Archive: Issue No. 51, November 2001

21.11.01 December Red Eye at Durban Art Gallery
21.11.01 Christmas shopping and events at the NSA
14.11.01 Final-year student exhibitions at the Technikon Natal
14.11.01 'Embody' by Clair Ann Lloyd at the BAT Centre
07.11.01 Third-year student show at Technikon Natal Art Gallery
31.10.01 Walter Oltmann, Standard Bank Young Artist 2001 at the DAG
31.10.01 Fiona Kirkwood, Lee Scott-Hempson and Joanne Bloch at the NSA
24.10.01 End of year party and fundraising gala at the DAG

Red Eye @rt, Durban's premier arts event held monthly at the Durban Art Gallery, will be breaking away from its normal location and launching itself into the CBD during the month of December for an end-of-year party of mega proportions. For something completely different, Red Eye will kick off the festive season with a bumper event on December 7 at the Wheel Shopping Centre in the space that formerly housed The Hub.

Bigger and better, this two-in-one event will take art out of the traditional gallery environment and lend a fresh perspective to both a conventional shopping location and the artworks themselves. Visual art will feature a selection of some of the best contemporary video, performance and fine art installations by various local artists and students. Work on show will include recent exhibitions by third and fourth year fine frt students from Technikon Natal.

Red Eye will also feature offerings from the local fashion, dance and music scenes. Check out the latest from Durban's funkiest young designers in a spectacular fashion show incorporating everything from hair art by Jenny B to traditional gumboot dancing.

Doors open at 6.30pm and the event will continue until midnight. Tickets are available from Computicket at R24 or at the door on the night for R34. Secure underground parking is available in the Wheel - entrance in Shamrock Avenue.

For more information contact Liana or Carol on (031) 311 2268/62.

It's the silly season again when gallery curators capitulate to the demands of the time. In keeping with tradition the NSA Gallery becomes an art and craft emporium at Christmas. Gloria Hoff and Gail Wellbeloved have mounted a national search of trade fairs, suppliers, crafters, makers and inventors to assure that a huge selection of homeware, artworks, gifts and collectables will be available to the Durban public during the month of December. All is not frivolity, however, as this is shopping with a conscience - all proceeds generated during this time will be ploughed back into the NSA, a registered welfare organisation. Furthermore the society supports local artists and craftspeople - keeping the chain of creativity alive.

Collaborating with the Arts Cafe, the NSA Complex will be open to the public for extended shopping hours on December 13 and 20. Make use of this opportunity to shop, listen to the popular King Boy's choir and relax in the outside restaurant where Ralph Bronzin of the Arts Cafe will prepare a special menu for the occasion. A full bar will also be available.

In addition, on December 2 from 9am to 3pm, the NSA Gallery, again in conjunction with the Arts Cafe, will present its monthly 'See-eazi' where every possible inch of space (stoeps, driveways and pavements) between the Davenport and Ferguson Roads is invaded with quality artwork. A diverse range of Durban artists are given the opportunity to showcase their goods at a nominal fee - creating the only outdoor event of its kind in Durban.

Opening: Sunday November 25 at 2pm Closing: December 30

Technikon Natal B Tech Fine Art students will be exhibiting their final-year shows this week both on campus and around Durban in a variety of sites and venues. The students will exhibit works across the disciplines including site-specific installation and multimedia work. This year's offering includes a feminist analysis of body shaping with reference to Lara Croft by Bernice Stott, Zimbabwean Lee Swart's engagement with white South Africans' fears for their security via her ironic ceramic decorated burglar guards, Gabi Nkosi's salute to motherhood in printmaking, Ivan Dos Santos Serra's multimedia installations engaging with seminal moments in adolescent experience and Raksha Gorbardan's totemic celebration of Hindu culture. From toilet graffiti to traditional oil painting, sculptures made from Sunlight soap with young offenders in Westville prison to Flash computer presentations, this show presents a window into a diversity of production and approach from 21 students.

Maps and itineraries will be available at the opening. The evening will end with a final exhibition bash at 293-297 Umbilo Road. All welcome.

Opening: Friday November 16 at 6.30pm

Technikon Natal Sculpture Department (Gate 4B), Mansfield Road, Durban

A fourth-year student at Natal Technikon, Clair Ann Lloyd obsessively covers mannequins utilising skin, hair, bone and other organic matter associated with the body. The resulting installation is not for the squeamish. She says that through this process she hopes to "somehow inject the dolls with an organic life or spirit". Realising that "the body is not contained, but a part of a cycle of disease, decay and life", she works mostly intuitively, often realising the wider implications, significance and symbolism of materials incorporated in her work only after completion. She views her work as "a journey, where I am still discovering the metaphoric relevance of materials and forms; my childhood experiences, as well as the impact of the social, theoretical and critical world, influencing and informing my art". Drawing on the abject and evoking our own fears of mortality, this show should prove challenging.

Opening: November 16 at 6.30pm
Closing: November 19

BAT Centre, 45 Maritime Place, Small Craft Harbour
Tel: (031) 332 0451
Fax: (031) 332 2213
Email: info@batcentre.co.za
Website: www.batcentre.co.za
Hours: Mon - Fri 9am - 5pm, Sat - Sun 9am - 4.30pm

It's that time of the year again when students consume copious amounts of coffee, wear permanently harassed expressions and pull out all the stops for their final exhibitions. Following tradition the third and fourth-year shows at Technikon Natal are mainly off campus, occupying shop fronts, disused dwellings, churches, office blocks and warehouses. This year is no exception and for the next two weeks those who are interested can see the current crop of young KwaZulu-Natal wannabes strutting their stuff all over town. This week it's the opportunity of the third-years. Their show starts at the Technikon Natal Art Gallery where visitors will be given a route map detailing the locations of the various installations and exhibitions. Highlights include a "conceptual" house from Milijana Babic in Mansfield Road which invites its visitors to find their way by "joining the dots", a take-over of the Wheel shopping centre with nine artists occupying a shop each, an "Ascension" banner from Ruth Deal which is over four stories tall at Glenridge Church at the Station, plus a variety of performance art, video art and digital photography. Not to be missed.

Next week is the fourth-year exhibition, also opening at the Technikon Gallery - updates next week.

Third-year exhibition
Opening: November 7 at 6pm

Fourth-year exhibition
Opening: November 16 at 6pm

Technikon Natal Art Gallery, Library Block, 51 Mansfield Road, Berea
Tel: (031) 204 2207
Hours: Mon - Thurs 8.30am - 4pm, Fri 8.30am - noon

Fresh from his showing at the Tatham in Pietermaritzburg Walter Oltmann comes to Durban as this year's Standard Bank Young Artist. Weaving in wire day-to-day things such as vases of flowers, brushes, chairs, kettles and insects, he reinvigorates the mundane, reinfusing it with a sense of the extraordinary.

A few years ago people in the streets of Durban watched with curiosity as Oltmann's huge woven soft python held limply between two giant hands was carried from the storeroom, where it had been living, to the DAG where it went on display. A posse of council employees cleared a path ahead, a few formed a circle around to protect it, while a handful of others followed, answering questions. His work today, as then, never fails to provoke a response because it is both immensely accessible yet at the same time unexpected.

His techniques engage basket making, thatching and weaving in all its forms. Borrowing and referring to fabrics, tapestry, carpets, beadwork and traditional building methods for walls and fences he also uses the structures and methods of the natural world from beavers' dams to birds' nests. Bridging fine arts and crafts, Oltmann interrogates cross-cultural traditions in a post-colonial society while retaining his own unique sense of the poetic. A show not to be missed.

Opening: November 7
Closing: January 3 2002

Durban Art Gallery, 2nd floor, City Hall, Smith Street
Tel: (031) 311 2262
Fax: (031) 311 2273
Website: www.durban.gov.za/museums/artgallery/index.htm
Hours: Mon - Sat 8.30am - 4pm, Sun 11am - 4pm

Showing in the main gallery at the NSA is Fiona Kirkwood's ninth solo exhibition. Kirkwood is a recognised pioneer in the field of fibre art in South Africa. Combining art and weaving in highly textured mixed media works, she creates sculptural installations reflecting aspects of South African history, culture and politics. The coat, symbol of the human form, is used here as a metaphor for the protection of individuals in a transforming society.

Kirkwood studied at the Glasgow School of Art in Scotland and obtained an MAFA from Natal University, Pietermaritzburg. She has works in many public and private collections in South Africa, the UK and America. Kirkwood, well known as a teacher in local tertiary institutions, currently runs her own teaching studio and is involved with art as therapy.

The exhibition will be opened by Andries Botha, followed by a performance by Siwela Sonke Dance Theatre, choreographed by Jay Pather.

In the Park Gallery Lee Scott-Hempson, a fine arts graduate of Technikon Natal, exhibits recent works in a small solo show. Scott-Hempson is a practicing artist who earns her living teaching in the Design School at the ML Sultan Technikon and this exhibition reflects the influence of this part of her life on her art. Her work combines textile and fashion drawing styles with autobiographical symbolism creating highly emotive and reflective works fusing fine art, design and popular culture.

In the Multimedia Room 'Acupuncture' features work by Joanne Bloch. A Johannesburg artist who divides her time between journalism, photography and making art, Bloch focuses on pinboard installations. These evolved out of an obsession with collecting cheap, mass-produced plastic objects. Commenting on the excesses inherent in our consumerist culture they also speak of obsession, fetishism and greed. At the same time they challenge our notions of value and beauty and what we consider to be precious and worth treasuring.

Opening: November 6 at 6pm
Closing: November 24

NSA Gallery, 166 Bulwer Road, Glenwood
Tel: (031) 202 3686
Fax: (031) 202 3744
Email: iartnsa@mweb.co.za
Website: www.nsagallery.co.za
Hours: Tues - Fri 10am - 5pm, Sat 10am - 4pm, Sun 11am - 3pm

The Friends of the Durban Art Gallery will be holding their annual End of Year party at the gallery on Thursday November 15 from 7pm. There will be a live jazz band and the theme will be 'Innovative Threads'. Numbers will be limited so patrons are asked to reserve their places in advance. The cost of R80 per person will include a curry dinner, sweets and wine.

A gala fundraising event will be presented by the KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestra and the Friends of the Durban Art Gallery on Saturday November 24 at 7pm. The evening will feature a five-star meal with fine wines in the long gallery where 'Innovative Threads', 'Soul of Africa' and the Standard Bank Young Artist exhibition by Walter Oltmann will be on view. Listen to the strains of the KZNPO under the baton of Gerhard Geist playing a programme of light classics from Mozart to Mendelssohn. The event has been organised as a joint collaboration to raise funds for the purchase of artworks and to extend the educational programmes of the DAG. Tickets are R250 per person.

To book for either event phone Rosemary Muir on (031) 311 2268.