Archive: Issue No. 72, August 2003

16.08.03 'Design-in Africa' at Mukondeni Fine Arts Gallery
16.08.03 'Journey' at Art on Paper
16.08.03 Jill Trappler at the Bag Factory
16.08.03 'Witness' at Warren Siebrits Modern and Contemporary Art
16.08.03 Kagiso Pat Mautloa at the Goodman Gallery
16.08.03 'Art as usual' at the Johannesburg Art Gallery
16.08.03 'Rub/ish talk' at the Johannesburg Art Gallery
16.08.03 Group show at The Stewart Gallery
01.08.03 Tracy Lindner Gander in collaboration with Katherine Bull at PhotoZA Gallery
01.08.03 Nel and Van der Merwe in 'Still Life' at the Goodman Gallery
01.08.03 MTN New Contemporaries Award at MuseumAfrica
01.08.03 Samson Mudzunga at Johannesburg Art Gallery
01.08.03 Flip Hattingh and Sonja Britz at Artspace
16.07.03 Chris Ledochowski at PhotoZA
16.07.03 Dustin Kramer at Go-Ra Gallery
01.07.03 Leading Women Artists at Gallery on the Square
01.07.03 Jurgen Schadeberg at the Standard Bank Gallery

16.08.03 'Afrika Borwa' at the Pretoria Art Museum
16.08.03 Michael Heyns at Arts Association of Pretoria
16.08.03 'Celebrating Women' at the Pretoria Art Museum
16.08.03 Tshwane township art from the 1970s at the Pretoria Art Museum
16.08.03 Angus Taylor at Mind's I Art Space
16.08.03 Eddie Rafferty and Kay Hassan at Outlet
01.08.03 Nicky Leigh and Helena Hugo at RAU Art Gallery
16.07.03 'Fine line' at Mind's I Art Space
16.07.03 Thomas D Barry & Siemon D Allen at Outlet

Mukondeni Fine Arts Gallery, the winner of a Sanlam Mogale City Business Achievers of the Year Award, provides a generous space for artists to produce work on the premises. Placing a strong emphasis on "design activities that reflect the heritage and resources of our continent and our people", the gallery specialises in functional art.

The Gallery's new exhibition, 'Design-in Africa', includes garden sculpture, functional art, tribal art, paintings, photography, design and pottery by artists of the calibre of Noria Mabasa, Lilian Munyai, Sandile Zulu, David Rossouw, Jackson Hlungwani, Sue Dickinson, Merwelene van der Merwe, John Baloyi, Meshack Raphalalani, Koos Botha, Simon Ragimana and Owen Ndou.

Please call the gallery for directions. Transport to and from the gallery can be arranged by request.

Opens: August 1

Mukondeni Art Gallery, 36 Orleans Road, Inadan, Kya Sands
Tel: (011) 708-2116
Fax: (011) 708-0194
Email: info@mukondeni.com
Website: www.mukondeni.com
Gallery Hours: Mon - Sun 9am - 4.30pm

'Journey' is an exhibition of prints and artist's books. Under the guidance of master printer Malcolm Christian, South African and international artists who participated in an artists' residency programme at the Caversham Centre for Artists and Writers developed the collection to be shown.

Opens 2 August
Closes August 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

"I would like to talk about painting with painting," writes Jill Trappler about her sixth one-person show. "Each painting is an event, a performance. The decisions during the performance are about relationships and lightness, in hue and feeling. This affects the way I touch the colour. The surface must move." Thus freed of the burden of representation, Trappler's non-figurative works are adventures in pure colour, form, surface and texture.

Trappler does not attempt to describe anything with her mark making. Instead, she attempts to create direction and awareness so that the eye can move and inform. "I think that if enough care is taken," she says, "the mark and the doing are not arbitrary, but can become attuned to the order of the world, the cosmos." For Trappler, the canvas is an ecstatically abstract arena where conscious and unconscious impulses are liberated from any kind of duty or service to the real.

William Kentridge will open the show.

Opens: August 20, at 6pm
Closes September 13

Bag Factory, 10 Minnaar Street, Newtown
Tel/fax: (011) 834 9181
Email: bagfactory@acenet.co.za
Website: www.bagfactoryart.org.za
Hours: Mon - Fri 10am - 3pm, Sat 10am - 1pm

Warren Siebrits continues to curate exhibitions where art is placed in a pivotal role as social barometer, giving us further insight into aspects of our past. In 'Witness' the selected work allow us to question our role within the complex framework of issues that control us today.

Representing a selection of acquisitions made over the past year, the show includes works by Eugene Labuschagne, Alexis Preller, Avhashoni Mainganyne, Penny Siopis, Wayne Barker, Paul Shelly, Marlene Dumas, Moshekwa Langa and Willem Boshoff.

To mark their first anniversary, the gallery is also launching a bookshop specialising in rare and out of print books relating to art, architecture, photography and design. A book catalogue will be available on request.

Opens August 22
Closes October 25

Warren Siebrits Modern and Contemporary Art
140 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parkwood, Johannesburg
Tel: 011. 327-0000
Fax: 011. 327-5999
E-mail: seymour23@icon.co.za
Hours: Wednesday to Friday 12 - 6 pm, Saturday 12 - 4 pm

In 'Tracking Experiences', Mautloa exhibits spontaneous work without figurative restrictions. His canvases show the sudden visions that forced themselves upon the artist.

A collection of paintings, assemblages and wall sculptures, the work echoes with life in townscapes. Instead of a literal interpretation, Mautloa selects inherited, timeless symbols that are part of the past and future. He writes, "I try to reach the poetry in painting that is pleasing to me without being proverbial."

The gallery will have extended hours on the day of the opening, from 9.30am - 5pm.

Opens August 30
Closes September 20

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

Christian Nerf's series of 24-hour residencies at the JAG has now come to an end. Combining art and social commentary in a live context, '24.7' was structured around a 'studio' space constructed in the gallery. Initially offering artists an opportunity to work in the city, the programme expanded to creating a platform for further collaborations between participants.

Nerf offered seven thematic 'chapters' of collaboration and experimentation: new media, traditional practice, fashion, audio, conceptual, lens-based and public art. According to the projects initiator: "Documentation of this journey is key. Evidence of this nature is as valuable as the end product, if not the actual product." The exhibition of evidence, titled 'Art as usual' is now under preparation.

Opens informally on August 30 at 3pm.

Catalogue launch September 13 at 3pm.

Johannesburg Art Gallery, corner Klein and King George Streets, Joubert Park
Tel: 011 725 3130 / 3184
Fax: 011 720 6000
Email: brentonm@joburg.org.za
Hours: Tues - Sun 10am - 5pm

'Rub/ish talk' is a collaboration between Vusi Mfuphi and Jeffrey Nkabinda, who have been working together since they graduated from Funda Community College. Working with found objects, the artists recycle them to create new meaning out of meaningless garbage.

In a visual equivalent of kwaito, the artists provide social commentary of growing up young and black in a post-apartheid era.

Mfuphi and Nkabinda show in the X-Gallery at the JAG, a fluid space dedicated to emerging artists.

Opens: August 30, at 3pm
Closes October 5

Johannesburg Art Gallery, corner Klein and King George Streets, Joubert Park
Tel: 011 725 3130 / 3184
Fax: 011 720 6000
Email: brentonm@joburg.org.za
Hours: Tues - Sun 10am - 5pm

Tommy Motswai, Patrick Rorke, Karin Abedian-Steyn and Jan Cizek show figurative sculpture, oils on canvas, drawings and mixed media work.

Wilma Cruise will open the show; the last group show at the Stewart this year.

Opens: August 30, at 12pm
Closes September 20

Stewart Gallery, 69 Eleventh Street, Parkhurst
Tel: (011) 327 1384
Mobile: 082 651 6642
Fax: (011) 442 5214
Email: llouvre@mweb.co.za
Hours: Tues - Sun 9am - 4pm; Sat 9am - 1pm

Why wouldn't it be normal for a woman, in her nightie and carrying her toy pink panther, to be walking down a deserted highway at 5.30am? Would we look twice if the model were a street-cleaner standing at the edge of the highway at dawn?

The locations in Tracy Gander's photographs show Katherine Bull in largely uninhabited, public spaces. The locations are 'lost' yet known to us all: an oasis alongside the highway, a deserted city, a shadowy forest.

Foregrounding photography's ability to carry both real and fictional elements, the collaborators explore the slippage between the traditional genres of photography (reportage, portraiture, fashion), forcing viewers to engage with collective fantasies and contemporary life. What is also apparent in this work is the almost surreal disjunction between the figure and the environment.

Bull appears in all Gander's images and becomes a familiar and repetitive subject. Is she projecting varying 'personas' of her personality not necessarily revealed in her everyday existence? Is the unusual activity and setting acting as encouragement for self-expression? Does the personality captured by the camera fit in with others' expectations of the model? Are the collaborators 'manipulating the surface' by employing over-the-top wardrobe, unfamiliar location, and gesture, to reach the 'real nature of the sitter'? Or is it all an act, is she merely performing for the camera, for no other reason than to create an arresting image?

Opens: August 5
Closes: August 23

PhotoZA, 177 Oxford Road, Upper Level, The Mews, Rosebank (the old CD Warehouse)
Tel: (011) 880 0833 or Reney 083 229 4327
Email: info@photoza.co.za
Website: www.photoza.co.za
Hours: Mon - Fri 11am - 5pm, Sat 10am - 1pm

On a visit back to Johannesburg from his European sojourn (he won the Artissimo 2000/Big Torino Prize as the best visual artist exhibiting in the visual arts section of the Turin Biennial last year), Hentie van der Merwe teams up with Luan Nel for a two man show at the Goodman. Nel's recent experience includes two years post-graduate study at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam, and participation in numerous local and international group shows.

Entitled 'Still Life' this showcasing of two of the brightest talents on the art scene promises a stimulating and engaging gallery experience.

Opening: noon, Saturday, August 2
Closeing: August 23.

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

The MTN New Contemporaries Award event is a highlight on the South African arts scene, and forms an integral part of MTN's support and development of arts and culture. The award and exhibition is a biennial, curator-driven event launched in July 2001, showcasing cutting edge installation, video and new media works. The appointed curator for 2003 is Kathryn Smith, artist, critic and co-director of The Trinity Session. Smith has moved the exhibition out of the suburbs and into the Newtown Cultural Precinct, and has nominated five young artists hailing from South Africa's three major cities: Matthew Hindley (CT), Alison Kearney (JHB), Thando Mama (DBN), Hannes Olivier (JHB) and Nontsikelelo Veleko (JHB).

This year also marks a new partnership between the MTN Foundation, who administrates the award, and the Free2Speak campaign, which hinges its appeal to the urban youth market on the importance of freedom of expression. The partnership guarantees greater public awareness of young, contemporary visual art practice.

The selected artists demonstrate a real engagement with social and theoretical issues pertinent to contemporary South Africa and Africa at large. Critical to the award is the process and development of these artists' ideas and works. This year's panel of judges comprises Nessa Leibhammer (Portfolio Manager: Arts and Culture, MTN Foundation); Marialda Marais (Technikon Witwatersrand Department of Fine Arts); Themba Ka Mathe (arts journalist); Professor Colin Richards (Wits School of Arts); Bernice Samuels (General Manager: Marketing Communication, MTN); and Usha Seejarim (artist, educator and joint winner of the MTN New Contemporaries 2001).

This event promises a memorable opening event (by invitation only) with MC Michelle Constant and a special performance by jazz/hip-hop funksters Tumi and the Volume.

Opens: August 8
Closes: September 21

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

'Suka Dzivha Fundudzi' is a solo exhibition by the acclaimed Venda master sculptor, Samson Mudzunga. The subject of the second Taxi Artist Book published by David Krut, Mudzunga is known for his large-scale coffin drums, adorned with text and relief.

Curator Pitso Chinzima has selected a number of these drums which, collectively, demonstrate Muzunga's engagement with contemporary spirituality that crosses urban/rural, language and cultural barriers.

The exhibition opens on National Women's Day with a talk by Wits Professor Anitra Nettleton. Tshigombela drumming and dancing follow, culminating in a Venda meal in the courtyard. Goat will be served.

A second performance will take place on Heritage Day, again followed by a Venda meal.

A catalogue is available.

Opening performance: August 9 at 11am
Closing performance: September 24 at 11am

Johannesburg Art Gallery, corner Klein and King George Streets, Joubert Park
Tel: 011 725 3130 / 3184
Fax: 011 720 6000
Email: brentonm@joburg.org.za
Hours: Tues - Sun 10am - 5pm

Two Johannesburg-based artists, Flip Hattingh and Sonja Britz, will exhibit their 'MNEME' exhibition at the ArtSpace. Hattingh's works focus on the "rusty disk" phase when most of life was lived and when most of life is memory. Sonja Britz deals with the cow as metaphor for the "owned" animal - provider of food, symbol of nurturing and with pastoral connotations.

Preview: August 16 from 10am-2pm
Opens: August 17 at 5.30pm
Closes: September 5

The Art Space, 3 Hetty Avenue, Fairland
Tel/fax: (011) 678 1206
Cell: 082 651 4702
Hours: Tues - Sat 10am - 4pm

Represented by Michael Stevenson Contemporary and currently showing at the Venice Biennale, Chris Ledochowski brings from Cape Town his photographic exhibition titled 'Cape Flats Details: Art and Life in the Townships of Cape Town'.

'Cape Flats' refers to the vast stretch of exposed sandy wetlands that lie north of Table Mountain. Highly unsuitable for residential purposes, today it has become home to close on a million people. Against the rigid domination by apartheid, people created and nurtured a culture that was under their control. Ledochowski finds details within this seemingly bleak environment: individual and collective expression of creativity and resilience that give positive meaning and definition to peoples' lives. His work conveys the balance between tradition and modernity, stability and change, faith and despair.

A book on Ledochowski's work will be launched at the opening.

For further information, please contact Michael Stevenson on michael@michaelstevenson.com, Tel (021) 421 2575 or Fax (021) 421 2578.

Opens: July 29 at 6pm
Closes: August 23

PhotoZA, 177 Oxford Road, Upper Level, The Mews, Rosebank (the old CD Warehouse)
Tel: (011) 880 0833 or Reney 083 229 4327
Email: info@photoza.co.za
Website: www.photoza.co.za
Hours: Mon - Fri 11am - 5pm, Sat 10am - 1pm

Twenty-one-year old Dustin Kramer makes his own paints, grinding pigments and mixing them with oil and other carriers. In 'Naked Silence', his first solo exhibition in Johannesburg, Kramer uses a reduced palette, painting both male and female nudes in his exploration of the changing roles of men and women in society.

In the context of modern painting he says: "Beauty is what interests me; beauty can often be sad and sadness can be extremely beautiful. Beauty penetrates far more than the most horrific images."

During the exhibition, Kramer will lead weekly workshops as an introduction to and demonstration of making oil paints. Please call the gallery for further information.

Opens: July 30
Closes: August 23

Go-Ra Gallery
53 6th Street, Parkhurst
Tel: (011) 880 9090
Email: rupa@wol.co.za
Hours: Tues - Fri 9am - 6pm, Sat 9am - 2pm

Sandton's Gallery On The Square will be exhibiting new works by leading South African women artists in a group show to commemorate Women's Day (August 9 2003). Artists included are Regi Bardavid, Jenny Stadler, Annette Pretorius, Helen Sebidi, Nina Romm, Philippa Hobbs, Cheryl Gage, Wilma Cruise, Josephine Ghesa (Ardmore Studio), and the Mapula Embroidery Project.

Opens: August 7
Closes: August 23

Gallery On The Square, Shop 32, Sandton Square
Tel: 011 784 2847/8
Fax: 011 784 2849
Email: gots@mweb.co.za
Website: www.galleryonthesquare.co.za
Hours: Mon - Thurs 10 am - 6 pm, Fri - Sat 9 am - 2 pm, Sun 10 am - 2 pm

'All the Jazz' is an exhibition of photographs by Jurgen Schadeberg depicting over 52 years of South African jazz musicians.

Schadeberg was born in Berlin in 1931 and, while still in his teens, worked as an apprentice photographer for a German Press Agency in Hamburg. He immigrated to South Africa in 1950 and became chief photographer, picture editor and art director for Drum magazine.

Schadeberg's first jazz photo session was in 1951 with musicians such as Kippie Moeketsi, Vi Nkosi and the Harlem Swingsters, some of whom he photographed in dingy and dilapidated makeshift dancehalls in Sophiatown, the Bantu Men's Social Centre and in the industrial areas on the outskirts of Johannesburg.

To his surprise, at that time there appeared to be no photographers with an interest in this type of documentary photography. Schadeberg found Township Jazz music extremely invigorating and exciting having taken an interest, in his youth, in the American New Orleans jazz scene, best exemplified by Louis Armstrong and Charlie Parker. In South Africa the American jazz sound was adapted and Africanised giving it a unique South African Township flavour. Much of the fifties music became a form of defiance, a means of survival and a symbol of freedom against apartheid.

The beauty of this jazz was its rawness where talented musicians, usually untrained and unable to read music, played spontaneously, creatively and vibrantly. Sadly these outstanding 1950s jazz musicians received little recognition from the South African record industry. The current revival and appreciation of 1950s jazz legends mixes comfortably with today's jazz greats to create a bridge between the spirit of jazz then and now.

In 1964 Schadeberg left South Africa for London and during the 1960s and 1970s he freelanced as a photojournalist in Europe and America for various prestigious magazines. He also taught at the New School in New York, the Central School of Art & Design in London and the Hoch Kunst School in Hamburg.

Schadeberg is a principal figure in South African and world photography. With a major body of work spanning 52 years and a collection of some 100,000 negatives, his work captures a wealth of timeless and iconic images.

Opens: July 8 at 5.30pm
Closes: August 30

Standard Bank Gallery, corner Simmonds and Fredericks streets, Johannesburg
Tel: 011 636 4842
E-mail: bjfreemantle@sbic.co.za
Website: www.sbgallery.co.za
Hours: Mon - Fri 8am - 4.30pm, Sat 9am - 1pm

In keeping with changing collecting and exhibition policies of South African Museums, the PAM is gearing towards helping transform South African Museums from bastions of colonial collections into homes for African heritage.

Selected from the permanent collection of the Pretoria Art Museum, 'Afrika Borwa' comprises mainly South African contemporary paintings and sculpture. Linking the works on display is their African identity.

Opens August 1
Closes October 26

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

Michael Heyns is currently exhibiting a selection of paintings.

Opens: August 2
Closes: August 21

Association of Arts, 173 Market Street, Nieuw Muckleneuk, Pretoria
Tel: (012) 346 3100
Fax: (012) 346 3125
E-mail: artspta@mweb.co.za
Website: www.art.co.za/artspta
Hours: Tues - Fri 9.30am - 5.30pm, Sat 9.30am - 1pm

The Pretoria Art Museum steams ahead in their mission to make full use of their fantastic permanent collection. To celebrate women's month, they have curated an exhibition of paintings, woven tapestries, traditional beadwork, ceramics and sculpture that pays tribute to women who contributed to the building of a South African visual arts tradition.

Opens: August 4
Closes: September 26

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

Diane Johnstone was an Australian diplomat and art collector posted to South Africa from 1972 to 1976. Recently. The Australian High Commission co-ordinated the return of a number of her works to the city, to be housed at the Pretoria Art Museum. The find was recently the subject of an article in the M&G.

The gesture by Diane Johnstone of returning her art collection "to the people of South Africa" has, in turn, led to author Tom Nevin investigating the extent of the "empty space" that exists in South Africa's heritage. As part of his study he has, to date, obtained pledges for the return (permanently or on loan) of some 53 artworks by international collectors all over the world. Plans are currently underway to exhibit these new finds.

For more information on the 'Homecoming' project, pleased call Tom Nevin on (011) 886-5699 or e-mail tomnevin@mweb.co.za.

Opens August 15, at 2pm
Closes August 25

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

'Barefoot - Baggage Free' is an exhibition of recent sculptures by Angus Taylor, the award winning sculptor and owner of Dionysus Sculpture Works and Art Foundry. In this recent body of work he focuses on the strong, New Age woman. Not the conventional Venus-type metaphor of erotic beauty, Taylor's work conveys calm, victorious or determined emotions. He uses, often in combination, bronze, aluminium, steel, stainless steel and concrete.

Arts journalist Barry Ronge will open the show.

Opens: August 20, at 7pm
Closes September 13

Mind's i Artspace, Shop 63 Brooklyn Square, Brooklyn, Pretoria
Tel: (012) 346 5131
Email: minds-i@lantic.net
Website: www.minds-i.co.za

Abrie Fourie continues to cram his tiny Outlet gallery with works by key South African contemporary artists. Next up is 'Shortcuts', a collaborative exhibition by Eddie Rafferty and Kay Hassan.

Opens: August 26, at 6pm
Closes: September 26

Outlet
24 du Toit Street, Building 10, Projector Room, Arts Faculty, Technikon Pretoria
Tel: (012) 325 0525
Email: outlet@mweb.co.za
Hours: By appointment

'Encaged' is a joint exhibition by Nicky Leigh and Helena Hugo, who investigate the encaging of the human spirit.

Pietermaritzburg based Leigh presents her response to the subject of animals in captivity, using it as metaphor for human bondage, despair and frustration. Paintings, works on paper, video material and her written observations and expressions will form part of the exhibition.

In a series of recent oil paintings and charcoal drawings, Pretoria based Hugo explores the search for an escape from human vulnerability and decay, the longing for a healing or saving force and the obtaining of immortality through the use of the figure and portrait.

Opens: August 6
Closes: August 27

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

Fine Line is an exhibition of drawings by Diane Victor, John Clarke, Carl Jeppe, Elizabeth Gunther, Diek Grobler, Michéle Nigríni, Retha Buitendach, Gustav Vermeulen, Bertie du Plessis, Christo Basson, Gill Taylor, Ian Marley, Anna-Karien Goosen, Angus Taylor and Berco Wilsenach.

Opens: July 16 at 7pm by Margaret Gradwell
Closes: August 16

Mind's i Artspace, Shop 63 Brooklyn Square, Brooklyn, Pretoria
Tel: (012) 346 5131
Email: minds-i@lantic.net
Website: www.minds-i.co.za

Volkskas/Absa Atelier winners Thomas Barry and Siemon Allen show their stuff at Abrie Fourie's new art hub in Pretoria.

Opens: July 22 at 6pm
Closes: August 22

Outlet
24 du Toit Street, Building 10, Projector Room, Arts Faculty, Technikon Pretoria
Tel: (012) 325 0525
Email: outlet@mweb.co.za
Hours: By appointment