Archive: Issue No. 64, December 2002

16.12.02 Red Eye @rt at the Durban City Hall Dome
16.12.02 Jeremy Wafer at the DAG
01.12.02 Clinton de Menezes at The Cupboard, Home
01.12.02 Jannie Van Heerden at the African Art Centre
15.11.02 'White Like Me' visits the DAG
15.11.02 'Male Order' at the DAG
15.11.02 Buzzart at the NSA

Red Eye Art will be hosted at the Durban City Hall Dome on Tuesday, December 17. The line-up for the evening includes an interactive Drum Circle hosted by Richard Ellis of "Interitmo Drummers" fame as well as Fire jugglers and stilt-walkers in the square outside the entrance to the City Hall. From there you can make your way up the red carpet into the tiled and marbled interior, which is the grand foyer. From the foyer the stairs will take you to two different levels each with it's own sensory theme; the first level and open-air balcony is "Noise" and the second level is "Quiet".

Durban Institute of Technology 3rd and 4th year Fine Art students will showcase selected works from their recent end of year exhibitions on both levels. There will be "Hair Art" by Jeans Intercoiffure as well as "Body Art" in the form of Mendhi tattoos (members of the public can pay a nominal fee to have any design temporarily tattooed onto their skin). Local busking legend Ricky Gass will be performing some famous guitar and piano classics and various dj's will add to the ambience.

Local fashion designer Colleen Eitzen will also wow the crowd with the range that won its way through to the Fair Lady, Loreal SA Fashion Awards. Finally, Local choreographer Jay Pather (of Siwela Sonke Dance Co.) will present a piece specially choreographed for the event. This will take place inside the Dome itself, where dancers will interact with the unique space. Local artist Greg Streak will also host a surprise exhibition in the Dome.

Tickets will be available from Computicket at R20 each and be sure to bring extra cash for the bar!

Opens: 6 pm, December 17

For more info contact Liana on 031 311 2268 or Carol on 031 311 2262.

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

Jeremy Wafer, recent Vita nominee and subject of one of the TAXI monographs, is highly respected nationally for work that is minimal in appearance yet deeply associative in content. Known primarily as a sculptor he often works in photography and drawing, early on in his career winning the Standard Bank National Drawing Award.

In talking of the current show Wafer says it will include "a selection of work from the past few years and will be of work which, in the main, deals with issues of "land" and the ways it has been owned, controlled, claimed, and ordered but also the ways in which it has provided me with a more open "site or space" for more personal speculation and, at times, abstract thought". The show comes to Durban after a successful outing in Stellenbosch recently.

Well known to Durbanites as a teacher and academic, having lectured at Technikon Natal from 1983 to 2002, Wafer has recently moved to Johannesburg where he heads the Department of Fine Art at the Witwatersrand Technikon. His work is held in both national and international collections. This will be the first major showing of Wafer's work at the Durban Art Gallery.

Opening: 6 pm, December 12
Closing: January 26 2003

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

The first exhibition in Durban's newest gallery, The Cupboard, is Clinton de Menezes. His multimedia works engage with landscape, history and personal archiving. Well known for his rich pastel drawings of fragmented and fractured geographies with embedded elements De Menezes has recently expanded his vocabulary to include more three-dimensional works encrusted with soil and objects. A model aeroplane, cutouts of soldiers and silhouettes scratched into their surfaces provide the narratives, both national and idiosyncratic, to be embedded within their frames. In case you are wondering: The Cupboard is sly parody of Mark Coetzee's Fine Art Cabinet, once the toast of Cape Town, that is before Coetzee moved on to greater things in the US.

Opens: December 1

The Cupboard, Home
101 Innes Road (corner of Windermere and Innes Rd), Morningside, Durban
Tel: (031) 303-3694
Website: www.home-ind.co.za

A quick shuffle of exhibitions at the African Art Centre sees the Velobala Group jostle with Caesar Mkhize and Thafa Dlamini's beaded sculpture, while Jannie van Heerden opens on December 4. Van Heerden has poured his energy into upgrading and encouraging art and indigenous craft education in KZN and now shows his own work. Clearly reflecting the influence of an Eastern Cape love of landscape, van Heerden's paintings are rich and painterly evoking his engagement with the power of an African 'outback'.

Opens: 5.30 pm, December 4

The African Art Centre
1st floor, Tourist Junction, 160 Pine Street, Durban
Tel: (031) 301-2717 or 031. 304-6369 Fax: 031. 304-7915
E-mail: afriart@iafrica.com

Currently featured in an article by Hazel Friedman in the new contemporary South African arts magazine Art South Africa, Brett Murray, winner of the 2002 Standard Bank Young Artist Award, is travelling the country.
Once referred to as "The Dark Prince Of Pop", this Cape Town-based sculptor believes in bringing pop icons into the hallowed precincts of serious art and getting serious art out onto the streets. Irreverent and gutsy, Murray takes the mickey out of the arrogant, using visual satire to show up the absurdities within the South African psyche. He wants, as he says, to "entertain critically", to "hit the funny bone rather than to tickle it", in his off-the-wall comments on post-apartheid society.

Opens: November 20 at 6:00 pm

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

Last few days to catch 'Male Order' at the DAG. Carol Brown, Director of the Durban Art Gallery, curated the show for the Grahamstown Festival and now it is touring the country. Drawn from the permanent collection of the gallery, it highlights the place of the masculine in our society. The show is contextualised historically with works by Pierneef whose views of virgin territory are well known for emphasising white masculine domination in South Africa.
Signals of the early crumbling of apartheid are addressed through the damaged male body in Paul Stopforth's Elegy and contemporary artists such as Moshekwa Langa, Hentie Van der Merwe, Langa Magwa, Zwelethu Mthethwa, Andrew Verster, and Wilma Cruise engage with less determinate masculinities. Issues such as identity, violence and sexuality are highlighted.
The catalogue accompanying the exhibition features essays by Carol Brown, Andrew Verster, Chris Diedericks and Vulindlela Nyoni, and is available online at http://www.durban.gov.za/maleorder/.

Closes: February 2003

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

This year the NSA's annual festive season exhibition has been considerably upgraded, and the exhibition occupies the entirety of the NSA Gallery. Particular care has been taken with the display of the work with special fittings designed by architects Eerhard Huizenga and Jane de Rand. The gallery has been divided into zones with themes, such as 'work', 'grow', 'dream', 'play' and 'eat'. With a myriad of specially sourced items this is definitely the place to stop and shop this Christmas.

Opens: November 24, at 4:00 pm

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 10 a.m - 5 p.m, Sat 10 a.m - 4 p.m, Sun 11 a.m - 3 p.m