this performance, in which Rhode swigged quarts and smoked up a storm, while striking not-so-Voguey poses. Nathan Meadows, a friend of Rhode, helped out by alternatively standing and squatting holding a cardboard sign begging, "Spare change�please�?"

The word-games and intention of the performance were direct, striking the perfect balance between conceptual intelligence and accessibility without being pendantic. Or so I thought. Despite the obvious connections between the Levi's label and the beer brand, Rhode's performance was a subtle but quite scathing indictment of shopping-frenzy. When moderation goes out the window, social activities like drinking and smoking - and shopping - quickly become anti-social and self-centered ones. High-end shopping is not very democratic either: excess on one hand is counterpoised by fundamental lack on the other. Rhode's choice of Black Label is a political act, declaring his identity as a self-proclaimed 'bushie' artist. The juxtapositions were delicious.

Kay Hassan
Migrant Workers Quarters1997
installation detail
dimensions variable

Kendell Geers
48 hours
situation
installed on outside of gallery, facing street

Pascale Marthine Tayou
Kapital (detail)1996
mix media drawing
62 x 84 cm each

Lasting First Impressions: 'HB: First View' at Camouflage Art.Culture.Politics
by Kathryn Smith

At last, it's official. Camouflage has opened. And despite being Johannesburg's newest space, I'll go out on a limb and call it our most relevant space too in terms of current issues informing the local-global art world. But let's not wax too lyrical after just one show.

A design aesthetic of austere minimalism carries through from the voluminous interior to associated media material - invitations, envelopes and the like. But instead of being imposing, it's clean, contained and quite intimate actually, with a mezzanine above the offices where one can watch various videos from the Autopsia collection of interviews with artists, or African films from the Film Resource Unit, who have formed a partnership with the space. The offices are screened off with translucent striated plastic partitioning, so the activities of staff become like shadow-plays under the fluorescent strip-lighting.

The show itself is sparse, with ample breathing space between works. Kendell Geers' situation piece 48 hours, mundanely listing occurrences and victims of violence as reported in the Star newspaper, is strategically placed on the outside walls of the gallery, creating the most compelling piece of visual media anywhere along busy Jan Smuts Avenue. Apparently the piece has been instrumental in drawing people in, playing heavily on the curiosity-factor and resulting in questions being asked about the orientation of the space itself. Nice one.

Inside, Cameroon artist Pascale Marthine Tayou's four-part Kapital is an engaging mixed media drawing constructed from invoices from hardware stores, scribbled maths equations and on one panel, a summons from his school addressed to his parents, demanding they come and see the principal. One can only guess. Zwelethu Mthethwa presents a monumentally-scaled photograph from his Sacred Homes series, and Kay Hassan gives us an evocative, multi-sensorial installation Migrant Workers Quarters. Bili Bidjocka is represented through a video interview produced by Autopsia, but because it's in French with no subtitles, it poses some problems for non-Francophones.

The pièce de resistance for me was a three-part photographic work by Angolan artist N'dilo Mutima called Cosmogonicos. He images himself in three guises, masked with a different object each time. In the first he covers his face with something resembling a fragment of nuclear-fallout protective headgear, eyes closed. In the next image he has a cardboard box with a rectangle cut out for his eyes, which are open. The final image depicts Mutima wearing a red PVC eye-mask like you find on aeroplanes. The only constant is his flabby, undefined torso, quite monumental in its ordinariness, set off by a wonderfully liquid surface to the prints, held together by the techno-gridding of the video still.

There is a conspicuous absence of women on the show. Whether this is a feature of Bogatze's collection, or just the sad state of affairs made present through absence, the show gives a clear idea of the nature of Bogatzke's impressive and rather unique private collection, as well as the scope of Camouflage's reach. With more video production in the pipeline, a residency program that hopes to entice celebrated Brit Steve McQueen to our shores, a theory journal and a pop culture exposé in conjunction with the MTN Art Institute (another partner), Camouflage has, through attention to detail and immaculate timing, launched itself as a force to be reckoned with.

David Paton
General installation view
(Con)text

David Paton
y(our) (detail) 2000
mixed media
80 x 50 x 20 cm

David Paton
Detail of mans(laughter)2000
mixed media
80 x 50 x 20 cm

Word-wise: David Paton at the Johannesburg Civic
by Samantha Dunloph

David Paton's exhibition 'recon(text)ual', presently on at the Johannesburg Civic Gallery, elicited, in this reviewer at least, a very mixed reaction. This is positive. It's time to start worrying when exhibitions elicit no reaction at all.

Technically, the show is well put together. Each piece is superbly crafted and arranged in such a way that the totality manages to create and sustain a visible dialogue with the gallery space in which it is placed. Conceptually, Paton's show seems to be both an attempt to underline a series of binaries - text vs. context, image vs. text, and order and containment vs. chaos, as well as an attempt to seek resolution to them. The strategy, which Paton uses to drive his quest home to the viewer, is that of relentless repetition. This manifests in the form of words which continuously assert themselves over the images in various formats created by the artist. It is partly from this repetition that my ambivalence towards Paton's show springs, and partly from the visual stridency of these large-scale words. Clearly, this repetition and stridency is intentional. I'm not implying otherwise. However, it eventually becomes counterproductive and numbing to the often intriguing wordplay, to the extent that I found myself, somewhat resentfully, just seeing the text as opposed to also engaging with it.

One series of works on the show, or 'chapters' as each series is referred to in the gallery's press release, comprises nine hanging screenprints on board, each with a word, broken up with brackets, emblazoned on it. The key to this series lies in the reconfiguring of the word '(con)text'. The bracketing off of a section of the word perfectly illustrates the word's very definition, and illuminates the value of the relationship of its own components to one another, as well as their randomness and potentially chaotic nature. Other words which appear in the series shift their meanings entirely almost to an opposite polarity. 'Nuclear' becomes nu(clear), 'charm' becomes c(harm) and 'your' becomes y(our). Paradoxically, as the brackets enclose, they also exclude.

Collected Memories 1, 2 & 3 (hard and soft ground dry point and mezzotint on Fabriano) proclaim 'rehabilitation', 'retribution' and 'reconciliation', while Vespa Crabro and Stemmata (same medium) are 'resignation' and 'reparation', respectively. Paton's use and repetition of words beginning with the 're' prefix hints a cycle of continual growth, be it positive or negative. Flesh text, comprising two c-prints and two videos stands out in its use of photography to convey similar ideas. The two c-prints, one depicting a large bruise on flesh with the word 'rebuff' standing out in relief on the flesh and the other depicting a Caesarian scar on an abdomen with the word 'restrain' similarly standing out in relief, also point to a cyclicality. The wounds will heal just as the words will fade from the flesh.

Ends May 10.

Derrick Vusimusi Nxumalo
The Vaal Reef's Exploration & Mining Co. (Pty) Ltd. 1987
pen, ink and koki pen on paper
610 x 860 mm

Ken Godfrey
Madressa Arcade Magic1992
watercolour on paper
96 x 90.4 cm

Keith Dietrich
How Sir William Cornwallis Harris Contributed to the Burger Industry 1998
fragments of watercolour paintings

The arresting beauty of 'Stained Paper' at the Standard Bank Gallery
by Kathryn Smith

Until recently, watercolour painting had the odious reputation of being the domain of Victorian spinsters and 'Sunday painters'. Any self-respecting contemporary artist, especially of the ilk described as 'cutting edge', would never dare admit having inclinations towards this tame medium. Curated by Keith Dietrich and Karin Skawran, 'Stained Paper', while not claiming to be a definitive representation of water-based painting in Southern Africa, presents an awesome collection of watercolours dating as far back as the 17th century. It's enough to make you want to run off, buy a bunch of sable brushes and get busy.

It is the kind of show that can keep you hooked for several hours. The ground floor spaces are divided into two thematics of the colonial era, namely 'Surveying the Colonial Domain' and 'Ladies and Gentleman of Leisure'. Stalwarts like Thomas Baines and Frederick l'Ons are well-represented, and despite the reductive and romanticised nature of the colonial mindset, one can only marvel at the painting skill of these men and women (the latter only in the 'leisure' section).

Pigmented water was essentially the camera-eye of the 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries - botanists, zoologists, ethnographers and geographers used it as a means of visual documentation, usually to send images of exotic specimens and stereotyped 'natives' back home. More often than not, representations by hunters and travellers were simply trophies, embellished to dramatise their own lives. And who could blame them - after all, they were busy conquering 'darkest Africa'�But despite all the post-colonial prattle, one can still admire the tightly-controlled nature of the medium, in particular a rampantly romantic portrait by George French Angas of Utimuni, Nephew of Chaka (1846/7), and an elegant 1835 study of Bechuanan Implements and Ornaments by Charles Davidson Bell. Very amusing moments are provided by Hendrik Claudius' animal portraits, which bear more resemblance to the mythical beasts of JRR Tolkien than any fauna I've seen round these parts. The 'horns' of his horned adder, resembling a stunning set of false eyelashes, would have drag queens running for cover. Only one image, Booshuana Women Manufacturing Earthenware by Samuel Daniell (c. 1802), gridded in pencil and rather expressive in style, hints at the layers of process involved in structuring images which otherwise seem deceptively easy.

The upstairs gallery presents some of the finest proponents of contemporary watercolour assembled in one space. From JH Pierneef to Jean Welz, Walter Battiss to Braam Kruger, it's here in fluid brilliance, and demands to be appreciated. There are simply too many images to describe to do justice to each one. Alan Crump's sinister and brooding images of mine dumps allow the medium to take on a life of its own - it's all about apparently latent, but rigorous control. K. Godfrey's Madressa Arcade Magic (1992) pays glorious psychedelic homage to Durban's Indian market streets with their seductive textures and made-in-Taiwan objects, and Colin Richards' Sleeping Dogs Lie I & II and The True Image (Veronica) - VeraIconica are sheer contemplative perfection. It's a pity that they are shoved between a rather loud Marion Arnold to the left and a doorway to the right.

'Stained Paper' not only presents an astonishing collection of 300 years-worth of images from academic, civic and national collections, but also brings to light the neglected work of black artists in water-based media, some never before made public. Derrick Vusimusi Nxumalo adds his unique signature style with Urban Garden and Home (1987) and The Vaal Reef's Exploration & Mining Co. (Pty) Ltd. (1987) and George Mnyaluza Pemba's I am sorry Madam (1945) is a disturbingly poignant and hardhitting portrait of a black woman. Look out for other notable works by Joseph Manana, Khehla Elphas Ngobese and Dinkies Sithole. Sithole presents a haunting, rather visceral abstract piece, made with watercolour and worcester sauce on Fabriano treated with linseed oil. And curator Keith Dietrich coalesces colonial endeavour and contemporary consumer culture with his enormous triangular piece, How Sir William Cornwallis Harris Contributed to the Burger Industry (1998), a construction of fragment-paintings of animal horns and crushed hamburger packaging. I look forward to his upcoming solo show at the Goodman Gallery later this year.

This is a landmark show that incorporates groundbreaking research with aesthetic appeal and educational endeavour. An articulate and enlightening catalogue is available for free from the gallery. Missing this show means overlooking a major aspect of art history, cultural representation and contemporary practice.

Norman Catherine
Curriculum Vitae (detail)1993 Hand coloured silkscreen ed.45
60x90cm

Norman Catherine
Taboo or not Taboo (detail)1999 Oil on wood wire 124x180x10cm

Fookin' Fantastic - Norman Catherine at the Goodman
by Kathryn Smith

Norman Catherine's self-confessed "X-rated visions" meander and skulk in the convoluted labyrinths of a myriad of minds - usually all his own. His coined phrase 'curio-city' epitomizes his left-of-the-middle, very gothic sense of humour and the fetishistic nature of his work. For those familiar with his menagerie, the latest exponents of his unique world-order cavort and taunt as usual, with a couple of threatening interactive additions to his large-scale figures. In all his work, the plainly horrific morphs into the carnivalesque-grotesque, easing away some of the trauma so prevalent in his oeuvre.

For people seeking solace in passive new age remedies, rather treat yourselves to a dose of pure Norman Catherine. The combination of garish cartoon colours and brash graphic quality is totally euphoric. His Curriculum Vitae lists so many bizarre near-death accidents, it puts a whole new slant on the notion of living a charmed life. But if the Freudian overload of his work is anything to go by, the Henry Moore comment that a child's iconography is established by age seven is rather telling. And while we can laugh at this, and at the head behind bars imbedded in the belly of Inmate that states 'Keep In', the laughter has a sweet-sour taste to it. You get the distinct impression that if Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat were still alive, you'd find the three of them hanging out and getting down.

The gallery space has been configured to accommodate a central space filled with lurking anthropomorphs. Well-placed and lit, they are, in the words of David Bowie, "the real-deal". Approaching a particularly menacing threesome at the back, entitled Armed Response, Sentry I and Sentry II, red eyes began to glow and the creatures emitted a series low, deep-throated moans at random intervals. The fright-factor was lessened when I realised these were triggered by infra-red sensors set into the sculptures and subsequently had a great time running around and setting them off again.

But the best thing to come out of this show is the superb monograph published by Goodman Gallery Editions. Writers of the calibre of Ashraf Jamal and Hazel Friedman are contributors, with an anecdotal foreword by David Bowie, a long-time collector and admirer of Catherine's work. Bowie bought his first Catherine from a London dealer and friend in the mid-1990's and realised he had never bothered to ask what race the artist is. He writes, "Not knowing this one factor takes the onus off of post-modernist prattle. It suddenly becomes 'about the work'." He ends off the piece with a comment, "So, anyway, Bernie tells me Norman's white. So that's that then."

The monograph is a gem of a book, full of interesting informational tidbits, like the fact that Catherine was denied access to the Fine Art Department of the Witwatersrand, owing to his technical college secondary education. A appendix traces Catherine's status as heir-apparent to Walter Battiss' Fook Island mythology and rule as King Ferd the Third. As Friedman states, in a time of political desperation, Fook "mushroomed from the recesses of desire".

Post-1994, Catherine's work has taken on a lighter, although no less threatening edge to it. Where his earlier airbush work is full of angst and base terror that offers little reprieve, his current work is revealing more of Catherine himself than the hopeless political situation he faced during his earlier career. His present work concerns itself with the surreality of living in urban dystopias that is experienced on a collective level. While the violence is random and shocking, it is often so bizarre in its extremity that to dwell on anything other than its utter absurdity becomes absurd itself. A depiction of the local morgue in Welcome to Johannesburg wryly proclaims 'Vacancies'.

While you could pop in for a quick-fix, quintessential kooky-Catherine details are a reward to the really observant, so pay special attention to the multi-levelled wall pieces. Taboo or not Taboo offers a small bottle of 'Life After Death' tonic. The label clearly states: 'No Returns'. Catherine's work is an inoculation or elixir against the spoils of inner-city psychosis, post-millennial anti-climaxes. But where his tonic may not be commercially available, and the flashing lights of his Curio-City fade, the monograph, as a portable exhibition, stays tangibly with you. But you know it will all return, with more intensity, more wickedness and more irreverence - and so will you.

Ends May 6

Paul Emmanuel
A work from 'Pages from Cathexis'

'The Emergence of Something Into Being': Paul Emmanuel at the Open Window
by Reney Warrington

"The ancient Greeks believed that if you touched or rubbed or held onto an object or person you transfer an energy to that object or person�" Paul Emmanuel

'Pages from Cathexis' is printmaker Paul Emmanuel's first solo exhibition. The pages on exhibition contain intricately woven drawings brought to the foreground by different lithographic and etching techniques. Most of these will become part of an artist's book to be entitled Cathexis. No completion date has been set by the artist for this artwork: Emmanuel, seen as one of the best in his field, does not limit himself by the constraints of time.

It is an arduous task to capture the essence or soul of the works. No words that I can string together seem to do justice to the artist. Even long time friend, Wits lecturer and renowned artist, Jo Ractliffe, thought it wiser to refrain from going into detail. "I just want to leave it there for all of you."

While opening the proceedings, Ms Ractliffe had the following tale to tell. When she joined the Wits staff, Paul was in his third year and having some difficulty finding his way. In her "anxious zeal" to be a good teacher she advised Emmanuel, who had been and still is making matchbox size images, to "go huge". "Loosen up". "Make big gestures". At the time Jo was renovating her house and found the minute skeleton of a mouse in an electrical socket. She handed Emmanuel the small model, along with the biggest litho stone she could find and said, "Right, put that mouse onto that stone!" Emmanuel drew the mouse the size of a matchbox in the middle of the massive stone.

Due to the time and labour involved in printmaking, it is generally seen as a quiet, serene art form. Paul's choice of (small) scale and title words such as Sleep and Breath accentuates this generalization. And yet as one stands in front of these artworks one feels tense. As if something is going to change or happen or emerge. Everyday, somewhat banal objects such as a telephone, apple or flute undergo a transference of energy. The apple being eaten. The telephone representing a conversation. Everyday objects depicting a transference that is not of this world. Everyday objects becoming a part of this transference. The silence then becomes unbearable, for one anxiously awaits the emergence of something into being.

Ends May 27

Greg Streak
Dreams
Installation detail

DURBAN

'Divine' - Andries Botha and Greg Streak
by Virginia MacKenny

'Divine' pairs Andries Botha and Greg Streak in an exhibition that is thought provoking and challenging. Botha's 'Pages from the TRC' forms an elegiac memorial to the human pain this country has generated and borne. The words of the witnesses, victims and perpetrators of apartheid are stamped awkwardly and painstakingly into dark metal plates to bluntly tell their stories. Sans the picturesque wooden hut and picket fence of its first incarnation, as 'Home' at Africus 1997, the work lacks some complexity, but still carries weight - a silent requiem lining the wall with the pages of its chant.

White Skin - Blue (Page One)', however, oversimplifies. Stretched on the wall are four large cotton and latex simulated human skins covered in hair and marked with bruises and cuts. Labelled with this country's history body becomes map - both literal and metaphoric site of damage. One label stating 'we all pay the price. We can't know what part of our body is affected...my heart or your soul' traces connections between physical brutality and emotional and spiritual damage. The subtext 'damage done to one is damage done to all' is a caring one, but the work, in attempting to encapsulate the entirety of South African history, becomes predictable and didactic; failing to evoke the human presence it so strongly attempts.

Streak, long under the shadow of Botha, comes into his own in this exhibition. A video projection high on the gallery wall presents a 'triptych in time'. Dominated by liquids coloured in their respective primaries and loosely evoking Barnett Newman's 'Whose afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue?', the work offers an intriguing combination of formal, emotional, spiritual and intellectual concerns.

'Dreams in Red...', Carravagesque in its tonality and drama, presents a man from whom blood seeps and returns as in a death/life breath. 'Leaving (Blue)' allows a liquid indigo to creep across a concrete floor reflecting a window and a man's silhouette; floor becomes sky, absence becomes presence only to become absence again as the figure turns and moves away. In 'Jaundiced (Yellow)' feet hang suspended in water that is slowly flooded with a urine-like yellow. Pale and ethereal, evoking Renaissance silverpoint drawings where the feet of the dead Christ might have been lovingly portrayed in their every detail, the legs and feet drift lifeless through the water until they bump the bottom of the pool and float out of the frame. These works embrace tradition whilst reinvigorating it.

Two works, both entitled 'Tongue-tied', one a bronze life-cast of two cow tongues twisted together and the other a photographic image of two human tongues embracing each other the works, flank the videos. Evoking a curious play of sex, humour and brutality placed opposite Botha's 'telling' work they point to the convoluted and complex arena in which human communication/interaction occurs.

'Divine' encourages one to reflect on the nature of our existence, its meaning, its humanity, its godliness or lack thereof. Only on for a week it is one not to miss.