Archive: Issue No. 51, November 2001

21.11.01 'Healing through Creative Arts' at MuseumAfrica
21.11.01 Sue Williamson walkabout at the Joubert Park Project
21.11.01 Contemporary San Art and Crafts at Art on Paper
21.11.01 'Genesis' downstairs at Art on Paper
21.11.01 Group exhibition at Innerspace
21.11.01 'Reveal' - Sotiris Moldovanos at Spark!
21.11.01 Johan Moolman at Millennium II
21.11.01 Austrian video art at The | Premises
21.11.01 Rael Blieden's 'Outside Looking In' at The | Premises
14.11.01 Joubert Park Project special event and walkabouts
14.11.01 Wits student exhibitions at MuseumAfrica
14.11.01 Alastair McLachlan at Graphiti
07.11.01 'The Open Doors Project' at Activate Architects
07.11.01 'Relationships' photo essay competition at the Bensusan
07.11.01 Public viewing of the Sasol Art Collection
07.11.01 Wits Fine Art student exhibition
07.11.01 Student exhibition at the Design Centre
07.11.01 'The Dogs of War' - Willie Bester at the Goodman
07.11.01 John Meyer at the Everard Read
07.11.01 Mairead O'Neill Laher at the Gencor Gallery
07.11.01 Merely Mortal opens in Jan Smuts Avenue
31.10.01 'The Angels Speak' at Spark!
31.10.01 'Sacred Spaces' at the Art Space
31.10.01 Fuji Fotobuy in Rosebank
31.10.01 'A Decade of Collaboration' at Art on Paper
31.10.01 'Journeys' at Carol Lee
24.10.01 FNB Vita Art Prize 2001 at the Market Theatre
17.10.01 'My World/Our World' at Johannesburg Art Gallery
17.10.01 DaimlerChrysler Award for Sculpture 2002 at the JAG
10.10.01 Minnette Vári and Michael Pettit at the Standard Bank Gallery

21.11.01 'Portrait of the Spirit' end-of-tour function
21.11.01 Tukkies students at the Pretoria Art Museum
14.11.01 Keith Dietrich at the Open Window
14.11.01 Marriana Booyens at the Millennium Gallery
07.11.01 Lecture by Karin Skawran at the Association of Arts
31.10.01 Bettie Cilliers Barnard at the Association of Arts, Pretoria
03.10.01 What's on at the Pretoria Art Museum

In conjunction with a conference and the launch of the South African Network of Trauma Service Providers (Themba Lesizwe), the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation in collaboration with the cultural desk of Evangelischer Entwicklungsdienst Deutschland, and the European Union present 'Healing Through the Creative Arts'. As the conference brief states, "Africa is a continent that consists of an enormous diversity of culture, tradition and religious practices. We all have a sense of the world we inhabit within which are high levels of trauma and political and social violence. This conference emerged out of an active exploration of the arts as therapeutic and healing within a South African context. This is the context in which we begin to explore the creative arts and its potential for healing at this conference."

Exhibitors include Gail Neke, Diane Levy, Mandla Mabila, Maggie Mokgoena, a Katlehong/Thokosa group of women involved in an art therapy training programme, Artists Proof Studio's HIV/AIDS-related project of Paper Prayers, Giselle Wulfson, quilts by a rural women's AIDS project that were presented to the ministries as pledges, students of the Foundation Course in Art Therapy, Kim Berman; Marilyn McDowell, Hayley Berman and the Visual Arts and Crafts Academy. Children's images made in Thembisa/Thokosa (witnesses to violence and sexual and physical abuse), from the bereavement group at Baragwanath and refugee children's images from art therapy group work at the trauma clinic are also included.

For further information contact Dorothea Giesche at 082 6831 328 or by email at mwdoro@mweb.co.za.

Opening to the public from November 27
Closing: December 9

MuseumAfrica level 3, 121 Bree St, Newtown
Tel: (011) 833 5624
Fax: (011) 833 5636
Hours: Tues - Sun 9am - 5pm

Artthrob's founding editor will speak about her project 'From the Inside', an ongoing collaboration with people who have HIV/AIDS, on Saturday November 24 at 11am. The aim of the project is to encourage a spirit of openness and normality on the subject. Quotes have been selected from interviews with HIV positive people who live in and around Joubert Park and further afield. These "messages to the community" were transferred onto public walls in Johannesburg as large-scale text, each signed with the name of the speaker in vinyl lettering. In addition a billboard has been installed in the CBD and a slide installation ran at the Goodman Gallery during the opening week in October.

For this weekend, Williamson will be re-installing part of the slide installation at the Goodman Gallery. The work in the Johannesburg Art Gallery comprises a slide documentation of the speakers and their statements in situ.

Williamson states: "The fight against HIV/AIDS could be seen as the most important issue facing South Africa in the coming years. What advice in this fight can be given to the wider community by those who are already infected, and thus inside the situation? The hope is to encourage debate, empower the public, and break down the silence surrounding the subject of AIDS."

'From the Inside' has been made possible with the assistance of the Wits Fine Art Department, the Technikon and Unisa, especially Colleen Alborough, Alison Kearney, Brenton Maart, Keith Fraser, Paula Louw, Vicky Cruywagen and Tamsyn Miller.

Tours of the Joubert Park Public Art Project exhibition take place every Saturday at noon. Special bookings can be made with Tiny Malefane at the Gallery - 011 725 3130. Safe parking is available in the JAG parking lot.

For further info call Dorothee Kreutzfeldt on 083 728 5606.

Tamar Mason opens an exhibition of paintings, prints, ceramics and textiles by the Naro people (Kuru, Botswana) and the !Xun and Khwe (Schmidsdrift, Kimberley). The intention of the exhibition is to shift the focus from the exclusively historical art forms, like rock paintings and engravings found across southern Africa, to art made by contemporary descendants.

Among the oldest indigenous populations of the world and known to have inhabited southern Africa for more than 30 000 years, the San people's recent history has been characterised by discrimination, oppression and disposession. Today, about 100 000 San people live in small, scattered groups in South Africa, Namibia, Angola, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Botswana. Having had to abandon their traditional hunter-gatherer lifestyle due to loss of land, they were not equipped for the new life in small settlements. Although there is no longer any tradition of painting or rock engraving among contemporary San people, the artistic skills that were part of their traditional hunter-gatherer lifestyle have survived. These contemporary San artists are now responding intimately and creatively to the challenge of their new environment, building on the traditional iconography of the San and extending it by adding their own images and symbols with a more contemporary meaning.

Existing and potential projects of the Kuru Trust and the !Xu & Khwe Trust relate to landuse, culture and income generating. The emergence of a new art tradition has already helped to re-assert human dignity in a marginalised and abused community.

Opening: November 24 at 3pm

Art on Paper, 8 Main Road, Melville (next to Outer Limits bookshop)
Tel: (011) 726 2234
Email: mwartonp@mweb.co.za
Hours: Tues - Sat 10am - 5pm

Taryn Millar co-ordinates this exhibition of work by members of the community-based Artist Proof Studio who have been associated with the organisation for at least two years. The exhibition marks the end of their studies and the birth of their artistic careers. These young artists have mastered their chosen printmaking mediums and use these to express views and concerns about South Africa and the world around them.

Sibongile Zwane pays tribute to women and their daily labour through the techniques of collography, lithography and lino printing. Robert Maledu produces intimate, small-scale etchings, dry points and lithographs to express his concerns about child abuse. Other artists featured on the exhibition are Mpho Radebe, Phillemon Hlungwani and Themba Mnguni.

Opening: November 24 at 3pm
Closing: December 6

Art on Paper, 8 Main Road, Melville (next to Outer Limits bookshop)
Tel: (011) 726 2234
Email: mwartonp@mweb.co.za
Hours: Tues - Sat 10am - 5pm

Louis Audie, Natasha Barnes, Emile Cronje, Christopher Haw, Willie Strydom, Harry Voerman and Margaret Wagner show a collection of oil paintings, pastels, watercolour and mixed-media works on a commercially orientated, holiday-friendly exhibition.

Opening: November 23 at 7pm
Closing: January 6 2002

Innerspace Exhibitions/New Century Art Gallery, Rivonia Cloisters, Ninth Avenue, Rivonia
Tel: (011) 803 9944
Email: ndoro@mweb.co.za
Website: www.art4u.co.za or www.ndoroarts.com
Hours: Mon - Fri 10am - 5pm, Sat - Sun 10am - 2pm

Young Gauteng-based artist Sotiris Moldovanos presents 'Reveal', an exhibition of mixed-media work that he says "examines relationships, sexuality and the media - issues we confront and are confronted with on a daily basis ... Some of the work intentionally establishes an invasion of privacy, not only physically but also emotionally, placing the viewer in the position of voyeur. Situations are recreated, where viewers may glimpse or find similarities within themselves, which create an interaction between the viewer and the work. Works depict that which not many see or realise but can relate to on a subliminal level. The work appears three-dimensional through the use of life-sized cut-outs placed against the surface, the scale making the work appear more 'real' and therefore easier to interact with."

Moldovanos can be contacted on 083 380 6888.

Opening: November 21 at 7pm
Closing: December 2

Spark!, 10 Louis Road, Orchards
Tel: (011) 622 8297
Pieter Vorster 082 574 2152; Glynnis Jackson 083 836 1210
Email: orchardsproject@yahoo.com
Hours: Mon - Sat 10am till café-bar closes, Sun 10am - noon

With a long career in artmaking and teaching, sculptor and installation artist Johan Moolman now lives and works in Groot Marico, that legendary town so often invoked by Herman Charles Bosman. He refers to himself as a "neo-primitive", using materials ranging from stone, earth, found objects, iron, wood and neon to define a personal visual and symbolic lexicon based on Jungian principles. It is Moolman's concern to reinstate meaningful ritual practices as it is these, he opines, that "provide a catalyst for a cohesive society".

On exhibition will be a body of work consisting of freestanding sculptures, wall sculptures/works, works on paper, computer-processed prints and installation work.

Opening: November 21 at 7pm
Closing: December 15

Millennium II, 19 Jellicoe Avenue, Rosebank
Tel: (011) 880 5270
Email: mgallery@mweb.co.za
Hours: Tues - Fri 11am - 6pm, Sat 12pm - 5pm
Millennium II will close on December 15 and reopen on January 15 2002

'Outside Looking In' is Rael Blieden's first solo show, comprising paintings and works on paper influenced by an ongoing interest in the concept of spirituality in art. Blieden's approach is a formal one, centred on colour, form and geometric abstraction.

After graduating from the University of the Witwatersrand in 1997 with a BA (Hons) and majors in Fine Art, English, History of Art and Drama and Film, Blieden travelled substantially, spending a year and a half in Israel (and other Middle Eastern countries) and some time in Europe. While in Israel, he was a resident artist in two galleries (Cardo in Jerusalem and Millennium in Tel Aviv) and was invited to display work at two national exhibitions. He also exhibited at the New York Art Expo 2001 (facilitated through Millennium Gallery, Tel Aviv).

Preview: November 26 and 27
Opening: November 28 at 6.30pm
Closing: December 3

The | Premises, Johannesburg Civic Theatre, off Loveday Street, Braamfontein
Tel: (011) 403 3408 ext 184 (Boy Bangala)
Email: thepremises@onair.co.za
Hours: Mon 10am - 6pm, Tues - Sat 12pm - 8pm
Viewing by appointment: Rael Blieden on 082 694 1936

The | Premises hosts an evening of screenings by Austrian video artists Ella Raidel (Austria), René Straub (Germany) and Susanne Jirkuff (Austria), curated by Maren Richter.

Raidel and Straub are currently researching a documentary film on the city of Johannesburg to be launched in 2002. Both are independent artists who show their first collaborative work at The | PREMISES, a film which is based on the idea of "the city as a visual order". Considering that the city reflects and embodies the visual culture of each society, Raidel is fascinated by observing everyday scenes while Straub is concentrating on the patterns that city life generates.

Their project 'Social Palast' (Social Palace) brings both ideas together by focusing on short sequences of what defines the visual language of urbanity. A 24-hour time lapse film view, shot from a social housing project to an office building, turns into an almost objective narrative façade - in other words, the facade of the building can be read simultaneously as a visually aesthetic surface and as a story of urban life.

Raidel also presents her video piece Family Trophies. Pursuing the quest for new visual languages by using found images looped and edited together in a random selection (this piece was filmed in a commercial photographic lab), she eradicates the boundaries between intimacy and voyeurism.

Continuing the investigation into urban spaces, Susanne Jirkuff uses two strategies: either the point of view of a distant observer, or that of a very intimate, utopian one. She observes urban situations by searching for them in media structures. According to Jirkuff, media space creates fictive spaces that can be traced back to urban realities. She will screen two works at The | PREMISES: Cry and Remote Control, using this "fictive space" to tell a simple, everyday story, presenting these stories as possibilities for creating a space for utopia within a controlled society.

There will be a cash bar and the artists will be on hand to discuss their work.

Friday November 23 at 6.30pm

The | Premises, Johannesburg Civic Theatre, off Loveday Street, Braamfontein
Tel: (011) 403 3408 ext 184 (Boy Bangala)
Email: thepremises@onair.co.za

This weekend is again jam-packed with activities, performances and intellectual and creative exchange in and around the Johannesburg Art Gallery.

On Saturday November 17 between noon and 2pm the JPP hosts events in the park and gallery. Noon sees Zanendaba hosting a session of traditional African storytelling. Visiting Icelandic artist Anna Richardsdottir performs an aspect of her ongoing project 'Cleaning Our Dirty World' at 1pm. She will be accompanied by Stompie Selibi. At 2pm, Selibi and his ensembles Mosweu and Mabaleng play their own set. The project's website will at last be launched to the public and visitors who did not make the project's public launch of a few weeks ago will have a chance to view a documentary film of the day's activities.

John Fleetwood will install his sound-piece 'strangeness:hearing' in the park and 'Extraphonic' will take place for the last time, open to anyone who wants to tell a story related to Joubert Park, while being on the phone/on air with a radio station in Sweden.

On Sunday November 18 at 11am Elu Kieser and Steven Cohen will speak about their multi-media collaboration 'Broken Bird', which includes a video-projection at the gallery and at noon Anna Richardsdottir will talk about her ongoing performance work 'Cleaning Our Dirty World'. Richardsdottir is currently on a residency in Johannesburg.

Third-year and BTech students show work produced during this academic year. Go up to the fourth floor temporary exhibitions space in the west wing.

Opening: November 18 at 6pm
Closing: December 1

MuseumAfrica, 121 Bree St, Newtown
Tel: (011) 833 5624
Fax: (011) 833 5636
Hours: Tues - Sun 9am - 5pm

Having shown 'Matchstix', the drive-in and fire-obsessed McLachlan brings us 'Matchstix II', described as "a mixed match media collection in four acts, starring Tabula Rasa and the speechless bubbles with special guests the Tear Tuin ..." Sounds suitably enigmatic - go see for yourself.

Opening: November 10
Closing: November 30

Graphiti Gallery, 78 Fourth Avenue, Melville
Tel: (011) 726 6058/9
Hours: Mon - Fri 9am - 5pm; Sat 9am - 12.30pm

Activate Architects launched their new offices a while ago with an exhibition by emerging artists. They continue this policy with 'The Open Doors Project' hosted in conjunction with The Pioneers of Change. Three young visual artists are joined by storyteller Peter Christie, poet Leeto Thale and musicians Jabulani Banga and friends for an afternoon of homegrown sights and sounds, with delicious food by Moyo restaurant.

Turiya Magadela is a young South African artist living in Yeoville, who interprets the context around her through innovative media and constructions. Keith Sondiyazi, who has worked closely with Jackson Hlungwane, has created an extensive body of work dealing with metaphysical concerns. Ex-mineworker Louis Chamane creates sculptural intepretations of mining life. RSVP by November 9.

November 18 at 4pm. Entrance R40 at the door

Activate Architects, 44 St John's Road, Houghton
Tel: (011) 487 1885
Email: michael@activate.co.za or colleen@pioneersofchange.net
Websites: www.activate.co.za and www.pioneersofchange.net

Winning entries from this national documentary photo essay competition, organised under the auspices of the Department of Graphic Design and Photography at the Vaal Triangle Technikon, are on exhibition with a prize of a Leica M6 camera sponsored by Precision Photo Systems.

Opening: November 18 at 3pm
Closing: January 27 2002

Bensusan Museum of Photography, MuseumAfrica, 121 Bree Street, Newtown
Tel: (011) 833 5624
Fax: (011) 833 5636
Email: jfrost@mj.org.za
Hours: Tue - Sun 9am - 5pm

The curator, Teresa Lizamore, and advisors for the Sasol Art Collection, which boasts some fine new acquisitions, invite the public to an informal viewing of the corporate collection. With their new corporate identity, general public presence and sponsorships, Sasol is apparently doing its utmost to move beyond its reputation of an apartheid-era corporate giant and intothe 21st century. Having recently purchased Stephanus Rademeyer's sculpture and digital projection Deferred Reconstructions with technology to match, their fellow corporate competition has much to live up to.

November 17 from 10am to 4pm. Refreshments will be served at 1pm and there will be a performance by Sasol Chorale

Sasol Limited, corner Sturdee Avenue and Baker Street, Rosebank
Tel: 082 651 4702 (Teresa Lizamore)

The annual Wits Fine Art student exhibition shows the best of this year's student production.

Opening: November 15 at 5.30pm with guest speaker Dr Rayda Becker
Closing: February 22 2002

Gertrude Posel Gallery, University of the Witwatersrand, Braamfontein
Tel: (011) 717 1363
Email: gallery@atlas.wits.ac.za
Hours: Tues - Fri 10am - 4pm

The Design Centre in Greenside, located in the midst of that buzzphrase of the moment, the "complete lifestyle experience", hosts its end of year student exhibition. The centre specialises in interior, graphic and multimedia design.

Opening: November 14 at 6pm

Design Centre, 118 Greenway, Greenside
Tel: (011) 646 1984

Willie Bester's latest installation is dubbed 'The Dogs of War' and includes his aggressive installation from the Grahamstown festival, 'Who Let the Dogs Out' (see Reviews, Artthrob July 2001). This hard-hitting piece offers an interpretation of the scandal in which police let their dogs loose on alleged illegal aliens in so-called "training" exercises. An artist who uncompromisingly aligned himself with the struggle during the apartheid years, for Bester the fight is not yet over. He states: "People have built up a resistance to anything that addresses the psyche of mankind or people or themselves. I believe that we must protest against that which is wrong. There is no form of escape; remaining apolitical is a luxury that South Africans simply cannot afford ... We were naïve about the state of things in South Africa, we thought things would be different. We wanted to believe that our culture had changed, because we so badly wanted things to be different so that we could move forward. But it's impossible to forget the past because it influences our future. This is why I document these events, so that we do not forget. I derive no pleasure from criticising the present government. How could I? It was this political culture that I helped bring into power. The fact remains that we cannot follow blindly. Someone has to stand up and say 'enough'. No, it gives me no pleasure, only pain. But I cannot keep quiet. We cannot afford to lose our humanity."

Opening: November 10 at noon
Closing: December 1

Goodman Gallery, 163 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parkwood
Tel: (011) 788 1113
Fax: (011) 788 9887
E-mail: goodman@iafrica.com
Hours: Tues - Fri 9.30am - 5.30pm, Sat 9.30am - 4pm

Recent paintings, including An Evening Pint, are on exhibition. Meyer paints everyday scenes in a loose, semi-photorealistic style.

Opening: November 8 at 6.30pm
Closing: end November

Everard Read Gallery, 6 Jellicoe Avenue, Rosebank
Tel: (011) 788 4805
Hours: Mon - Fri 9am - 6pm, Sat 9am - 5pm

Dublin-based abstract expressionist Laher mounts an exhibition of abstract landscapes entitled 'Afterimages'. The works produced for this show were inspired by a stay in South Africa, where the artist became fascinated by the tenuous structures we put up to protect ourselves. Her objective is, she says, is "to find an island between realism and abstraction".

Opening: November 7 at 6pm
Closing: November 28

Gencor Gallery, Rand Afrikaans University, cnr Kingsway and University Road, Auckland Park
Tel: (011) 489 2099
Hours: Mon - Fri 9am - 6pm, Sat 9am - 1pm

A design studio/artspace/venue and showroom for some of South Africa's most titillating craft and art objects is now officially open to the public. The brainchild of Charles Storr of Kiteworks (who gave us 'Changing Screens' last year) and partner Heather Greig, the space is one " where the tastebuds and the grey matter converge." The space is available for hire for events or exhibitions. They have a range of themed evenings planned, from cookery and cocktail demonstrations to talks and tastings. Get there, especially if you're at a loss for what to by that special person for Christmas.

Merely Mortal, 356 Jan Smuts Avenue
Tel: (011) 326 3280
Email: kitework@global.co.za

Barbara l'Ange and Katherine Andjelopolj focus on women in a show of mixed media work. L'Ange graduated from Wits University and went on to become both a teacher and a ballet dancer with PACT. Moving to Washington, she studied at the Corcoran School of Art, specialising in drawing. On her return to South Africa she studied Fine Art at the Witwatersrand Technikon in the early Nineties, studying under Willem Boshoff, Philippa Hobbs, Andrew Munnik and Leora Farber. Her latest work, closing the gap between "women's craft" and "art", is a tribute to women, in particular certain South African women who have had a significant impact on her, such as Bonnie Ntshalintshali, Helen Martins, Noria Mabaso and Marjorie Sturman.

Dublin-born Andjelopolj moved to South Africa in 1968 and worked in the studios of several well-known artists including Nina Romm, George Boys, Philippa Hobbs and Kim Berman. She has shown extensively in the UK and her present work with colour woodcut and etching is becoming a pictorial account of her life with all its influences - Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, African and Slavic.

For more information contact Andjelopolj on 082 680 6339 or L'Ange on 083 990 7771.

Opening: November 7 at 6pm
Closing: November 18

Spark!, 10 Louis Road, Orchards
Tel: (011) 622 8297
Email: orchardsproject@yahoo.com
Hours: Mon - Sat 10am till café-bar closes, Sun 10am - noon

Christine Dixie, Amanda Ellis, Erica Hibbert, Liz Loubser, Judith Mason, Tamar Mason, Eleni Neocleous and sculpture from Mukondeni comprise the line-up of artists for the next show at Teresa Lizamore's Art Space. She is also offering a full day spiritual and creative process enrichment workshop on November 10 from 8.30am. Please call her to book on 082 651 4702.

Opening: November 4 at 5.30pm with guest speaker Nina Romm
Closing: December 6

The Art Space, 3 Hetty Avenue, Fairland
Tel/fax: (011) 678 1206
Cell: 082 651 4702

From students to Schadeberg, the biggest collection of photographers in South Africa are gathering to show their work to the larger public and make quality photography affordable for all. Hundreds of images and photographers will gather in the Mews in Rosebank, Johannesburg, for the Fuji Fotobuy, planned as a bi-monthly activity. Another Fuji Fotobuy is planned for the Christmas rush. All inquiries can be directed to Johan on 880 2885.

November 4 from 9am - 3pm

The Mews, opposite the Mall of Rosebank and The Zone

Ten years ago Mark Attwood, qualified master printer with a certificate from the acclaimed Tamarind Institute in the USA, started The Artists' Press in Newtown, Johannesburg, to provide a printing studio in South Africa where artists could work in collaboration with a master printer on hand-printed lithographs, producing high-quality limited editions.

During the last 10 years, numerous well-known South African artists have collaborated with Attwood to publish lithographs and monotypes at The Artists' Press. "Working with artists is stimulating and exciting and poses challenges which I enjoy," he states. Now 'A Decade of Collaboration' provides collectors and people interested in South African art with a rare opportunity to view and acquire work done at The Artists' Press over the last 10 years by artists such as Patrick Mautloa, Ezrom Legae, Tommy Motswai, Penny Siopis, Nhlanhla Xaba, Judith Mason, Kim Berman, David Koloane, Erika Hibbert, William Kentridge, Sam Nhlengethwa, Robert Hodgins, Thomas Nkuna, Joachim Schonfeldt, Clive van den Berg, Kendell Geers and others.

The artists' book 'The Ultimate Safari', a short story by Nadine Gordimer with lithographs by Aletah Masuku, Dorah Ngomane and Alsetah Manthosi and printed by Mark Attwood, will be launched during the exhibition. It tells the story of a young girl who flees Mozambique with her family and walks through the Kruger Park to a supposedly better life in South Africa.

Opening: November 3 at 3pm; book launch on November 10 at 3pm
Closing: November 22

Art on Paper, 8 Main Road, Melville (next to Outer Limits bookshop)
Tel: (011) 726 2234
Email: mwartonp@mweb.co.za
Hours: Tues - Sat 10am - 5pm

Johann Louw, Judith Mason, Jenny Stadler, Tara Cranswick, Colbert Mashile, Kobus Kloppers, Rudolph Vosser, Hermann Niebuhr, Adriette Myburgh, Albert Redelinghuys, George Coutouvidis and Benjamin Coutouvidis show paintings with sculptures from Kobus Haupt and Guy du Toit in a short exhibition that deals with physical, metaphorical and spiritual journeys.

Opening: November 2 at 6pm
Closing: November 7

Carol Lee, 65 Galway Road, Parkview
Tel: (011) 486 0526
Hours: Sat - Sun 10am - 5pm, Mon - Wed 10am - 3pm and by appointment

In a move that will no doubt please (or pacify) Johannesburg audiences, the FNB Vita Art Prize travels this year from Durban, coinciding with the Market Theatre's 25-year anniversary. The venue is not ideal, resulting in Clive van den Berg choosing not to show his large, wall-mounted pieces, but instead exhibiting large-scale photographs of his Durban installation. Other artists on this year's show are winner Moshekwa Langa, Kim Lieberman, Kathryn Smith, Robin Rhode and Jan van der Merwe.

Opening: October 23 at 5.30 for 6pm
Closing: November 30

Market Theatre complex, corner Bree and Wolhuter Streets, Newtown
Tel: (011) 832 1641
Fax: (011) 492 1235
Email: gallery@market.theatre.co.za

The Johannesburg Art Gallery seems to be getting its act together on the publicity front at last, with announcements of exhibitions arriving timeously in Artthrob's inbox. Could this be spurred by the awesome energy inspired by the monster success of the Joubert Park Project's opening event?

The travelling exhibition 'My World/Our World: A Children's International Photography Project' comes to the JAG in the presence of First Lady Judy O'Bannon, wife of the Governor of Indiana, USA. The show also brings with it a delegation of Indiana cultural workers looking to invest, at least intellectually, in the cultural landscape of Johannesburg.

Opening: October 29 at 5pm
Closing: December 30

Johannesburg Art Gallery, corner Klein and King George Streets, Joubert Park
Tel: (011) 725 3130
Fax: (011) 720 6000
Hours: Tues - Sun 10am - 5pm

This year's nominees for the DaimlerChrysler Award will be presenting their work downstairs at the JAG, alongside the main area of the big Joubert Park Project exhibition. Jane Alexander, Minnette Vári, Moses Seleko, Albert Munyai, Paul du Toit, Claudette Schreuders, Joachim Schönfeldt and Langa Magwa complete the lineup of artists vying for the coveted cash prize, exhibition, study opportunities abroad and an enviable monograph. But the rationale behind this year's focus on sculpture and the multidisciplinary nature of the work produced by some of the nominees remains something of a mystery.

Opening: October 26
Closing: December 4

Johannesburg Art Gallery, corner Klein and King George Streets, Joubert Park
Tel: (011) 725 3130
Fax: (011) 720 6000
Hours: Tues - Sun 10am - 5pm

Minnette Vári, fresh from the World Wide Video Festival, shows 'Aurora Australis' downstairs at the Standard Bank Gallery, while Cape Town-based painter Michael Pettit shows a comprehensive collection of paintings upstairs.

Pettit's exhibition is the culmination of some four and a half years' work, with the artist choosing to exhibit only once he felt the body of work had developed sufficiently. The collection includes dark and meditative works, theatrical themes and sensuous still lifes.

Vári's current research involves visualising the connective "tissue" she sees between scrambled signals from non-decoded pay TV stations with their arbitrary soundtracks and the phenomenon of aurora australis � the southern lights. She says: "At times I can sit and watch these scrambled signals for hours, marvelling at the strange combinations of recognisable image and sheer visual 'noise', all the while noticing that the soundtrack is not at all part of the programme being broadcast, since they rotate the same lame 1980s songs over and over again. Intermittent break-ups in the audio signal bring storms of electronic hiss and crackle, or long stretches of silence followed by the voice of an unaccountably excited host announcing upcoming attractions that will remain just 'noise' to me and millions of other South Africans, until I can afford my decoder, that is. Despite this, there are moments where I think I recognise the flash of mangled footage as coming from a movie that I've seen before, or footage of some other event that I know of, and this keeps me riveted to the screen for more clues. Invariably I come away seeing flashes of light when I close my blood-shot eyes.

"[...] Great flowing ribbons of coloured light brighten the skies over the polar region too far south to be seen from the southernmost part of my country. And yet, because of its location I feel strangely territorial about this grand display. Just like the coloured bands in the scrambled transmission on my TV set, these seem to carry some hidden message, and hold some remote enchantment, even a chance at intellectual and spiritual illumination to those who watch. Like the goddess of dawn, Aurora (or Greek Eos), it heralds of something out there, something greater, a cryptogram of things to come."

Vári casts herself as an unknown actor or body double in these scrambled screen grabs, replicating actions or completing them: "I would like to be able to read the signs of the world in the same way that the ancient peoples made sense of nature's everyday and more uncommon displays."

Opening: October 16 at 6pm with guest speaker Judith Mason
Closing: December 1

Standard Bank Gallery, corner Simmonds and Fredericks streets, Johannesburg
Tel: (011) 636 4231
Website: www.sbgallery.co.za Hours: Mon - Fri 8am - 4.30pm, Sat 9am - 1pm

The collaborative exhibition between Reunion Island's René Paul Savignan and Andrew Tshabangu from Soweto will complete its national tour with a function featuring a special poetry reading by Thokozani Mthiyane at the Alliance Française, Pretoria. The exhibition has travelled Johannesburg, Cape Town, Mitchell's Plain, Durban, PE and Gaborone in Botswana.

November 22 from 6pm

Alliance Française, 99 River Street, corner De Kock, Sunnyside
Tel: (012) 343 6563
Email: henri@ifas.org.za

Final-year students from the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Pretoria show work produced during the academic year.

Closing: December 14

Pretoria Art Museum, corner Schoeman and Wessels streets, Arcadia
Tel: (012) 344 1807/8
Fax: (012) 344 1809
Email: artmuseum@pretoriagov.za
Website: www.pretoriagov.za/pam
Hours: Tues, Thur - Sat 10am - 5pm, Wed 10am - 8pm, Sun 12pm - 5pm

'OER' is the title of Marriana Booyens' exhibition towards completion of her Masters Degree in Fine Arts at the University of Pretoria. Booyens, who has just returned from a two-month stay at the Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, examines painting's position within contemporary art, which has become dominated by video, installation and performance art. According to the press release, she "embarks on a search for the original, primeval appeal of painting as an art form. ... Booyens questions man's controlling position over primal nature. The human figure in the paintings is obscured, partly erased, overlaid and interwoven with the landscape. Man's dominance is subtly subverted and shown to lead to chaos or desolation."

Opening: November 7
Closing: December 15

Millennium Gallery, 75 George Storrar Drive, Groenkloof
Tel: (012) 460 8217
Fax: (012) 346 5552
Cell: 083 263 5842
Email: mgallery@mweb.co.za
Website: www.art.co.za/millenniumgallery
Hours: Tues - Fri 10am - 5pm, Sat 10am - 1pm

Keith Dietrich shows 'bodies, traces, identities', his beautiful but repetitive fragmented watercolours of rather fetishised body parts that Johannesburg audiences may have seen at the Goodman Gallery.

Opening: November 21 at 7pm with guest speaker Professor Karin Skawran
Closing: December 8

Open Window Art Academy, 10 Rigel Avenue, Erasmusrand
Tel: (012) 347 1740
Fax: (012) 347 1710
Email: gallery@openwindow.co.za
Website: www.openwindow.co.za
Hours: Mon - Fri 9am - 4pm, Sat 10am - 2pm

Professor Karin Skawran gives her final lecture in her series focusing on Fibre Art in Southern Africa, with particular reference to the Mapula and Kaross projects in South Africa and the Weya project in Zimbabwe. Call Nandi to book on (012) 346 3100.

November 14 at 7pm

Association of Arts, 173 Mackie Street, Nieuw Muckleneuk, Pretoria
Tel: (012) 346 3100
Fax: (012) 346 3125
Email: artspta@mweb.co.za
Website: www.art.co.za/artspta
Hours: Tues - Fri 10am - 4.30pm, Sat 10am - 12pm

In her 71st solo exhibition, 87-year-old Bettie Cilliers-Barnard shows the 'Mandala' series, comprising 10 large oil paintings using typical symbolic content in circular forms; a cycle of faces, masks and symbols within frames of textured paint embroideries; and a collection of smaller oil paintings featuring stylised objects within gleaming diamond-like compositions that the artist calls "jewels from my treasure chest of memories". Finally, the exhibition also features 32 graphic works executed over 50 years from a private collection, providing an excellent overview of her career against these new pieces.

Opening: November 4 at 5.30pm
Closing: November 22

Association of Arts, 173 Mackie Street, Nieuw Muckleneuk, Pretoria
Tel: (012) 346 3100
Fax: (012) 346 3125
Email: artspta@mweb.co.za
Website: www.art.co.za/artspta
Hours: Tues - Fri 10am - 4.30pm, Sat 10am - 12pm

'Contemporary Art from the Museum Collection' is on view in the North Gallery until May 2002; 'SEEINGBlind' is a tactile experience in the West Gallery which ends on October 14; 'Paintings of Pretoria' runs until December 2001 in the South Gallery; art by artists featured in the high school syllabus is displayed in the South West Gallery until March 2002; and the Henry Preiss Hall features South African graphics from the collection dealing with mystique, myth and mythology until January 2002. The Pretoria Art Museum also now holds the Corobrik ceramic collection that used to be housed at the Sandton Civic Gallery in Johannesburg.

Pretoria Art Museum, corner Schoeman and Wessels streets, Arcadia
Tel: (012) 344 1807/8
Fax: (012) 344 1809
Email: artmuseum@pretoriagov.za
Website: www.pretoriagov.za/pam
Hours: Tues, Thur - Sat 10am - 5pm, Wed 10am - 8pm, Sun 12pm - 5pm