Archive: Issue No. 82, June 2004

01.06.04 Julia Rosa Clark and 'A Million Billion Gazillion' at João Ferreira
01.06.04 Waddy Jones at Bell-Roberts
01.06.04 'Three Young Painters' at Michael Stevenson Contemporary
01.06.04 'Contra Mundi' at the AVA
01.06.04 Olivia Scholnick at Irma Stern Museum
01.06.04 'Zap! Pow! Wham!' at the National Library
01.06.04 'Studio Encounters: Portraits by Irma Stern' at SA Jewish Museum
01.06.04 Lien Botha's 'Groot Inkleurboek' at Photographers Gallery ZA
01.06.04 Corinne Smit and Katie Spiegel at Rust-en-Vrede Gallery
01.05.04 'Democracy X' at The Castle of Good Hope
01.05.04 Guy Tillim and Churchill Madikida at Michael Stevenson Contemporary
01.05.04 'Urban Habits' at 3rd i Gallery
01.05.04 'The Art of Drawing' at Rust-en-Vrede Gallery
01.04.04 'Old Masters, New Perceptions' at SANG
03.03.04 A Decade Of Democracy at the SANG

STELLENBOSCH

01.06.04 '40 Years, 40 Artists' at Sasol Art Museum

Advance Notice: Clark delivers a humorous critique on the forces that shape one's worldview through her obsessive collecting, sorting and cutting of disparate elements into collage. Images of an idealised perspective, as depicted in old children's encyclopaedias, are transformed into a highly decorative collage.

Clark is aided in her work by willing assistants at "cutting parties" who transform second-hand books, magazines and coloured paper with glitter or Artliner, producing results that lightly reference educational charts, diagrams and models.

Clark's use of everyday materials in her work is integral to its meaning. These include polystyrene, confetti, nylon ribbon, wrapping paper, fluorescent ink and stickers. Some artworks hang while others stand forming a rich combination of party d�cor and school classroom.

Opens: July 7
Closes: July 31

Waddy Jones - "aka mc totally rad" - is holding his first art exhibition comprising stuffed toys called animals, along with the release of a new collaborative electronic album called my favourite songs at the moment and a film called picnic. A music video Super Evil will also be screened as a preview to Jones's forthcoming rap album.

Jones is the vocalist for hip-hop band Max Normal. Last year, he published a graphic novel called Constructus. This show, which marks a departure for Jones, is the first in a series of three entitled 'The Fantastic Kill' that will see the development of particular characters. Each show is aimed at a different age group.

Opens: June 2
Closes: June 19

Three different approaches to painting are showcased in this group exhibition of contemporary painters Lawrence van Niekerk, John Murray and Peter Eastman.

Van Niekerk, a Michaelis Masters graduate, exhibits finely observed and executed portraits. He believes that portraiture allows the painter to engage directly with other people and to learn something of their lives and circumstances, which in turn allows the painter to reflect on his or her own place in the world. This empathy comes across strongly in his artwork, which distils this interaction between painter and subject.

Murray paints his figures on wood cut-outs. In part, this emphasizes shape and presence by eliminating the background of the canvas. It also adds a sculptural element to his paintings. Murray says this technique suits his process of layering and scraping the paint to create depth within the surface. The title of his exhibition, 'Uniformed', refers to the clothes his subjects wear.

Murray cites the photo collages of the Russian Constructivists and early propaganda posters of communist China as influences upon his style. The contrast created between flat areas and photo cut-outs intrigues him and is consciously incorporated into this body of new work.

Animator and artist Peter Eastman is another painter who uses layering to great effect. The flat, reflective surface of household gloss enamel reveals shapes in previous layers of paint underneath. His paintings in this show are themed around 'ego' - both the ego of the artist creating a work and the ego of the viewer who sees himself reflected in the images. Eastman's monotone paintings convey a humorous critique of this process.

Opens: June 23
Closes: July 31

There has been much talk about our decade of democracy and its impact upon South Africans - artists included. However, its impact on the appreciation of our artists has been as great. More eyes have opened to the fact that many South Africans have over the years made a name for themselves in some of the toughest art markets in the world.

One of the reasons proffered for these artists' success is an intersection of their aesthetics with international contemporary practice. This month's show at the AVA, 'Contra Mundi' is therefore a highly topical one. According to its curator Andrew Lamprecht, it features mainly Cape Town-based artists whose work "addresses the aesthetics, production methods and representational and theoretical issues that international contemporary practice is looking at".

The artists on show include Bridget Baker, Dan Halter, Tay Dall, Matthew Hindley, Vuyisa Nyamende, Cameron Platter, Doreen Southwood, Lebohang Tlali and Ed Young. The title 'Contra Mundi' is Latin for 'against the world'. The show will be opened by mining magnate and art patron, Brett Kebble.

Opens: May 31
Closes: June 19

This veteran Cape Town-based painter Olivia Scholnick exhibits a series of paintings including landscapes of the Bokkeveld region. In the past, she has referred to her paintings as her own interpretation of the landscape.

Scholnick has had plenty of solo exhibitions and group shows here and in other countries including Holland, Belgium, West Germany, Australia and Israel. In 1963, she stopped teaching music and turned full-time to painting. Scholnick is known for her bold lines, abstract forms and use of vibrant colour.

Opens: June 9
Closes: July 3

There is a currently a resurgence of interest in comics - a trend with which the National Library is quite pleased. Months ago, it planned an exhibition sourced from its own holdings of comics and picture-stories. The result is 'Zap! Pow! Wham!', which showcases the various facets of the comic or picture-story genre.

The exhibition is relatively small, comprising about 70 items, including nostalgic picture-stories like 'She' (created by Linda Mhlongo), 'Tessa' and 'Grensvegter' as well as publications from The Storyteller Group. It also includes the contemporary satirical magazine 'Bitterkomix'.

A definite highlight is 'The Katzenjammer Kids', first published in December 1897 by Rudolph Dirks and regarded as the oldest running comic strip in the world. The exhibition also includes detailed plates by William Hogarth (1697-1764), which depict the absurdities of English society.

The show can also be viewed on the library's website.

Opens: May
Closes: 30 June

The life and work of Irma Stern, nearly 40 years after her death, continue to intrigue viewers. Due to ongoing public demand, this exhibition, with works on loan from the Irma Stern Museum and SANG, has been extended until the end of June.

The show comprises 34 works - oils and pastels - which are accompanied by a biographical display of the artist and audio interviews. It is differentiated from other recent exhibitions about Irma Stern through captions that explain little known facts about the subjects of Stern's portraiture. These include friends and family of the artist, famous personalities and strangers.

Opens: April 16
Closes: June 30

Back by popular request after a short two-week run in April at Photographers Gallery ZA, Lien Botha shows 16 images of the South African landscape superimposed with line drawings. They are based on autobiography and a sense of the generic, complemented by colour codes and cryptic clues. Botha was the featured artist at this year's Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees.

Opens: June 8
Closes: June 30

Two Michaelis graduates - one sculptor and one painter - present a dual show with very different approaches. Corinne Smit exhibits a body of work that aims to create awareness of sexual abuse and the damaging psychological scars it leaves behind. The show comprises a series of sculptural clothing items that symbolize the fragile feelings of the abused person.

Katie Spiegel's work is less didactic. The surface texture of the paint in her works serves to both describe her subject matter while also defying it with leaks, stains and concealment.

Opens: June 15
Closes: July 15

This exhibition, in South Africa's oldest colonial building, brings together over 300 artefacts, contemporary artworks, documents, photographs, sound and film. Most of these are from Iziko's own collections but the exhibition also includes items on loan from public and private collections throughout South Africa.

The exhibition spans seven rooms, beginning with the early traces of the human past, the first farmers and early southern African states, and leading to colonial dispossession and African resistance. Mining, urbanisation and apartheid precede the turning points of the 1970s until democracy in 1994. A special room is dedicated to the Truth Commission.

Interviews with and self-portraits of 28 year-old South Africans conclude the exhibition. Sue Williamson's Messages from the Moat, a permanent installation piece on slavery at the Cape, looks right at home in the basement of the Castle's Block B.

Opens: April 21
Closes: September 30

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Guy Tillim, recent winner of the DaimlerChrysler Prize for photography, exhibits his new series of works entitled 'Leopold and Mobutu'. Tillim has visited the Congo region repeatedly over the past three years. Last year he photographed traces of the colonial occupation of the Congo by King Leopold II of Belgium as well as the vestiges of plunder by Mobutu Sese Seko.

This exhibition comprises a series of diptychs and triptychs juxtaposing historical sites in the Congo and Belgium with contemporary views of daily life in the DRC. Tillim's work will be widely exhibited internationally this year, notably in solo shows in Stuttgart in May and Berlin in June.

Churchill Madikida holds his first solo show, entitled 'Interminable Limbo'. For the past three years, Madikida has been working in a range of media including drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking and performance. He explores, in an autobiographical idiom, his Xhosa heritage.

The exhibition's title refers to the ongoing debate about identity and culture in the New South Africa. It also reflects the constant conflict between modern technologies and traditional values, expressed through works about Xhosa initiation rituals.

Opens: May 12
Closes: June 19

Painter Norman O'Flynn and sculptor Ngmanya Banda have recently returned from an international residency at the Insaka International Artists' Workshop in Zambia. Their show is an expansion on the concept of urban habits. It celebrates the uniqueness and similarities of their respective cultures.

Opens: May 19
Closes: July 3

The curator of this show, Susan Kruger-Grundlingh, requested the artists selected to produce a drawing specifically for the exhibition. The brief was open and was interpreted in a variety of ways, resulting in a broad showcase of drawing style.

Included are Christo Basson, Judith Mason, Liza Grobler, Elizabeth Gunther, Lyn Smuts, Strijdom van der Merwe, Dianne Victor, Carl Jeppe, Mark Hipper, Wilna Coetzer, Marianne Botha, Marlise Keith, Howard Minne, Tamlin Blake, Marthie Kaden and Cobus van Bosch.

Opens: May 11
Closes: June 10

This exhibition brings a fresh lens to restored and newly acquired pre-20th century European paintings, sculptures and art works on paper. The major highlight is a new arrival, Antonin Mercié's Gloria Victis (Glory to the Vanquished) of 1875, described as a tour de force in bronze casting. Pietro Calvi's marble and bronze bust Othello (1868), now retitled Portrait of Ira Aldridge as Othello, is unveiled as an actual portrait of the internationally famous black American Shakespearian actor.

Opens: March 2004
Closes: December 2004

To celebrate the tenth anniversary of the first democratic elections Iziko: South African National Gallery is showcasing a comprehensive exhibition featuring works of art made and acquired between 1994 and 2004. This exhibition presents an astonishing visual record of the hopes and aspirations, the fears and concerns of ordinary South Africans in this extraordinary decade of transformation.

Works of art produced during the decade by over 150 South African artists will be on view in nine rooms throughout the Gallery. In addition, a contemporary site-specific work on slavery at the Cape by Sue Williamson will be installed at the Castle of Good Hope. Works by major artists such as Jane Alexander, Willie Bester, Marlene Dumas, Kendell Geers, David Goldblatt, William Kentridge, Moshekwa Langa, Zwelethu Mthethwa, Malcolm Payne, Johannes Phokela, Berni Searle and Tracey Rose will be shown alongside the work of emerging artists including Thembinkosi Goniwe, Thando Mama, Colbert Mashile, Robin Rhode, Usha Seejarim, Mgcineni Pro Sobopha and Doreen Southwood.

The accompanying book, co-published by Double Storey Books and Iziko, is lavishly illustrated, includes a comprehensive listing of all works and features discursive essays by authors, curators and critics including Emma Bedford, Rory Bester, Joe Dolby, Ashraf Jamal, Andrew Lamprecht, Moleleki Frank Ledimo, Marilyn Martin, Zayd Minty, Andries Oliphant and Liese van der Watt.

Exhibition enquiries should be directed to Emma Bedford on email: ebedford@iziko.org.za.

Opens: April 3
Closes: August 31

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The University of Stellenbosch's Sasol Art Museum has this month invited a group of artists - all former students - to showcase their work in a celebration of the 40th anniversary of its visual arts department. The guest curator for the show is Victor Honey.

Exhibiting are Claudette Schreuders, Peet Pienaar, Doreen Southwood, Conrad Botes, Anton Kannemeyer, Strijdom van der Merwe, Jean Brundrit, Sandra Kriel, Keith Deitrich, Sanel Aggenbach, Johann Louw, Gerda Genis and Obie Oberholzer.

This group show is a departure for the museum, which in 2002 instigated an Invited Artist Project. The idea was to give prominent South African artists working in academic research a chance to showcase their work.

Opens: May 19
Closes: August 4