Archive: Issue No. 132, August 2008

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EUROPE

9.08.08 David Goldblatt at Museu Serralves in Porto, Portugal
9.08.08 Frank van Reenen at artSPACE berlin

6.07.08 'Street and Studio: An urban history of photography' at Tate Modern
6.07.08 'Peripheral Vision And Collective Body' in Bolzano, Italy
6.07.08 Kendell Geers at de Pury & Luxembourg, Zürich

8.06.08 Lolo Veleko in 'AFRICALLS?', Spain

THE AMERICAS

9.08.08 Kyle Kauffman Gallery presents William Kentridge
9.08.08 Nicholas Hlobo at the Boston ICA

8.06.08 World Histories, Mustafa Maluka at the Des Moines Art Center
6.04.08 'Black Womanhood: Icons, Images, and Ideologies of the African Body' at the Hood Museum

ASIA

9.08.08 'Here Once Again: Where Art and Cinema Interact', Ed Young in Seoul
9.08.08 Joachim Schoenfeldt and Jo Ractliffe at the 7th Gwangju Biennale

EUROPE

David Goldblatt

A new shack under construction, Lenasia Extension 9, Gauteng, 1990
silver gelatin print on fibre paper
44 x 56cm

David Goldblatt

David Goldblatt
Stalled municipal housing scheme, Kwezinaledi, Lady Grey, Eastern Cape, 2006 archival pigment ink digitally printed on cotton rag paper
99 x 127cm


David Goldblatt at Museu Serralves in Porto, Portugal

Goldblatt revisits, revises and extends his pairings of photographs first shown at Michael Stevenson, Cape Town for this exhibition in Portugal. Photographs selected from essays produced during apartheid years are compared and contrasted with images from his post-apartheid work.

'Intersections Intersected' is accompanied by a catalogue which contains essays by Ivor Powell and the exhibition curator Ulrich Loocke.

Guided tours of the exhibition will take place at the gallery at 6.30pm on September 11 and 30.

Opens: July 25
Closes: October 12


 

Frank van Reenen

Happy Days
exhibition invitation

Frank van Reenen

Frank van Reenen
Dog Boy 2007
enamel on acrylic resin
height 25cm


Frank van Reenen at artSPACE berlin

Frank van Reenen's first solo exhibition in Europe is entitled 'Happy Days' and features a selection of sculptures, prints, paintings, and CG animation. A pioneer of Flash animation film-making in the 90s and an accomplished sculptor, van Reenen extracts sentimentality and nostalgia from his 50s based toy and comic collection, transferring dilemmas of taste and emotion onto the work.

The artist's wry sense of humour and self-conscious ironic take on the world, combined with autobiographical references, form the basis of his conceptual and aesthetic approach.

Opens: August 15
Closes: September 13


 

David Goldblatt

David Goldblatt
On Eloff Street Johannesburg, South Africa 1966 - 7
printed 2008


'Street and Studio: An urban history of photography' at Tate Modern

'Street and Studio', an exhibition of international photography, presents a history of photographic portraiture taken on the street or in the photographer's studio, looking at the differences between these two key locations in which photographers work. The exhibition brings out the contrast between the photos taken in the carefully orchestrated studio, and images captured in the changing and uncontrollable street, whilst highlighting the crossovers between the genres and their influence on each other.

The exhibition, which spans over 100 years of photography, combines the work of some of the world's most famous and important photographers including Francis Alÿs, Diane Arbus, Cecil Beaton, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Rineke Dijkstra, Jacques Henri Lartigue, Robert Mapplethorpe, Irving Penn, Norman Parkinson, August Sander, Cindy Sherman, Malick Sidibé, Paul Strand, James Van der Zee, Juergen Teller and Wolfgang Tillmans.

South Africans on exhibit include David Goldblatt and Pieter Hugo.

Opens: May 22
Closes: August 31


 

Athi Patra Ruga

Athi Patra Ruga
Even I Exist in Embo: Jaundiced tales of counterpenetration #11 2007
Lambda print


'Peripheral Vision And Collective Body': Zanele Muholi, Guy Tillim and Athi-Patra Ruga in Bolzano, Italy

'Peripheral Vision and Collective Body' gathers numerous works from the collection of the Museion Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, including new acquisitions and important long-term loans from private collectors, as well as loans from national and international museums.

The exhibition discusses the question of the collective body in contemporary visual art as well as examining tight relationships with architecture and performance, in particular, dance. It brings together a selection of works, including film, performance, documents and texts from Meyerhold to contemporary art, which will explore the creation and the use of the collective body as a critical strategy to question the legacy of our recent history.

Included on show are Zanele Muholi, Guy Tillim and Athi-Patra Ruga.

Opens: May 24
Closes: September 21


 

Kendell Geers

Kendell Geers
POSTPUNKPAGANPOP 2008
razor mesh
height 300cm, overall dimension variable


Kendell Geers at de Pury & Luxembourg, Zürich

de Pury & Luxembourg present 'POSTPUNKPAGANPOP', Kendell Geers' first solo exhibition at the gallery in Zürich.

Geers presents a series of installation and graphic works which draw from ancient mythology and tradition and make reference to the modus operandi of the allegorical trickster.

Five white neon works based on old master paintings of crucifixes welcome the viewer in the first room, illuminating a 3.5 m tall CorTen steel house of cards. In the artist's unique graphic language, the cards read as the seven virtues and the seven deadly sins. Through a vestibule, the viewer is invited to enter the gigantic razor mesh labyrinth POSTPUNKPAGANPOP, the cruelty of which is reflected and multiplied by a room-engulfing mirrored floor.

Included in the exhibition are a series of graphics in indian ink as well as mirror works which once again employ Geers' image play with words.

'As does the trickster, Geers prefers to use profanity to describe the sacred, turning expectations upside down and inside out. The banal obscenity is transformed into a complex visual mantra for meditation and contemplation.

Opens: June 2
Closes: August 16


 

Lolo Veleko

Screenshot of Lolo Veleko from the documentary 'AFRICALLS?'


Lolo Veleko in 'AFRICALLS?', Spain

'AFRICALLS?' presents the work of five artists and two contemporary art production centres of seven African cities. This creative project, comprising a documentary film, a publication and an exhibition, is an audiovisual collage that presents the artists' interests and the urban context in which they create their works.

'AFRICALLS?' takes a direct and intimate perspective to explore the key aspects of the artists' personalities and creative processes beyond the art objects they make in cities such as Dakar, Douala, Cape Town, Rabat, Luanda, Nairobi and Maputo.

The seven featured artists are Lolo Veleko (Cape Town), Mamadou Gomis (Dakar), Nástio Mosquito (Luanda), Jorge Dias (Maputo), Myriam Mihindou (Rabat), and the collectives Doual'art (Douala) and Kwani (Nairobi).

Opens: June 3


 

THE AMERICAS

William Kentridge

William Kentridge
Il Ritorno d'Ulisse 1998
lithograph
72.5 x 60cm

William Kentridge

William Kentridge
Annandale Edition 2004
offset lithograph
56.5 x 90cm


Kyle Kauffman Gallery presents William Kentridge

Kyle Kauffman Gallery's 'Summer Show' features several large-scale, large-editioned prints by world acclaimed South African artist William Kentridge. Focusing on a body of Kentridge's work rarely seen in the US, the majority of the pieces were published in South Africa or Europe, and a number of works were created in 2007 and 2008.

Printed to coincide with major exhibitions of his work, these prints integrate iconic images such as maps and books, or those from his recent operatic endeavours. Together they operate as a comprehensive survey of the past decade of Kentridge's diverse aesthetics, techniques, media, and formal and thematic concerns. Often incorporating text, the prints sometimes functioned as advertising vehicles for the exhibitions or performances.

Also on view is Kentridge's new Stereopticon Suite, complete with 3-D viewing device. 'Summer Show' also includes works by other South African artists such as Peter Clarke, Esther Mahlangu and Raymond Keeping.

Opens: July 14
Closes: August 16


 


Nicholas Hlobo at the Boston ICA

For 'Momentum 11', Nicholas Hlobo's first solo museum exhibition in the US, the artist has created a new sculptural installation, large-scale drawings, and a gallery performance that explore how 'notions of nature / difference / foreignness / dominance / submission are forced to live side-by-side.'

Suspended in the gallery, a large rubber and ribbon sculpture resembling a bodily organ or growth connects by a canal to an opening in the gallery wall. The entire room is lit from above with a soft pink glow, expanding the allusions to the gallery as a bodily interior of generative activity and growth, whether malignant or benign.

Accompanying this installation, Hlobo also presented a live performance Thoba, Utsale Umnxeba. Translated to mean 'to lower oneself and make a call', the title describes how Hlobo sat in a meditative posture with a headdress of multiple ribbons and hair extensions fastened like suction cups to the gallery walls. The performance introduces perspectives to the space where the private body, public ritual, and cultural engagement align.

Opens: July 30
Closes: October 26


 

Nicholas Hlobo

Mustafa Maluka
No more keeping my feet on the ground
2007
Oil on canvas
183 x 133cm


'World Histories', Mustafa Maluka at the Des Moines Art Center

Artists working today exemplify the term 'global citizen', often growing up in one region, being educated or working in another, and exhibiting at galleries, fairs, museums and exhibitions in every country possible.

'World Histories' presents 12 artists whose work, while participating in this globe-spanning conversation, also presents a unique expression of their respective identities as individuals, defined by the specific place, time, and culture from which he or she has emerged.

Included in the 'World Histories' line-up are: El Anatsui (Ghana), Sonny Assu (Canada), Heri Dono (Indonesia), Dario Escobar (Guatemala), Yoko Inoue (Japan), Shi Jinsong (China), Mustafa Maluka (South Africa), Rachael Rakena (New Zealand), Katrin Sigurdardottir (Iceland), Jesse Small (USA), and Angela Strassheim (USA).

A catalogue accompanies the exhibition.

Opens: May 16
Closes: August 31


 

Senzeni Marasela

Senzeni Marasela
From series: Theodora comes to Johannesburg 2003/06

Penny Siopis

Penny Siopis
Fever 2007


'Black Womanhood: Icons, Images, and Ideologies of the African Body' at the Hood Museum of Art

The Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College presents 'Black Womanhood: Icons, Images, and Ideologies of the African Body', a major travelling exhibition, curated by Barbara Thompson, that explores the historical roots of a charged icon in contemporary art - the black female body.

The exhibition will explore the complex perpetuation of icons and stereotypes of black womanhood through the display of over 100 sculptures, prints, postcards, photographs, paintings, textiles and video installations by artists from Africa, Europe, America and the Caribbean.

Presented in separate but intersecting sections, 'Black Womanhood' reveals three different perspectives - the traditional African, Western colonial, and contemporary global - that have contributed to current ideas about black womanhood. These three sections explore themes such as ideals of beauty, fertility and sexuality, maternity and motherhood, and women's identities and social roles, and examine collectively how these overlapping perspectives penetrate the complex and interwoven relationships between Africa and the West, male and female, and past and present, all of which have contributed to the inscription of meaning onto the black female body.

Zanele Muholi, Senzeni Marasela, Nandipha Mntambo, Penny Siopis and Berni Searle exhibit contemporary representations of black womanhood which, in contrast to the historic representations of the African female body on display, dissect the layers of social, cultural, and political realities that have influenced the creation of stereotypes about black women.

Also expected to feature in the exhibition are well-established contemporary artists living in Africa and Europe such as Hassan Musa, Ingrid Mwangi, Robert Hutter, Sokari Douglas Camp, Emile Guebehi, Magdalene Odundo, Fazal Sheikh and Maud Sulter.

The exhibition is accompanied by a 370-page illustrated catalogue published by the Hood Museum of Art in association with the University of Washington Press in April 2008.

Opens: April 1
Closes: August 10


 

ASIA


'Here Once Again: Where Art and Cinema Interact' in Seoul

Curated by Hyunjoo Byeon, Ilaria Gianni and Jungmin Kwon, 'Here Once Again: Where Art and Cinema Interact' is a group show that focuses its attention on how artists of the last generation have been influenced by film history and how they have elaborated and interpreted images, figures, themes and films that have assumed an importance in visual culture. The show reflects and interprets how film history and cinematic media have provided - and continue to provide - a rich reservoir of visual material for artists to isolate, rethink, and place in new critical contexts.

'Here Once Again...', comprises works which critically re-enact films taken from film's history - questioning issues such as time, space, context, the idea of spectacle and the visual - and works that take an icon of film history as the main issue to critically relate with and rethink, ascribing to it different active political and social roles.

Alongside Capetonian Ed Young are Artemio, Elisabetta Benassi, Bonnie Camplin, Rä di Martino, Victoria Fu, Matthew Noel-Tod, Julie Orser, Biho Ryu+Project soojak, Jackie Reem Salloum and Hyun-Suk Seo.

A catalogue of over 15 texts has been published to accompany the exhibition.

Opens: July 25
Closes: August 23


 


Joachim Schonfeldt and Jo Ractliffe at the 7th Gwangju Biennale

The 7th Gwangju Biennale taking place in South Korea has this year adopted the theme 'Annual Report' which is developed around three principal components.

The first part, 'On the Road', a series of travelling exhibitions, will serve as a report on cultural manifestations occurring between 2007 and 2008. The second component, 'Position Papers', is a platform dedicated to a series of five focused, small scale curatorial proposals and experiments in exhibition practice by a diverse group of curators. The third element, 'Insertions', will take the format of a series of new projects commissioned or invited specifically for the biennale.

'Annual Report' has Okwui Enwezor at the helm as artisitic director as well as Hyunjin Kim, Ranjit Hoskote as co-curators. Curators for 'Position Papers' are Patrick D. Flores, Jang Un Kim, Abdellah Karroum, Sung-Hyen Park and Claire Tancons.

The 'Annual Report' artist line up of over 100 local and international artists includes South Africans Joachim Schoenfeldt and Jo Ractliffe alongside the likes of Bani Abidi (Pakistan), Mario Benjamin (Haiti), Gerard Byrne (Ireland), Abdoulaye Konaté (Mali), Thomas Demand (Germany), Chen Shaoxiong (China), Daniel Faust (USA), Peter Friedl (Austria), Marlon Griffith (Trinidad and Tobago), Tamar Guimaraes (Brazil), Hassan Khan (Egypt), Steve McQueen (UK), Koki Tanaka (Japan) and Sislej Xhafa (Kosovo).

Opens: September 5
Closes: November 9


 
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