Archive: Issue No. 44, April 2001

A collection of paintings and an installation by young Durban artist Sharlene Khan will go on display as part of Kwa Muhle Museum's Workers' Day celebrations. The collection, entitled 'Durban at Work' depicts life and work on the streets of the city and reflects the vibrancy and challenges of street trade.

Andrew Verster, always of a keen supporter of new talent, says of the work, "Sharlene Khan takes the most ordinary of things and turns them into poetry. In doing this she opens our eyes. With her paintings as a guide, a walk through Durban's unglamorous streets becomes an experience. She makes us notice people and incidents, landscape and pattern which we otherwise might miss".

Also at the Kwa Mhule Museum in partnership with The Workers' College
'Working Women'

'Working Women' is the collective effort of a number of photographers and the images were collated by photographer Rafs Mayet. The motivation for the collection was to highlight the different work that in which women engage. The collection focuses on women's work in both the formal and informal sector but more importantly it focuses on the nature and range of work these women do. It also illustrates women's unpaid work in the form of housework and child rearing thus concluding that women are the most exploited of the working class. Despite this, or perhaps because of this, women are always located at the forefront of the struggle for basic human rights, like access to water, education, housing, health care, better wages. A presentation by Kuki Ndlovu, Provincial Manager of DENOSA, readings and performances will accompany this exhibition. Guest Speaker: Nise Malange

Opening: Thursday April 26 at 6.00pm

Friends of the Durban Art Gallery have organized a visit to Andrew Walford's Studio and the Mariannhill Monastery on Sunday the 22nd April, 2001. Andrew Walford, one of the country's top ceramicists has exhibited in London, Amsterdam, Hamburg and Washington, D.C. His work is firmly situated in the Eastern tradition and he was the first South African to be invited to exhibit his work in Japan in 1969. A visit to the studio will allow visitors to view his ceramic work as well as the spectacular vista over the Shongweni area. Please bring a picnic lunch to have at the studio. The journey will continue after lunch with a guided tour of Mariannhill Monastery. Built by the Trappist monks, the buildings are a veritable lexicon of the many decorative uses for brickwork and the inventive and ingenious solutions that the monks came up with to build a self-sustaining community.

The bus will leave from the City Hall (Smith Street) at 10.00 a.m. for Andrew Walford's Studio.

Well-known sculptor Maureen Quin presents a series of works that have been eight years in the making: 12 bronzes that are thematically linked under the title 'The Hunt Series'. The series began with a commission to do a life-size study of a cheetah with her cubs. The Hunter, which entailed studying and sketching cheetahs as part of the preliminary research, reveals Quin's fascination with the cheetahs' movements, family life and feline grace. Quin, however, also felt a horror for "man's inhumanity to his fellow man", which, for her, was "compounded with the wanton destruction of our environment in the name of development". 'The Hunt Series' thus explores wider environmental concerns that have arisen out of her engagement with the subject of wildlife.

Quin has had more than 40 solo exhibitions and participated in 20 group exhibitions. She has numerous public and private commissions to her credit and is represented in most major collections in South Africa. She lives and works in Alexandria in the Eastern Cape.

Opening: April 17, 6pm (by Hanah Lurie)

The annual NSA members' exhibition is on again. This year participants were invited to submit works with any theme or subject matter, but with a restriction on size: 30 x 30cm. This annual event attracts considerable interest every year, and is an opportunity for the public to acquaint themselves with the practice of the very active membership base of the organisation. The exhibition will include works in all media, and this showcase guarantees attractive artworks at affordable prices. The NSA Gallery management also uses this opportunity to give exposure to the positive contribution members make towards the arts in KwaZulu-Natal.

Opening: April 17, 6pm

Previously seen at the Tatham Art Gallery in Pietermaritzburg 'Jabulisa 2000' now travels to Durban. From here it will be broken into smaller units to travel to regional shows so this is the last chance to see it in its entirety.

This is the second 'Jabulisa' exhibition, the last one touring to the Standard Bank Grahamstown Festival and Johannesburg in 1996. 'Jabulisa 2000' offers visitors a chance to see a range of contemporary KwaZulu-Natal art in one venue. Paintings, graphics, sculptures, ceramics, installations and pieces, as the publicity says, 'that defy traditional categories'. The show will take up half of the Durban Art Gallery and on one level is certainly extensive. Whether it fully and effectively engages the spectrum of contemporary art production in KwaZulu Natal is an open debate as many major artists of the province are represented by small pieces and the show seems to lack curatorial direction. There is, however, much to be seen and the show seems to have popular appeal - its run was extended by public demand in Pietermaritzburg.

The Durban Art Gallery's Red Eye @rt event explodes into the month of April with a sizzling line up of art, music, fashion and dance which promises to both entertain and enthral all who attend. Funky, Trip-hop sounds will be supplied by resident DJ's from Burn Nightclub, Tripod and Eightball, whose cutting edge music forms the core of the club's latest extension 'Darkside/Lightside'. On a slightly different note, be sure to check out the latest offering from the Flatfoot Dance Company in collaboration with Wentworth's 'Rock Da House', 'Charlie's Angels' and 'Lethal Entertainers'. This is dance at its very best; a breathtaking fusion of contemporary, hip-hop, break and funk; choreographed to perfection.

If it's Art you're after, then Cape Town based photographer Pieter Hugo and Barber Shop artist Bruno Bihiza's awesome images should do the trick, while the perpetually fashion-conscious will be able to view the most recent creations by Durban's up-and-coming designers in a fashion show featuring no less than seven, very talented, individuals. Modelled on bodies from Faces International Modelling Agency this promises to be an aesthetic treat in more ways than one.

Red Eye @rt takes place on Friday April 6, 6:00pm sharp at the Durban Art Gallery.

Amidst the street traders stalls selling sweets, fruits and other wares, competing with the Macdonald signs and Spur billboards, are the brightly painted eye-catching urban Barber Shop Saloons advertising haircuts as cool as Lucas Radebe, shaves as wicked as Benni McCarthy, or partings as smooth as Mandela's. These signs add flavour to the Durban urban landscape and are examples of African advertising at its most colourful. The artist responsible for the majority of these Barber Shop advert signs in Durban is Bruno Bihiza.

Bruni Bihiza was born in Uvira in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1972. At 14, he became very interested in drawing and painting young people's portraits for enjoyment. His parents noticed his talent and sent him to study art (and other commercial subjects) for two years in the Congo capital, Kinshasa.

In 1997, Bruno left the Congo because of the civil war, and made his way down to South Africa. Arriving in Durban he stayed with the owner of a barber stall. Noticing that there was no sign distinguishing the barber stall from the stall next to it selling bananas he offered his host a business deal: "Let me draw for you so people can see it's a barber shop. For free." From this simple beginning Bruno secured offers to make more advertisements and so began to make money from his art. Street traders would (and still do) come in with a request for "a poster with Lucas Radebe on" or "one with other styles". The styles and faces that Bruno paints come mainly from his head. If he doesn't know of the person he is painting, he finds a picture of them to copy.

Bruno works on canvas, shop walls, boards, sandwich boards and other bases. He generally uses fabric paints and acrylic paints although at the moment he is experimenting with oil paint mixed with sand. He makes full-colour signs as well as simple black and white ones with a smattering of colour, depending on his customer's budget. His subjects range from buses, portraits for local people (a Basotho man and his beloved horse being a favourite), paintings for churches (a remarkable one exists of a black Virgin Mary and Christ-child) as well as the more traditional signwriting .

If the street art of Jean Michel Basquiat can be recognised why not the urban African art of Bruno Bihiza?

Catch him at this week's Red Eye @rt.

Each year at the African Art Centre a real treasure trove of an exhibition occurs - a show of historic and rare traditional African art. Over 800 pieces cover everything from Zulu beer pots from the Pongola area dating from the 1920s, bead work from 14 areas in Kwa-Zulu Natal as well as particularly rare items from the Thembu people of the Cofimvaba area, beer baskets, spears, ceremonial dancing sticks and headdresses. This is a real collectors' show with pieces for sale to museums and public collections on March 6 from 10 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. and to private collectors on March 7, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The exhibition will be open to the general public March 7 at 6 pm by Professor Ptika Ntuli

Opening: Tuesday March 07, 6pm