Archive: Issue No. 72, August 2003

16.08.03 New work by Colbert Mashile and Njabulo Hlongwane, at the NSA
16.08.03 Michael Croeser at the Cupboard Gallery
01.08.03 'Forms in Transit' Usha Seejarim at NSA
01.08.03 'Veterans of KwaZulu-Natal' at DAG
01.08.03 'My Life - Reflections of Women's Experiences' - a Women's Day Exhibition at DAG
01.08.03 'Artists' Action Around AIDS' at DAG

Two shows exploring traditional indigenous beliefs are occupying the NSA gallery this month, 'Ts�a Ka Mafuri' (Lurking Behind) presents new work by Colbert Mashile, and 'Spiritual Journey' is an exhibition of paintings by Njabulo Hlongwane.

Presented in association with Gallery on the Square, the NSA is hosting Colbert Mashile, a young artist living and working in Johannesburg. Mashile's work engages traditional circumcision and initiation rituals. Coming from a place of powerful customs (Bushbuckridge in the Northern Province), Mashile underwent circumcision at the age of ten with his peers. As an artist he has developed a visual language that is partially an attempt to come to terms with the conflicting emotional results of the experience: the expectation by society to take pride in traditional ritual in contrast to the physiological trauma inflicted through this process.

Mashile says that he decided to heal himself, by "dealing with these experiences in my artworks whereby I try to use psychological images which I feel comfortable with in an attempt to replace horrific scenes, sights and sounds of the initiation ritual. I am not necessarily advocating the demise of the practice, but express my individual feeling which I believe would be shared by others who have endured the same".

Mashile graduated with a BA in Fine Arts at the University of Witwatersrand in 2000, and since then has exhibited widely in South Africa. Represented in major corporate and public collections, including the Mandela Foundation, Nedcor and MTN Corporation, amongst others, his work was seen most recently on the group exhibition 'Show Me Home' at the Johannesburg Art Gallery. Showing for the first time in KwaZulu Natal this is his second solo exhibition.

Upstairs in the Mezzanine and Park Galleries Durban artist Njabulo Hlongwane exhibits 'Spiritual Journey'. Working largely in acrylic his canvases explore aspects of the spiritual world in dreamlike, otherworldly forms.

Hlongwane draw his inspiration and symbols from a spectrum of spiritual practices, traditional customs and beliefs. Referencing the rituals of sangomas, the practice of witchcraft and the existence of ancestral, he marries this with aspects of contemporary living. Utilising the motif of the homeless, or outcast from society, Hlongwane depicts wandering souls that carry the collective burden of humanity.

In addition the floating figure is a recurring theme in his paintings. Defying gravity, these figures hover over traditional, pastoral landscapes or urban labyrinths. Hlongwane states that, "to me these figures are spiritual beings rather than normal people. As an artist I would also like to amuse the viewer, and they must not only think about ordinary things, but also things unseen. My exhibition is also intended as an enlightenment to people that there is another realm, that we maybe do not understand, or cannot comprehend".

Hlongwane has participated in numerous group exhibitions, and was selected and participated in the groundbreaking Thupelo Art Workshops in Johannesburg in 1990. He studied at the Johannesburg Art Foundation between 1992 and 1994, and also qualified as a community Arts Teacher. He has been working as the Visual Arts Coordinator for the BAT Centre since 1997.

The exhibition is made possible through a generous grant from the National Lotteries Distribution Trust Fund and will be opened by Eric Apelgren.

Opens: August 19, at 6pm
Closes: September 7

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

Michael Croeser is at the Cupboard Gallery. Further details unavailable at time of updating.

Opens: August 19, at 7pm

The Cupboard Gallery, Home, cnr. Windermere and Innes Roads, Morningside, Durban
Tel: (031) 303 3692 | Clinton de Menezes 083-7015032
Email: richard@disturbance.co.za

Taking over all but one of the gallery spaces, Usha Seejarim will present a body of work at the NSA Gallery entitled 'Forms in Transit'.

The apartheid years of forced removals and relocation often made people travel long distances daily from home to work resulting in the birth of new routes (and roots) to places. The artist herself travels a fixed route daily on the M1 South between Lenasia (where she lives) and Johannesburg (where she works). This awareness that this daily routine is a direct result of a specific past history, and also that new history is constructed every day as many commuters travel over the tarred surface of the road is a major source for her work.

Seejarim states that "issues of transient spaces and time, involuntary journeys, personal journeys, and narrative as well as notions of home, context and displacement" are concepts that she has been exploring. She is intrigued by the banality of daily travel, and how this can be seen as a metaphor for life journeys.

In Two Rooms and a Kitchen, ten sets of interviews with elderly citizens of Lenasia are configured in conversation. They speak about their life in general; their heritage, marriage, travel, school and apartheid, mapping the South African Indian experience through personal anecdote. For Seejarim the social comment embodied in such descriptions of the routine and the pedestrian also function as powerful vehicles for spiritual transcendence.

Seejarim was born in 1974 in South Africa. She obtained a National Diploma, and then a B-Tech degree in Fine Arts from Technikon Witwatersrand. She was a nominee for the FNB VITA Art Prize in 2002 and the MTN New Contemporaries in 2001. She recently returned from completing a residency through the Ampersand Fellowship in New York and participated in the exhibition 'When Latitudes Become Forms' at the Walker Art Centre, Minneapolis. Seejarim works predominantly with video, installation, and photo based images.

Funded by The National Lotteries Distribution Trust Fund

Opens: 6pm, July 29
Closes: 17 August

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

Just opened at the Durban Art Gallery, 'Veterans of KwaZulu-Natal' focuses on KZN art of the 1970s and 1980s. During this short period of twenty years, artists were active in protesting the laws of apartheid. Artists who trained at the ELC Art and Craft Centre, Rorke's Drift such as Cyprian Shilakoe, Azaria Mbatha, Bongiwe Dhlomo and Paul Sibisi in particular produced works that comment on the effects that apartheid had on the lives of black people. White artists such as Gavin Younge, Malcolm Christian and Clive van den Berg also actively critiqued the physical and social brutality of apartheid.

Not all work on 'Veteran artists of KZN' is political however. There are works that celebrate the diversity of the KZN landscape such as those by Diamond Bozas, Sister Pientia Selhorst and Lorna Peirson whilst Regina Buthelezi, Scotch Mathebula and Vuminkosi Zulu engage indigenous culture.

Altogether there are 98 works on show giving a broad overview of the strengths and concerns of work produced in the province during this period. A catalogue in the form of a CD will accompany the exhibition containing essays by some 14 authors, including Michael Chapman (on the politics of the 70s and 80s), Mandy Conidaris (on The Caversham Press), Philippa Hobbs and Nessa Leibhammer (on the tapestry weaver, Allina Ndebele), Juliette Leeb-du Toit (on the art of the period), Elizabeth Rankin and Andrew Verster (on artist and teacher of the time, Jack Grossert), Pat Khoza (on the Black women artists of the time) and Jill Addleson (on the seven 'Art - South Africa Today' exhibitions held during this period at the DAG).

After its stint at DAG the show will tour the four major galleries of KZN: the Tatham Art Gallery, the Carnegie Art Gallery, Newcastle, the Margate Art Gallery and TEACH Museum, Empangeni.

Closes: September 7

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

To celebrate Women's Day, the Durban Art Gallery is hosting 'My Life - Reflections of Women's Experiences'. The exhibition has become an annual event on the DAG calendar. Started five years ago by Phumzile Dlamini, Education Officer at the gallery, the exhibition celebrates the diversity and resilience of women in South Africa.

The exhibition this year will focus on women's issues and experiences such as rape, sexual harassment, domestic violence and HIV/Aids. Women's exclusion as well as their contribution to nation building through artistic entrepreneurial activites will be highlighted.

For more information contact Phumzile Dlamini, Pat Khoza or James Makola at 031 3112274/5/6 or leave a message on 031 3112264, Fax: 031 3112272/3

Opens: August 8
Closes: September 3

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

Centring around the words "acknowledge, celebrate, commemorate, challenge and commit" HIVAN (The Centre for HIV/AIDS Networking) has initiated a focus on the role of the culture in the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The campaign 'Artists' Action Around AIDS' includes a visual arts exhibition at the Durban Art Gallery, a developmental workshop with the title 'Myth, Gender and Children', to be held at the University of Natal on August 4, and a special performance of 'Foreign Aids' by Pieter-Dirk Uys at the Sneddon Theatre also on August 4.

HIVAN facilitates multi-sectoral partnerships aimed at addressing the HIV/AIDS crisis in KwaZulu-Natal and beyond. The Centre facilitates numerous multi-disciplinary research and intervention programmes, operates the University's Campus HIV/AIDS Support Unit, offers a comprehensive on-line database of HIV/AIDS resources and initiatives, and sponsors HIV/AIDS-related Fellowship and Job Shadow programmes.

The purpose of HIVAN's 'Artists Action Around AIDS' Workshop is to explore the role of the cultural arts in the struggle against the pandemic, together with the need to reassess the language of the cultural arts as a dynamic force - not only to ensure a better dispensation for infected and affected communities (through social and political change and education) but also as a means of understanding, exploration, healing, growth and transformation.

'Artists acting around AIDS' refers to the capacity that the arts have to effect change and awareness around what is broadly perceived to be a health issue. Given this framework, culture is seen as a means to an end, in that the expressive arts provide an effective vehicle for the "messaging" of information and as an educational tool. The languages of the arts, versatile and creative as they are, cross boundaries of culture, language, literacy and religious belief. Not surprisingly, collaborations between visual artists, the media, performing artists and educationists have resulted in effective projects and campaigns that highlight the issues and myths surrounding HIV/AIDS. The "physical face of AIDS" can, in many instances, be traced to the dedicated attention of artists as an expression of their broader commitment to archiving, documenting, exploring and expressing the human condition.

If you are interested in attending the workshop please call Bren on 083-673-4569

Opens: August 4
Closes: August 15

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