Archive: Issue No. 99, November 2005

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CAPE TOWN

4.11.05 Michaelis Graduate Show
4.11.05 Anton Kannemeyer at Erdmann Contemporary
4.11.05 William Kentridge at 34Long
4.11.05 Drawing Room II at what if the world...
4.11.05 Lewis vs. Senyol at the Bin
4.11.05 Absolut Secret at the AVA
4.11.05 Committee's Choice and new shows at the AVA
4.11.05 Elizabeth Günther at Erdmann Contemporary
4.11.05 Robert Slingsby at Bell-Roberts

7.10.05 Churchill Madikida and Diane Victor at Michael Stevenson Gallery
7.10.05 Esther Mahlangu at 34 Long
7.10.05 Sanell Aggenbach at Bell-Roberts

2.09.05 'ReVisions: A Private Narrative of SA Art' at SANG

1.07.05 Advance Notice: Dumile Feni: A Retrospective Exhibition at the SANG

FRANSCHOEK

4.11.05 'Shaping Place' at The Gallery at Grande Provence
 

CAPE TOWN

Mario Todeschini

Mario Todeschini
Untitled, 2005
Five screen video installation
7, 5 min

Georgina Gratrix

Georgina Gratrix
Work in progress, 2005
Oil and wobbly eyes on canvas

Derek Bailey

Derek Bailey
Untitled, 2005
Sculpture, mixed media

Lauren Paulte

Lauren Paulte
When he Grows up he's Going to Marry a Nice Jewish Girl
2,4 x 1.6m
 


Michaelis Graduate Show

The Michaelis Graduate Show opens at the end of this month. The Graduate Show features the work of all the many graduating final year and Masters students of 2006. The show is a great opportunity to see (and purchase) work by Cape Town's up-and-coming young artists.

Opens: November 30
Closes: December 21


Anton Kannemeyer

Anton Kannemeyer
Sixteen Self Portraits
2002
hand printed silkscreen
 


Anton Kannemeyer at Erdmann Contemporary

'Days of my Lives' is a showcase of recent prints, drawings and paintings by Anton Kannemeyer. The theme (with a nod to the popular soapie) refers to the systematic recording and investigation of everyday events in the artist's journals and sketchbooks by himself or his alter ego, Joe Dog. These 'events' include newspaper articles, portraits, general and personal history, all scrutinized by Kannemeyer's ironic and satirical eye. Kannemeyer co-founded the highly regarded Bitterkomix with Conrad Botes.

Opens: November 28
Closes: January 21, 2006


William Kentridge

William Kentridge
Four Figures on a Bridge
Bronze, edition of 7
61 x 98 x 20cm
 


William Kentridge at 34Long

'From Private Selections' presents a selection of William Kentridge works from private collections. It features some of Kentridge's editioned works on paper, which sold out rapidly and have returned to the market extremely rarely, some works in bronze and an original edition of Felix in Exile, his 1999 movie. there are also some charcoal drawings. Also on exhibition will be some very recent work which was completed overseas and has not been shown or sold in South Africa before.

Opens: November 8
Closes: December 10


Drawing Room

Drawing Room II installation view
 


Drawing Room II at what if the world...

In May 2005, the first Drawing Room show was held at the now defunct Dirt Contemporary. This group exhibition was conceived as a show with affordable art with broad appeal, showcasing a selection of small paintings, prints, silk-screens, drawings, reverse glass paintings and illustrations. Its aim was to encourage art buying among young contemporaries and it sold very well.

Once again, Lucinda Mudge and Francesco Nassimbeni have assembled the collective and have put together another show of reasonably priced artwork. The participants include Jacqui Stecher, Heather Moore, Alfalfa, Jesse Breytenbach, Michael Taylor, Francesco Nassimbeni and Lucinda Mudge. Drawing Room is online and updated weekly - www.drawingroom.co.za


Senyol

Senyol
Untitled
Mixed media (stickers, spraypaint etc)
 


Lewis vs. Senyol at the Bin

'The Neighborhood Notice', an exhibition showcasing original works by dynamic street artists, painters and all-round cool kids Warren Lewis and Senyol, launches on Sunday, November 6, at The Bin. The Bin is a new, fairly informal exhbiition space which seems to be carving out a niche for itself, largely showing art by young, streetish artists.

Opens: November 6
Closes: December 3



Absolut Secret at the AVA

The AVA's annual ever popular fundraiser for its Artreach development fund, 'Absolut Secret', opens this month. Each work on show, in a standardised format, is donated by the artists, all of whom are at different stages in their career. These are auctioned for R700 apiece. Buyers do not know whose work they are purchasing as the artists' signatures are hidden, so if you have a keen eye you can pick up a pretty valuable piece of work for a fairly good price.

This is the 10th and final year of this collaboration between AVA and sponsor Absolut Vodka in its current format and is wittily entitled 'Absolut Finale'.

Opens: November 15
Closes: November 19


Zwelethu Mthethwa

Zwelethu Mthethwa
Guardian Angels, 2004
Oil pastel on paper

Clare Menck

Clare Menck
Nude on a table, 2000
Oil on canvas

Cobus van Bosch

Cobus van Bosch
Monument series, 2002
Cast iron, in an edition of 3
 


Committee's Choice and new shows at the AVA

In the Main Gallery at the AVA is the annual Committee's Choice exhibition where each member of AVA's current committee and sub-committees selects a work by an artist of their choice. Artists featured this year include Adam Letch, Bill Ainslie, Zwelethu Mthethwa and Eris Silke.

At the same time, fine figurative painter Clare Menck shows new work in the Long Gallery. Upstairs a group show, primarily of paintings, by Sandra Hanekom, Cobus van Bosch, Martin Stiller and Kennett Sinclair, some of whom have never exhibited at AVA before.

Opens: November 21
Closes: December 10


Elizabeth Günther

Elizabeth Günther
Olifant 2005
Charcoal drawing
 


Elizabeth Günther at Erdmann Contemporary

'Litter/Werpsel' is an exhibition of Elizabeth Gunther's charcoal drawings of animal embryos floating in formaldehyde which apparently represent both the miraculous beginnings of life and the sinister fascination of death.

Opens: November 2
Closes: November 26


Robert Slingsby

Robert Slingsby
Information Trafficker, 2005
Acrylic on canvas
1783 x 1203 mm
 


Robert Slingsby at Bell-Roberts

Well known artist Robert Slingsby has been absorbed with the petroglyphs (rock engravings) of the Richtersveld for nearly three decades. His work reflects his obsession with these engravings and the environment of the Richtersfeld. He has become equally interested in the people who made them and those who he believes to be their living link i.e. the local Richtersveld or Nama people.

In this, his first exhibition in Cape Town since 1998, Slingsby has created bronze sculptures and paintings which attempt to convey the mystical power of the remnant dwellings, capturing the colours and textures of the petroglyphs in the surfaces of his canvases and bronzes.

Opens: November 30
Closes: December 23


Churchill Madikida

Churchill Madikida
Status, 2005 (installation detail)
work in progress

Diane Victor

Diane Victor
Smoke Portrait, 2005
smoke on paper
 


Churchill Madikida and Diane Victor at Michael Stevenson Gallery

Video artist Churchill Madika and printmaker, Diane Victor present solo shows concurrently at the Michael Stevenson this month.

In 'Status' Madikida explores the theme of HIV/AIDS through new video works and installations. The artist writes that his response to HIV/Aids is both a campaign to intensify national awareness and an intensely personal response to living with his sister as she struggled with AIDS for nine years, passing away earlier this year. The word 'status' is commonly used to indicate people's position in society; it is also used to denote whether or not someone is HIV positive. In choosing this as the title of his exhibition, the gallery tells us, Madikida plays on this ambiguity to point out that 'the deadly virus does not care about class, and transcends boundaries such as gender, race and sexuality'.

Diane Victor's 'Smoke Portraits' is a series of drawings comprising 40 portraits made from photographs taken by Victor, documenting patients at the St Raphael HIV/AIDS Centre day clinic in Grahamstown on a single day in October last year. The portraits are made with the deposits of carbon from candle smoke on white paper. They are exceedingly fragile and thus mirror the fragility and transience of the human life they document.

Madikida will conduct walkabouts of his show at 11am on Thursday October 27 (cost R30, proceeds to Friends of the South African National Gallery), and on Thursday December 1 (World AIDS Day, attendance free) at times to be confirmed.

Opens: October 6
Closes: December 3


Esther Mahlangu

Esther Mahlangu's house in Mabhoko
 


Esther Mahlangu at 34 Long

Esther Mahlangu, who is possibly most famous for her 1991 painting of a BMW in Ndebele style, returns to Cape Town to exhibit after a very busy two years in which she has shown in Italy, Germany, France, Switzerland and the USA. New two-dimensional works in a wide range of media from beads and dung to paint will be on view along with some sculptural installations. The ever ambitious artist will also produce a large mural in the gallery before opening night.

Opens: October 18
Closes: November 5


Sanell Aggenbach

Sanell Aggenbach
North By Northwest, 2005
Laminated wood and paint
 


Sanell Aggenbach at Bell-Roberts

Absa l'Atelier Award winner Sanell Aggenbach exhibits 'Fool's Gold', an amalgamation of private narratives and historic references. The body of work is an extension of 'Hoogwater/High Tide', which was presented at the KKNK in April 2005 and was nominated for a Kanna Award. In the show Aggenbach makes use of maritime themes of discovery and exploration and comments on a society preoccupied with issues of self, identity and the need to belong using quiet humour to underline issues of cultural heritage.

Opens: October 26
Closes: November 26


Billy Mandindi

Billy Mandindi
The Death of Township Art 1989
Oil pastel on paper
 


'ReVisions: A Private Narrative of SA Art' at SANG

This exhibition at the South African National Gallery claims to be drawn from one of the most impressive private collections of South African art assembled by an individual. Bruce Campbell-Smith started collecting in the mid-1980s and the result is a collection of work by almost 90 artists, mostly black South Africans, working from the 1920s until 1994.

Hayden Proud, curator at Iziko, says the collection is impressive because of its scope, its items of rarity and the fact that the collector has had a fine arts training himself, which has informed many choices. He says the collection contains works by well-known and now historical figures the public have never seen before. It is focused on artists working in the figurative traditions of painting, printmaking, drawing and sculpture, with a strong Natal bias.

Artists represented include Gerard Bhengu, Trevor Makhoba, Sthembiso Sibisi, Maggie Laubscher, Amos Langdown, Arthur Butelezi, Mizream Maseko, George Pemba, Gerard Sekoto, Dumile Feni, Billy Mandindi, Peter Clarke, Neville Lewis, Gregoire Boonzaier, Marianne Podlashuc, Selby Mvusi, Irma Stern, Gladys Mgudlandlu, Sydney Khumalo, Louis Maqhubela, Tommy Motswai, Alfred Thoba, Noria Mabasa and Johannes Segogela.

Opens: September 24
Closes: March 19, 2006


Dumile Feni

Dumile Feni
'Untitled', pen and ink
 


Advance Notice: Dumile Feni Retrospective at the SANG

The Dumile Feni retrospective comes to Cape Town's National Gallery this month from the Johannesburg Art Gallery. Feni's drawings, which depicted township life and its values, won acclaim as South African social commentaries. His work has won numerous awards and in 1967 he represented the country at the Sao Paulo Biennale.

Feni's artistic ability was nurtured from 1964 when the artist Ezrom Legae encouraged him to draw and several artists later assisted him in his career, including Cecil Skotnes. In 1968, he went into exile and lived in London for many years. In the 1980s, he moved to New York after teaching art in Boston. He died in 1991.

Curator Joe Dolby will present a walkabout of this exhibition on September 18 at 10.30am. The cost is R25 for walkabout and refreshments or R10 for walkabout only.

Opens: August 11
Closes: November 5


FRANSCHOEK

Erik Laubscher

Erik Laubscher
Swartland, 2005
Oil on canvas

Sanell Aggenbach

Sanell Aggenbach
Bleak, 2003
Mixed media
2m x 2m
 


'Shaping Place' at The Gallery at Grande Provence

'Shaping Place' curated by art consultant Rose Korber, will present work by two dozen artists who have all elected to explore the theme of landscape, be it aesthetically, politically and psychologically. Participants include Sanell Aggenbach, Willie Bester, Peter Eastman, David Goldblatt, Stephen Inggs, William Kentridge, Erik Laubscher and Judy Woodborne

Opens: November 5
Closes: December 11

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