[2.11.08] Embalming presence in Youssef Nabil's 'Cinema' at Michael Stevenson
Youssef Nabil's 'Cinema' at Michael Stevenson takes as its premise Barthes' postulation that 'viewing a photograph foregrounds the finiteness of life'. The hand-coloured portraits of friends and associates, as well as a number of self-portraits, depict not only what has been but what is to come - death, ultimately that of Nabil himself. Joe Palmer reviews.
[2.11.08] Recuperating the archive: Clive van den Berg 'New Work' at the Goodman Gallery Cape
Joe Palmer approaches Clive van den Berg's 'New Work' at Goodman Gallery Cape as an examination of the 'archive', both exploring its nature and establishing its own constraints in this body of work. He concludes, 'That to remember is also always to dismember suggests that the archive is inexorably amnesic. Nevertheless, what van den Berg's visual archive suggests is the possibility of recuperating this forgetfulness.'
[2.11.08] Clive van den Berg at Goodman Gallery Cape
Fabian Saptouw also reviews van den Berg’s show, finding that 'through the use of sophisticated metaphors he manages to convincingly traverse the boundaries between the corporeal, geographical and psychological'.
STUDENT REVIEWS
[2.11.08] Avhashoni Mainganye at the AVA
Ivana Abreu reviews Avhashoni Mainganye's 'Journey', an exhibition of paintings, collages and sculpture.
[2.11.08] Kim Lieberman at Gallery AOP
Cara Snyman unpacks Kim Lieberman’s 'Human Constellations', up at Gallery AOP. Though finding much to recommend the show, Snyman argues that the body of work is 'marred by repetition'.
[2.11.08] Tracy Payne at Kizo Gallery
Tracy Payne's 'Awaken' is the artist's first signifcant showing in Durban. Carol Brown finds her new paintings, rooted in her emergence from a series of traumatic life experiences, to be fascinating, presenting an exploration of the dichotomies and structures of the Chinese philosphy of Yin and Yang.
[2.11.08] Construct: Beyond the Documentary Photograph at the Durban Art Gallery
Examining the relation of much contemporary SA photography to the documentary, showcasing work by abrie Fourie, Zwelethu Mthetwa, Berni Searle and other artists who employ the camera, 'Construct: Beyond the Documentary Photograph' is a 'tribute to the evolving power and democracy of digital photography', writes Peter Machen.
[2.11.08] Ultra-red at the KZNSA Gallery
Ultra-red's 'Silent: Listen' was a potentially powerful piece of Aids activism and installation art, which makes overt reference to John Cage and Robert Rauschenberg's 1952 collaboration, but, argues Carol Brown, which was made less effective by its lack of contextualisation for the average viewer and its rarified inhabitation of an art gallery.
[2.11.08] Street and Studio: An Urban History of Photography at the Tate Modern, London
In an exhibition which includes 100 contributors and over 350 works and purports to explore an 'urban history of photography', Amy Halliday finds many areas ripe for African and South African photography, which but for a few exceptions is largely ignored. 'Street and Studio' closed at the Tate Modern on August 22.
