artthrob picks

Dealing with an incredibly complex tradition within the confines of a tight budget, Michael Godby’s 'Lie of the Land: Representations of the South African Landscape' at IZIKO’s Old Town House is a tightly-curated exhibition with clear, yet unreductive narrative flow, articulate but unobtrusive wall texts, and a wide range of work selected and set in productive dialogue to voice a multitude of visual and ideological conversations. Its title, 'The Lie of the Land', foregrounds the manner in which the contours of Landscape – the conventions through which land is mediated – are never neutral but always attendant on power dynamics.

The lie of the land depends on the point of view from which it is marked, measured and mined for its natural and socio-political resources. In the erudite catalogue accompanying the exhibition (which includes several significant pieces by scholars of environmental, political and art history) and used as an educational resource for the many schools that are visiting the show, Godby traces the establishment of the genre of Landscape painting in Europe alongside the European settlement of South Africa, for the genre, ‘like mapping, represents a means of taking control of space’.