Archive: Issue No. 34, June 2000

Senzeni Marasela in residence at the SANG

Johannesburg artist Senzeni Marasela is Artist-in-Residence at the South African National Gallery for the month of June. During her residency, Marasela is continuing her investigations into the gaps in South African history by exploring the stories of the 'Cradock Four' and the 'Pebco Three', prominent activists who were murdered by the security police during the apartheid regime. The events leading up to their deaths have become public knowledge through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The artist uses photographs of the deceased which are then silkscreened onto fabric and finished off with lace borders to create intimate memorials to these heroes of the struggle against apartheid. Other works deal with grief, remorse and conflict.

An exhibition of Marasela's work is open to the public during Gallery hours, Tuesday to Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and on Thursday and Fridays, the artist will be working in the exhibition space from noon to 5 p.m. During those times, visitors are welcome to observe her at work, or engage her in discussion about the work.

This residency is part of a series of projects for young South African artists who have captured international attention or are just emerging on the local scene. Each will spend a month working at the South African National Gallery to realise a new project which will then be documented and published in a set of catalogues. The project is funded by the Stichtung Prins Bernard Kultuurfonds through an award made to South African-born artist, Marlene Dumas.

For more information contact curator Emma Bedford at (021) 465-1628 or swing@gem.co.za

Uwe Pfaff

German born, Cape Town based artist Uwe Pfaff last had a solo show in the city almost 20 years ago, at the now defunct Gallery International. 'Pieces of the My Mind', opening at the 3rd i Gallery on June 27, promises to 'take you on a journey into the third millennium, and introduce you to the artist's fantasies, dreams and creatures of his days and nights!"

To be opened by Rose Korber at 7 p.m. on June 27. Closes August 4.

Mara Verna
Still from the perfomance

Canadian performance artists Mara Verna and Jason St Laurent drew puzzled stares from passersby over the past weekend, as they worked in the tiny on-street rectangular area behind mesh which constitutes Observatory's Museum of Contemporary Art. Their props were a ball and claw legged dining room table, chairs, some junk food and woodworking tools. After enjoying a meal, the pair sanded and then deconstructed the table, eventually using the linenfold 'skirt' to frame a picture of themselves which was put up on the wall. Meantime, round the corner the Rolling Stones pool hall was being held up at knifepoint, the video shop next door to the artists had a fire in the night, and unbeknownst to them, Robert Weinek was streaming live footage of the artists at work sanding onto a porn chat channel under the category 'Woody'. Such is life in Observatory. The final form of 'Restoration' will be on view until July 10.

For more information on the project, check http://mzone.mweb.co.za/residents/intecaf/mara.rm

Lynne Lomosky
Chemo (C.H.O.P)

Next up at the classy Brendon Bell-Roberts Gallery is a group exhibition around the theme of 'Emergency' - medical and otherwise - featuring a selection of Cape Town artists. Three of the exhibitors have also acted as curators: John Murray, who paints in the Bitterkomix mode and whose work looked so good at the AVA recently, Doreen Southwood, currently doing her masters at Stellenbosch, and the energetic Julia Clark.

See Reviews

Opening at 6.30 p.m. on June 21. Ends July 29.

Brendan Bell-Roberts Fine Art Gallery
199 Loop St Cape Town 8001

Joe Dog and Konradski
Bitterkomix

The Bitterkomix boys, Konradski, Joe Dog, Lorian White and others are showing original artworks and prints at the AVA from Monday June 19 at 6pm.
The show will be opened by Prof. Gregory Kerr, head of the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Stellenbosch.

And there's more- two publications Bitterkomix 10 and The Foster Gang will be launched on the same occasion.

See Reviews

June 19 - July 8.

AVA, 35 Church Street, Cape Town

Michael Pienaar
'Minimal Erotica' series
Polyurethane, resin, sand, plaster of paris,

Young artist Michael Pienaar combines minimal design with sensually curving forms in a series of "tile"-like panels made out of polyurethane, resin, sand and plaster of Paris. The minimalist approach extends to the palette used - the artist renders his pieces in cool, clinical white.

June 12 - 30.

Billy Mandindi
Fire Games1985
tin, paint, wire and wood

Billy Mandindi is a highly talented and internationally respected artist who has had his ups and downs over the years. He exhibited on the 1st Johannesbur Biennale in 1995, in Berlin in 'Colours', 1996, and his work is in a number of important collections, including that of the South African National Gallery, but there have been periods when he has not worked much. Thus his first solo exhibition for some time should generate a certain level of excitement

'Yours in the Struggle" will be opened by Jill Trappler at the Greatmore Studios, where Mandindi now has his studios, on Thursday, June 15 at 5.30 p.m.

Until July 15.

Opening hours: 9 a.m. to 12 noon weekdays.

Aaron J. Wegmann
Invite to his exhibition at the Hanel

Swiss-born Aaron J. Wegmann is currently showing paintings, pastel-works, collages and concept proposals for interventions in the urban landscape. These last are seen partly as imaginary explorations, and partly as a 'pretext" for Wegmann's urban design work, executed in Cape Town.

In an artist's statement, Wegmann says the works can be understood as "a surgical trench rediscovering people's history of landscapes, constructed records, used to listen urban noise."

Until July 22.

An exhibition of selected works from the Foto 2000 competition will be on view, and will be accompanied by a ceramics exhibition by Theo Ntuntwana, Madoda Fami and Majolandile Dyalvane, who work in a rich riot of colour, patterning and animal forms.

Cecil Skotnes
Captive
Painting on incised panel

This exhibition, drawn from the permanent collection of the SA National Gallery, shows the work of artists who studied at two art centres which have proven to be of great influence on the course of black South African art. The artworks on show will illustrate the many differences between the art centres and focus on work produced during the early years of their existence. Basic differences arise from the fact that Rorke's Drift (formally known as the Evangelical Lutheran Church Art and Craft Centre) in KwaZulu/Natal was rural and more African in context, while Polly Street, situated in downtown Johannesburg, was urban and more Eurocentric in its approach. Other differences were more circumstantial- At Rorke's Drift, women played a central role, while Polly Street was dominated by male artists. Rorke's Drift also had a more diverse cultural influence through its Swedish and American teachers. The exhibition illustrates the different cultures of these art centres and their students' responses to the changing conditions of black experience, with the increase in Christian influence and pressure from a white-controlled economy. The theme of the show is designed to accommodate a specific section of the matric art syllabus and provide access to original artworks for teachers and students.

Artists whose work features on the exhibition include John Muafangejo, Cecil Skotnes, Durant Sihlali, and Azaria and Gordon Mbatha.

The show runs until August 6. For more information contact Zola Mtshiza at (021) 465 1628

Natale Labia Museum, 192 Main Road, Muizenberg.

Exhibition of the Private Collection of Louis and Charlotte Schachat

A large portion of this collection has never been publicly exhibited, and this fact is what has motivated Louis and Charlotte Schachat to share a selection from their private collection, comprising approximately 100 works, with other art lovers. This collection was started in the early 1960s, shortly after Louis and Charlotte were married and Louis had established himself as an attorney in Cape Town. They were inspired to start their collection by a shared interest in contemporary South African art, regular visits to local exhibitions, personal visits to artists' studios and the encouragement of other collectors including Jean and Himie Bernadt and gallery directors Joe Wolpe, Linda Givon and Everard Read. The Schachats slowly developed their personal preferences and empirical knowledge which was to shape their growing collection. From the very beginning they began to purchase the works of both established artists and younger, mostly Cape-based, artists. The collection came to include works by, for example, Irma Stern, Pranas Domsaitis, Lippy Lipshitz, Cecil Higgs and Jean Welz and others such as Stanley Pinker, Paul du Toit, Helmut Starcke and Bill Davis. By the 1970s works by painters and sculptors from the north, such as Robert Hodgins, Christo Coetzee, Karel Nel, Helen Sebidi and William Kentridge, also began to feature in their collection.

This exhibition also provides an occasion for the University to express gratitude to Louis and Charlotte Schachat for their regular donations of works of art to the University Museum since 1992. Each one of these acquisitions was necessary and each one is important because in each instance the donation satisfied a particular requirement of the University's own collection.

May 31 - July 2

Sasol Art Museum of the University of Stellenbosch (Ryneveld Street)

One of the new pieces on show

Alan Alborough - Standard Bank Young Artist 2000

Art is often the stepchild at the National Festival of Arts in Grahamstown, condemned as it is to rather conventional and overcrowded venues, but this year at least there is the promise of something totally unexpected from an artist who evoked a 'What's he done lately?' response from many when his name was announced as Standard Bank Young Artist 2000. Alan Alborough is what might be called an artist's artist: greatly respected by his peers, and not widely known outside artistic circles. Festinos might remember his elegant suspended spheres, made of milky plastic and wire clips, which formed part of last year's 'Emergence' exhibition at the Albany.

Whatever Alborough has planned for the Monument Gallery will not be exactly the same at its next appearance: the tradition is that the Standard Bank Young Artist show goes on tour of the major centres following Grahamstown, and Alborough's installations will expand and mutate from venue to venue. Instead of a printed catalogue, there is a website to accompany the exhibition, which will also grow with time. Designed by Sophie Perryer, all those who don't make it to Grahamstown can check out Alborough's work at http://www.alanalborough.co.za.

Part of an installation for 'Liberated Voices', shown at the Museum for African Art, New York

Hidden in the bowels of the building, under the Monument Theatre is the Gallery-in-the-Round. Here one will find a multi media installation by Penny Siopis "that examines the tense but provocative relationship between 'private belongings' and 'official archives' as sites for the recovery of memory, both personal and collective". In other words, Siopis will have collected a vast accumulation of objects: clothing, domestic objects, decorative figurines, old books, both from her personal possessions and from numerous other sources, and by judicious juxtapositions, will allow viewers to reflect upon the memories and associations these evoke.

Hidden in the bowels of the building, under the Monument Theatre is the Gallery-in-the-Round. Here one will find a multi media installation by Penny Siopis "that examines the tense but provocative relationship between 'private belongings' and 'official archives' as sites for the recovery of memory, both personal and collective". In other words, Siopis will have collected a vast accumulation of objects: clothing, domestic objects, decorative figurines, old books, both from her personal possessions and from numerous other sources, and by judicious juxtapositions, will allow viewers to reflect upon the memories and associations these evoke.

Nhlanhla Benjamin Nsusha is a multi talented sculptor and painter who has trained and exhibited overseas, and is now deeply involved in grassroots art projects.

The artists involved in outdoor installations in the second manifestation of !Xoe, a project which emanates from the Ibis Art Gallery of Nieu Bethesda under the curatorship of Mark Wilby (see Nieu Bethesda under listings) are showing related conceptual works in a formal gallery space. Participants include Gavin Younge, Andries Botha, Mark Haywood and the sound installation group RAM.

Ken Godfrey
Madressa Arcade Magic1992
watercolour on paper
96 x 90.4 cm

Curated by Keith Dietrich and Karin Skawran, 'Stained Paper' is a historical overview on South African water-based art, with a wide ranging selection of fine work from many different artists over the centuries. Last seen at the Standard Bank Gallery in Johannesburg, where it received an extensive review from ArtThrob.

David Goldblatt
from 'South Africa: The Structure of Things Then'

This remarkable exhibition by one of South Africa's finest and most acute photographers had its first showing at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and is as pertinent a record as any of the apartheid years. Seen through Goldblatt's lens, the buildings and structures of the country reveal themselves in all their ostentation, bleakness or modesty, depending on whether one is looking at a white suburban palace, an official monument or a shack. Take some money to the exhibition with you: the catalogue is superb.

Using fabric applique, embroidery and paint, the Weya and South African women record their life experiences. Fifty pieces will be on display.

The Caversham Centre for Artists and Writers established a forum entitled 'The Hourglass Project'. From this has emerged 'Past, Present and Future: a Woman's Vision, thirty works by fifteeen women artists from Mexico, U.S.A., Ireland, Zimbabwe and South Africa, as well as a book of portraits of the artists. The theme centres around ideas and values about the passing of time.

Six women from four generations of the Everard from 1870 to the present are the artists of this exhibition. The family ran a trading store in Mpumulanga, and most of their art constitutes landscapes depicting this region.

Lisa van Wyk
Dig Deeper
Mixed media print
38 x 28 cm

Also showing in the Albany Museum are Eastern Cape artists painter Greg Schultz and printmaker Lisa van Wyk. Schultz will show a series entitled 'New Landscapes' which says the artist, 'question the distinction between representation and presence. The added natural materials are essentially non-illusionistic and shift the work from the realm of painting into the interface between painting and sculpture'. The artist incoroporates found natural objects like vines and grasses into his work.

'Printed Surfaces' by printmaker Lisa Van Wyk, explores printmaking as a form of mark making. Incorporating a vairiety of printing techniques, the artist works with layered images reflecting her experiences and influences of the past year.

The Albany Museum, Somerset Street

Details of installations from the 1999 !Xoe projects at Nieu Bethesda.

!Xoe2 site-specific - 'bringing art to ground'

Once more the Ibis Art Gallery under the direction of Mark Wilby is planning to stage a series of public art installations and events in and around the poetically situated little town of Nieu Bethesda in the Great Karoo. In this, the second annual !Xoe project twelve site-specific artworks are to be installed in the environment of the town , while in a follow up event the participating artists will show conceptually-related gallery works at the Rhodes Art School in Grahamstown as part of the National Arts Festival in July.

The extremely promising lineup, including sculptors, painters and sound artists, consists of Andries Botha, Anton Brink, Mark Haywood, Jacki McInnes-Graham, Georgie Papageorge, RAM - collaboration, Greg Streak, Jeremy Wafer, Helen Weldrick, Mark Wilby, Gavin Younge and collaborative work by students from Natal Technikon

The challenge to the artists in Nieu Bethesda will be to assimilate and employ the dynamics of place - actual physical place - into the manifestation of their work. Through the notion of site-specificity, the environment of Nieu-Bethesda - its geography, its history, and its culture - contributes both medium and language to the artwork.

By contrast, the concurrent exhibition at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown will bring an assimilation of the Nieu-Bethesda experience to the supposed neutrality of the gallery space.

!Xoe2 is open to the public from 24 June to 29 July 2000. Final installation by the participant artists will be effected in the week before that. An opening event is scheduled for 5 p.m.on Saturday, June 24. The Ibis Gallery serves as an information centre for the exhibition and will provide supporting documentation and provide maps by which to locate the artworks. The !Xoe_ National Arts Festival exhibition, presented at the Rhodes Art School Galleries, Somerset St, Grahamstown, runs from 30 June to 29 July 2000.

!Xoe2 is an Ibis Art Centre project in collaboration with the Department of Fine Art, Rhodes University, and has been financially supported by the Arts and Culture Trust, the National Arts Council and the Standard Bank National Arts Festival.

Santu Mofokeng

Santu Mofokeng's 'Sad Landscapes' at Camouflage

Opening Tuesday June 27 at 6.00 p.m. Santu Mofokeng presents a fresh series of works looking at the evocative and narrative potential of landscapes. Engaging with the thin line between reality and metaphor, and memory and narrative, Mofokeng explores the connections between communities and their environments through the fraught but contemplative landscapes of Vietnam, Holocaust death camps in Poland and Anglo Boer War camps closer to home. Believing that the " saddest places are often the most mundane and ordinary", it's not about beauty, but a different sort of sublime. This is Camouflage's first showing by a solo artist.

June 27 - July 25

Two one person shows are scheduled for Gallery 111. First, multi-purpose draughtsman Guy Feyen presents an exhibition of painting and drawings ranging from architectural renderings through to sophisticated cartooning and more 'fine art' modes. Then, June 25 sees the opening of an exhibition of digital photography by Michael Vines called 'I will be with you always, now and forever'. The Vines show closes July 17.

Guy Feyen: June 17 - 23
Michael Vines: June 25 - July 17

Radhika Vaidyanathan

Current artist-in-residence Radhika Vaidyanathan presents work produced during her stay at the studio complex. The show is entitled 'Woven Yarns - Tangled Skeins'. Bag Factory exhibitions are always brief, so diarise this one now. It'll be a tough choice between attending this and the launch of Wayne Barker's monograph, but some Jo'burg-style driving may just get you to both.

June 21 - 27

Keith Dietrich
Erogenous identities (detail) 2000

The truth be told, the combination of Wilma Cruise (ceramic and bronze large-scale figures), Keith Dietrich (watercolour and inkjet-print fragments of body parts) and Brett Murray (small mixed media works from the 'I Love Africa' series) makes one wonder. But it is a chance for Johannesburg viewers to reacquaint themselves with Murray's irreverent, sophisticated brand of satire. This body of work relates to his recently-unveiled and contentious public sculpture in Cape Town. It should be a treat.

See Reviews

June 10 - July 1

Michelle Kriek
Images from the Past 2000
13 x 16 cm each (unframed)
watercolour, masking fluid on paper

Part of the year-long Standard Bank Watercolour Festival 2000, 'Bottled at Source' breaks further away from the traditional watercolour mould and presents radical work in the medium by young contemporary artists. Merryn Singer takes the lethal landscape of Vlakplaas and paints it in blood and Monica Madeira turns the intimate landscape of cell and DNA structures into macroscopic fields. Other artists include Joni Brenner, Stefan Erasmus, Thomasin Dewhurst, Flip Hattingh, Michelle Kriek, Taryn Millar and Robyn Sassen.

Call the gallery on 403-3408 to book tours and workshops. The exhibition will be opened at 6 p.m. on May 17 by Prof. Alan Crump.

May 17 - June 28

Gerhard Marx in the studio with drawings for animation

'Drawings and animation by Gerhard Marx at the Open Window

Hot on the heels of William Kentridge in working with the Handspring Puppet Company is young artist Gerhard Marx, who is currently presenting drawings for animation and set-building at the Open Window. His style is uber-Kentridge, so much so that Marx almost loses the identity that emerged fairly strongly at his solo show 'You are Here', held last year at the Johannesburg Civic Gallery.

June 7 - 28

Cloth Worker's Coalition

The voluminous African Window Museum hosts the Cloth Worker's Coalition exhibition, a showcase of works in cloth that cuts across all manner of fibre-based works, from an organisation committed to the research of such works in South Africa. According to the press release, the exhibition embraces everything, " from guilds to community projects, from tannie "baroque" to high art, from knitters to conceptual art."

A stalwart of the more traditional South African scene, this is Barnard's 70th solo exhibition. The work may not be on the so-called 'cutting edge', but how many artists do you know have had this many solo shows? The exhibition warrants a visit for that fact alone.

June 12 - 29

Association of Arts, Pretoria, 173 Mackie Street, Nieuw Muckleneuk, Pretoria

Tel: (012) 346-3100
Fax: (012) 346-3125
Email:artspta@mweb.co.za

Kathryn Smith
Detail from ID/Inventory
1998-1999
installation of 8" x 10 " silver prints in handmade books

A group exhibition, which supports an aspect of the fine arts/art history course at the university, shows work by students, professional artists and selected pieces from the Unisa Art Gallery collection around the theme of 'Art and the Body'. In addition to the show, a discussion forum is scheduled for May 16 where artists and academics will address issues around representation and the focus on the body in late 20th-early 21st century fine arts practice. In this fraught arena, the show promises to explore issues of performance, abjection, masquerade, disability, fragmentation, depiction of children, 'othering', exoticism, power, control and identity. It's a tall order, and some of the selected works fall into a slippage between 'body' art and figurative representation, but work from Hentie van der Merwe, Merryn Singer and Kathryn Smith, amongst others, should counteract this. The show is definitely a turning point for an otherwise quite conservative space.

May 2 - June 30
Forum and official opening: May 16 at 7.00 p.m.

Unisa Main Campus, Theo Van Wyk Building, B Block, Gold Fields Entrance, 5th Floor
Tel: (012) 429 6255 / 6823
Fax: (012) 429 3221

Drawing for 'Durban Proclaims' AIDS ribbon.
Conceived by Carol Brown and executed by more than 100 artists and organisations.

Art takes an in-depth look at HIV/AIDS

The presence of the XIII International AIDS 2000 Conference, which has over 12,000 delegates arriving in Durban over the next couple of weeks, will be signalled by three huge corrugated iron Aids ribbons created by sculptor Grey Robertson. Three and a half stories high, the outdoor public sculpture will symbolise the focus Durban will become for intense activity around the topic of HIV/AIDS.

In the coming weeks almost every single exhibition venue in Durban will be taken over by the 'Amasiko' (IsiXhosa/IsiZulu: Cultures, traditions and social values) cultural programme for the AIDS 2000 conference. 'Amasiko' hopes to provide a platform for the expression of issues relating to HIV/AIDS with a particular emphasis on the theme 'Break the Silence'. It hopes, through a series of cultural events that also include the performing arts and South Africa's first ever HIV/AIDS Film Festival (8-12 July), to give voice to many previously unheard and to educate whilst entertaining.

Further information on the XIII International AIDS Conference 2000 can be found at www.aids2000.com

For more information on any of the events contact: Bren Brophy
Visual Arts Curator
The XIII Internternational AIDS Conference
Tel: 27 31 301 0400
Fax: 27 31 301 0191
Cell: 27 82 795 3903

Events round-up by venue:

Trevor Makoba
HIV/AIDS Print Portfolio
Linocut

Rural Women's Craft Development Project
Telephone wire basket

Durban Art Gallery

Durban Art Gallery in particular has given over just about every space it has for different sections of the Amasiko programme and July's 'Red Eye' will also take AIDS/HIV as its theme (more to follow on this next week).

In the foyer visitors will be met with the Artists for Human Rights HIV/AIDS Print Portfolio co-ordinated by Jan Jordaan (Technikon Natal Fine Arts Department). The portfolio, like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Print Portfolio that was successfully launched last year with the blessing of the Dalai Lama, will consist of a collection of original prints based on the theme of AIDS, compiled in a portfolio box. The portfolio is seen as a collective object and conveys a message of hope to the world. In conjunction with this project some of the prints will be enlarged onto billboards around the country taking the message outside of the confines of the gallery into the public arena. The first three will be sited in Umlazi (work by Gabi Nkosi), Edendale (Mduduzi Xakaza) and Kwa Mashu (Stembiso Sibisi). Envisaged as an ongoing and national project billboards with new images will keep appearing well into next year. Artwork is from Britain (Deryk Healey), Bolivia (Carmen Perrin) and Ghana (Daniel A Ohene-Adu) and South African artists include, amongst others, Diane Victor, Kim Berman, David Koloane, Judith Mason, Dominic Thorburn, Sue Williamson, Chris Diedericks and Wonderboy Nxumalo.

In Gallery 2 Fiona Kirkwood will exhibit 'Pandemic Patient' - originally conceived as part of a solo show in 1998 the work has expanded into a self-contained installation. Depicting a terminally ill, gender-neutral patient it is composed of symbols and shapes derived from the medical world (such as the virus as seen through a microscope) as well as newspaper articles directly related to the reportage of the pandemic. Completing the piece is a quilted bed comprised of over 1000 condoms stitched together. The work attempts to engage with an ongoing need for the dissemination of information re prevention and care of HIV/AIDS patients.

In the south gallery there is an exhibition of works by children who are affected by HIV/AIDS either by being directly infected or orphaned. Created through workshops the presentation will feature a collaborative 'curtain' of inscribed/imprinted glaxed ceramic tiles. Entitled 'Postcards from the Edge' the work refers to messages, identity and experience from the margins.

In Gallery 4 (Print Gallery) there will be another collaborative project that expands the function of artmaking in terms of its relation to community. The Rural Women's Craft Development Project, run under the guidance of Kate Wells in collaboration with the design students at ML Sultan, is exhibiting telephone wire baskets, jewellry and beaded cloth dolls/tableaus. Traditional crafts are here garnered together in expression of contemporary issues. Created with the participation of over 100 rural women and with the assistance of the Durban City Environmental Health Department and the National Association of people Living with AIDS the show aims to impart critical information and practical awareness on HIV/AIDS.

In the Circular Gallery, complete with its bizarre dinosaur head that peers over the edge of the balcony from the adjacent Natural History museum, is the 'Positive Lives' exhibition. Strictly speaking a socio-documentary piece, but bearing a great resemblence to much contemporary art, it shares the human story of people living with AIDS. Sponsored by the Trevor Higgins Trust it includes work from India, the USA, Britain, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Australia and South Africa.

Probably the most visible event of the month though will be the 'Durban Proclaims' AIDS ribbon which has been produced by over 100 artists and organisations. Conceived by Carol Brown of the Durban Art Gallery and fabricated out of 2 x 4 metre pieces of red cloth that were distributed by the gallery staff it will finally be seen wrapping its way round the Durban City Hall. Unveiling will be on July 12 at noon. One of Durban's largest, albeit temporary, public outdoor installations it aims to create a public awareness of the AIDS 2000 conference and the issues of HIV/AIDS.

July 10 -27, 2000

Redeye@rt will take place at the Gallery on July 14 instead of July 7 this month, to allow visiting delegates to participate in the highly popular monthly art and performance event.

Durban Art Gallery, 2nd Floor, City Hall, Smith Street
Tel: (031) 300-6234/5/8
Gallery hours from 09:00 to 12:00

Albert Winn From "Jewish Summer Camp" series 1997 Gelatin Silver Print

'Bodies of Resistance'

"Bodies of Resistance' , curated by Barabara Hunt (U.S.A.) is the first major contemporary art exhibition in ten years to reconsider the AIDS pandemic in the United States. More importantly, it is the first significant art initiative to question the global impact of the disease, and the complex relationships between the West and the developing world regarding AIDS. Fifteen new works have been produced specifically for the exhibition by artists based in South Africa, the UK and the USA, and originally from Canada, Cuba, Hong Kong, India, and Nigeria.

The exhibition takes as its starting point the influence of visual artists on representations of the body in popular culture, and the undisputed impact of AIDS on their work. It addresses the ways in which perceptions of health, sexuality and desire have changed dramatically around the world as a result of the virus.

As the title suggests, all of the work, whether video projection, digital photography, installation, sculpture or painting, considers the body as a potential site of resistance - to disease, desire, death, societal prejudice or technology. Directly and indirectly, the works reflect concerns about global issues such as the wide scale spread of the virus across Africa and Asia, policies of medical research, developments in genetic engineering, inequalities in the global distribution of wealth and technology, the availability of medication world-wide and differing cultural perspectives on dying.

Exhibiting artists include: Aziz + Cucher, Olad�l� Ajiboy� Bamgboy�, Rina Banerjee, Barton Lidice Benes, Ken Chu, Kendell Geers, Sunil Gupta, Skowmon Hastanan, Charles LeDray, Frank Moore, Chuck Nanney, Ernesto Pujol, Nancy Spero, Steed Taylor, Albert J. Winn, Thomas Woodruff.

The exhibition will be accompanied by an 80-page color catalogue with essays by Lisa Forman (South Africa), Simon Watney (UK), Richard Meyer (USA), co-editors Barbara Hunt and Julia Bryan Wilson

Barbara Hunt is an independent curator, lecturer and arts administrator. and has been the Executive Director of Visual AIDS for the past two and a half years.

'Bodies of Resistance' is funded in part by: the British Council, the Debs Foundation, the Mary J. Hutchins Foundation, the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, the Robert D. Farber Foundation and the Kettering Family Foundation Website: www.thebody.com/visualaids/web_gallery/index.html

Opening Sunday, July 2 at 4 p.m. Closes July 20.

NSA Gallery, 166 Bulwer Road, Glenwood, Durban 4001
TEL/FAX: +27-31-202-2293
EMAIL: iartnsa@mweb.co.za

Bruce Radebe from Living Openly - Diagnosed 1995. Disclosed 1998 Photographic credit: Gisele Wulfsohn

'Body Works' by Alex Flett

Alex Flett, a former post-graduate from the London Slade School of Art, now residing in Scotland, heard about the XIII International AIDS 2000 Conference and made contact with the organisers becoming a member of the Amasiko Working Group. He was asked to create a contextual exhibition and workshop for the Cultural Programme. Suffering from a severe bout of sciatica he was sent by his GP for an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scan of his lower spine. Inspired by the images he decided to use the MRI as a sketching tool. The resulting 20 image exhibition; the MRI Suite, will be published as a signed and numbered limited edition of 15 sets.

This 'medicine to art' concept took on the generic title 'Body Works' and has continued to develop utilising a more accessible scanning mechanism; the photocopy machine. Workshops will be held during this period where participants will photocopy parts of their bodies and arrange them in the form of the Celtic wheel cross.

June 26 - July 13

BAT Centre: Menzie Mchunu Gallery

'Living Openly'

The BAT Centre supports an exhibition commissioned by the Beyond Awareness Campaign HIV/AIDS and STD Directorate of the Department of Health. Comprised of black and white photographic portraits the 'Living Openly' project presents those individuals brave enough to openly disclose their HIV status. The project was born out of discussions around media portrayals of people living with HIV/AIDS and the understanding that so often these images were harsh and stereotyped. Created through the photography of Gisele Wulfsohn with narratives by Susan Fox the stories told both visually and verbally give insight into the courage and strength required to be open about one's infection. This exhibition gives the 'Break the Silence' theme a very particular voice and face.

July 9 -27, 2000

BAT Centre: Dance Studio

Mary-Ann 'Nonjabulo' Orr
Charcoal drawing

'Celebrating the art of Living with HIV not Dying from AIDS' - Mary-Ann 'Nonjabulo' Orr

At the BAT Centre, in a little reported gallery called Bayside, normally known for its pleasant ceramics and reliably accessible artworks, is a show by Mary-Ann 'Nonjabulo' (Happiness) Orr. A graduate of Michaelis, Orr now lives in the seclusion of a remote, previously abandoned, Lutheran mission deep in rural Kwa-Zulu Natal near the Ongoye forest. Involved in the lives of the rural women there, she helps promote local ceramicists, basket weavers and beadworkers by contemporizing their designs whilst preserving traditional crafts. Leaving her urban life to fully integrate with the people she found that no electricity, no running water, no sanitation and no vegetable garden changed her life as did the knowlege that she was HIV positive. Guided by the belief that a greater universal life force together with the giving of abundant love holds the key to healing, she set about adjusting her life to live within her new community.

The exhibition of large drawings depicts real life; sharing, simple daily tasks such as harvesting the grass, ceramic pit firing and female companionship. Orr's message is not the negative one of dying with AIDS but Living with HIV - the emphasis is on life and its abundance. The proceeds from the sale of artwork are to be put into a registered trust to establish a centre for care-giving in its numerous forms from health education to vegetable growing.

June 28 - July 16 2000

Paper Prayers Campaign
Aids Awareness through the Visual Arts and Crafts

'Senzenjani Ngengculazi? (What are we going to do about AIDS?)

Spurred by the theme 'Break the Silence' Anthea Martin, Director of the African Art Centre has curated this exhibiton of contemporary mixed media artworks around the topic of HIV/AIDS. Sponsored by the British Council items sold will go to the AIDS AWARENESS CRAFT WORKSHOPS held in conjunction with Kate Wells of the ML Sultan Technikon Design Department.

July 5 - 22, 2000

Sue Williamson
Breaking the Silence: Busi 2000
Digital print
85 x 200 cm

As their contribution to the AIDS conference, the pharmaceutical company Bristol Myers invited Marilyn Martin and Linda Givon of the Goodman Gallery to coordinate a show of specially commissioned work from invited South African artists under the title �Artworks for AIDS�. Participants include Zwelethu Mthethwa, David Goldblatt, Bernie Searle, Lisa Brice, Willie Bester, Sue Williamson and Jane Alexander. The emphasis was to be on the way the pandemic is affecting women and children. The exhibition will be mounted in the Durban Exhibition Centre during the conference from July 9 to 14, and after that will travel to Brussels, Washington, and finally Boston, where it will be auctioned to raise funds for AIDS initiatives. A full colour catalogue printed by Cape Town�s The Scan Shop will be available.

Opening at 1 p.m. on July 9. Closing July 14.

Invitation to the show opening June 29

Jill Trappler at the Tatham Art Gallery

Well known Cape Town abstract artist Jill Trappler will be showing her paintings in a solo exhibition at the Tatham Art Gallery in Pietermaritzburg which opens at 6 p.m. on Thursday, June 29.

Until July 23.

Tatham Art Gallery, Cnr Longmarket St and Commercial Rd, Pietermaritzburg

Tel: (033) 342 1801

Sue Williamson
Messages from the Moat 1997
Installed in The Archive

'Archive 09.06_02.07' opens in two venues in The Hague

Two fine venues in The Hague are the location for a yet another South African exhibition on the subject of the reconsideration of the country's recent history, national and personal, and the impact of the past upon the present. Quartair, situated down a narrow passageway bordering a canal, was once an old bakery, and is now a large industrial type exhibition space with a number of artists' studios on the upper floors. In this space, Sue Williamson, Lisa Brice, and Brett Murray are showing recent work, and a video programme curated by Robert Weinek includes contributions from artists and filmmakers.

Across town, in an area marked by historic government buildings, is an old archive, four floors of walls lined with shelves around a hollow core. Light filters down from a skylight in the ceiling. The walkways and curving stairways are of cast iron, and It is here that Sue Williamson has installed 'Messages from the Moat', the piece with 1400 bottles engraved with the names of the first slaves sold in South Africa in the second half of the 1600's, when the colony was newly under Dutch rule. The venue, once part of the Dutch Foreign Affairs department, is stunningly appropriate. There is a new sound composition of wind and water and atmospheric 'noise' recorded in the Cape Town Castle created by James Webb to accompany the installatation.

The curator of Archive 9.06_2.07 is Jan de Lange of the Stichting Kunstmanifestasies.

Ina van Zyl
Vader met kind en lollie 1999
Oil on canvas
100x100cm

Taking place in The Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, Continental Shift focuses on art as a blueprint for co-operation between diverse cultures. The exhibition takes place in four different venues from May 21 to September 10. As a reaction to the fundamental social and political changes within Europe, the exhibition aims to create an image of artistic relationships between Europe and other continents. In particular, the emphasis has been placed upon the cultural spheres of Japan/ Korea, the Near East, Africa and Latin America.

Continetal Shift will bring together over 100 artists from these areas, all of whom have lived in Europe or have dealt with European cultural influences in their work. Participating artists from South Africa are Ina van Zyl, Andries Botha and Kendell Geers.

More information on this project can be found at http://continentalshift.org

Claudette Schreuders

'Liberated Voices: Contemporary Art from South Africa', the group show which opened at the Museum for African Art in New York last September, is now at the Austin Museum of Art in Texas. The show features 11 artists, ranging from those who were politically active in the early eighties, like Paul Stopforth and David Koloane, through Penny Siopis, Brett Murray and Zwelethu Mthethwa to the post apartheid generation of Claudette Schreuders and Samson Mncisi.

The Austin Museum reports: 'Our public opening on Saturday, May 13 was very successful. Penny Siopis gave a wonderful, well-attended gallery tour, which was followed by a concert by Inkululeko, an amazing local women's acapella group who sang songs from South Africa and other African countries. We're really excited about all of our other upcoming programs, which will include a visit from Samson Mncisi in June.'

In another of the attendant programmes, the Museum has set up a question and answer section on their website, www.amoa.org, on which Austin gallery goers can post inquiries to the South African participating artists.

The show, which received an extremely positive review from the influential Holland Cotter of the New York Times when it opened in New York, was reviewed for ArtThrob by curator Tumelo Mosaka. .

May 13 to August 13.