Archive: Issue No. 65, January 2003

16.01.03 'Comics Brew' at the NSA
16.01.03 Also at the NSA: Hlengiwe Lushaba
16.12.02 Jeremy Wafer at the DAG
15.11.02 'Male Order' at the DAG

16.01.03 Gladys Mgudlandlu Retrospective at the Tatham

Once again the art of comics will assail the walls of the NSA Gallery. Quick on the heels of 'Black and White In Ink: Under the Skin of South African Cartooning', an exhibition of cartooning curated by Andy Mason and Anton Kannemeyer late last year, comes an exhibition of Swiss and French/Belgian comic artists collaborating with South African comic artists. Both exhibitions are part of the international festival of comics, 'Comics Galore', funded by Pro Helvetia and the French Institute of South Africa.

Since September last year, contemporary art spaces in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban have been flooded with the art of comics. A series of exhibitions, under the overarching banner 'Comics Brew', has highlighted the range and the diversity of comic production, both internationally and nationally. The exhibitions have showcased the greats as well as introducing new talent. This exhibition at the NSA will feature European artists Kalonji (Switzerland), Thomas Ott (Switzerland), Jean-Phillippe Stassen (Belgium/France) and Pascal Rabate� (France). The South African contingent includes Karlien de Villiers, ND Mazin, Brendon Bell-Roberts and the Igubu Collective.

Residencies and workshops will be conducted during the exhibition, and Pascal Rabate�'s new comic book, 'Welcome to Jo'burg' (produced during his residency in Johannesburg in November 2001), will be launched alongside the Comics Brew catalogue. Other books and publications will also be available.

Opening: January 28
Closing: February 16

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

Two shows also occupying the NSA Gallery with 'Comics Brew' are the annual members' exhibition 'Miniatures' which gives members an opportunity to exhibit, and Hlengiwe Lushaba in her performance/installation 'Untouched'. Lushaba is the third participant in the Young Artists Project (YAP), funded by Pro-Helvetia (the Arts Council of Switzerland) and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).

Hlengiwe Lushaba completed her National Diploma in Dance at the Durban Institute of Technology in 2001. Majoring in choreography and dance, Lushaba has presented challenging dance theatre work at the Jomba! Dance experience as a "new moves" grant recipient for the past two years. She was also seen at the NSA Gallery earlier in 2002 as 'Miss World' in an installation by Isolde Krams.

Lushaba is concerned with the pliability of moral truths, Her work asks questions about the limited nature of freedom and democracy she examines the rickety construct of equality in South African society. 'Untouched' consists of a once-off performance with a video installation component that will run in the NSA multi-media room for a three-week period.

Performance: January 31 at 7:00 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

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

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

Gladys Mgudlandlu was one of the first black women in South Africa to exhibit her work publicly. Born in 1925, in Peddie in the former Ciskei, to a family of Methodist Episcopal missionaries, Mgudlandlu was self-taught. Trained as a teacher and a nurse, she painted at night in her two-roomed house in Nyanga.

A painter of landscapes, flora and fauna and genre scenes of everyday life she had several exhibitions during the sixties in Cape Town and Durban, winning an award in 'Art South Africa Today' in 1963. She wrote her own African folk tales, inspired by those told to her by her grandmother, and intended to publish them together with accompanying illustrations.

Known for her direct painting style, Mgudlandlu's work has an immediacy that seems to infuse the objects and places depicted with an almost mythic energy. She died in 1979.

Opening: January 28
Closing: March 2

Tatham Art Gallery, corner Longmarket Street and Commercial Road
Tel: (033) 342 1804/01
Email: bell@tatham.org.za
Hours: Tues - Sun 10am - 6pm