Archive: Issue No. 69, May 2003

15.05.03 Contact Zones at Michael Stevenson Contemporary
15.05.03 Sanell Aggenbach at the AVA
15.05.03 Gladys Mgudlandlu Retrospective at the SANG
15.05.03 Ilona Anderson at Joáo Ferreira
15.05.03 Andrea Desmond-Smith at Art. B
15.05.03 'Meeting': Art in the Water Closet
15.05.03 'Voicing the Abstract' at CAP
01.05.03 Jane Alexander Walkabout
01.05.03 Uwe Pfaff 2003 at Studio 77
01.05.03 Roelof Louw at Bell-Roberts
01.05.03 Jill Trappler at the AVA
01.05.03 Extended Windows at Greatmore Studios
01.05.03 SNLV: Jillian Lochner at Bell-Roberts Photography
01.05.03 Michaelis Lunchtime Lecture Series by Kendell Geers
15.04.03 Jane Alexander at SANG
15.03.03 Lexicons and Labyrinths at the SA Museum

15.05.03 Alan Alborough at the Sasol Art Museum
01.05.03 Locatings at the US Art Gallery

01.05.03 Julian Rademeyer at the Ron Belling Art Gallery

Michael Stevenson Contemporary opens in De Waterkant with a show entitled 'Contact Zones: Colonial and Contemporary'. Comprising a broad selection of contemporary artworks and African artefacts, the show engages with themes of identities in sub-Saharan Africa, both in the colonial period and in the present day.

The exhibition illustrates the dynamic and creative role of artists in negotiating European and African identities in times when realities continue to evolve and alter rapidly. Their underlying concerns are the themes of similarity and difference, which they use to explore the constructs of race, colour and class. Works by John Murray, Lien Botha, Kevin Brand and many others are presented alongside African artefacts dating from between 1840 and 1940, most of which have been acquired by Stevenson and Michael Graham-Stewart in Europe.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue, which documents this collection of African art. The catalogue is titled 'The Mlungu in Africa: art from the colonial period 1840-1940'. For more about the new gallery, run by Stevenson, Cathy Grundlingh and Andrew da Conceicao, see News.

Opens: 6pm, Wednesday May 7
Closes: June 14

Michael Stevenson Contemporary
Hill House, De Smidt Street, Waterkant, Cape Town
Tel: (021) 421 2575
Email: michael@michaelstevenson.com
Website: www.michaelstevenson.com
Hours: Mon - Fri 9am - 5pm, Sat 10am - 1pm

The AVA is host to Sanell Aggenbach's fourth solo show, the second at this venue. Having seen Aggenbach's last show at the Bell-Roberts, one might expect to see paintings here once again, but 'Blank' consists of a large sculptural piece and a tapestry.

Aggenbach aligns herself with the satire and social commentary of the Bitterkomix publications in this work, which she sees as a 're-evaluation of the Afrikaner in a democratic society'. The large sculptural work, depicting a flock of life-size black sheep, examines guilt and innocence in the young Afrikaner's psyche, addressing their disenchantment with a disingenuous cultural heritage. The tapestry work invokes depictions of South African landscape by artists like Pierneef and Hugo Naud�, using this as a satirical metaphor for a flawed cultural heritage.

Opens: 6pm, Monday May 19
Closes: June 7

Association for Visual Arts, 35 Church Street, Cape Town
Tel: (021) 424 7436
Fax: (021) 423 2637
Email: estava@iafrica.com
Website: www.ava.co.za
Hours: Mon - Fri 10am - 5pm, Sat 10am - 1pm

Gladys Mgudlandlu, who died in 1979, has been described as the first African woman painter of note and she was the first to exhibit in Cape Town, if not on the entire continent.

Born in the Eastern Cape in 1925, Mgudlandlu lived much of her life in semi-poverty, teaching by day, often painting until 2am in her tiny home in Nyanga. Mgudlandlu was largely self-taught and consequently followed no painting tradition, though art critics perceived in her work the bold primitivism of Rousseau, Chagall and Kandinsky. She described herself as a "dreamer-imaginist". Originally concentrating on birds and landscapes (her own people called her unontaka or 'bird lady'), Mduglandlu later turned to African figures.

Mgudlandlu held three one-woman exhibitions in Cape Town and one in Port Elizabeth. She exhibited in several Eastern Cape centres and even as far afield as the USA. Amongst the honours she received was a prize in the 1963 Art South Africa Today Exhibition in Durban. Her work is included in many private and public collections both in SA and abroad. This retrospective has been curated by Joe Dolby.

Opens: May 21
Closes: June 22

South African National Gallery, Government Avenue, Company Gardens, Cape Town
Tel: (021) 481-3823 from 8:30am-1pm
Fax: (021) 461 0045
Email: ebedford@iziko.org.za
Website: www.museums.org.za/sang
Hours: Tues - Sun 10am - 5pm

Ilona Anderson presents an untitled show of what she refers to as 'drawings' but includes a lot of embroidery. Of this work she says: "I am curious about life, fascinated about life, fascinated and delighted by the fullness of being human. At the same time I am acutely aware of how often we are touched by painful situations. In South Africa we see all around us people suffering from poverty, AIDS, violence and corruption� What I want to do in my drawings is somehow cut through all this, and try to express some of the basic goodness and wise ordinariness we all experience."

Opens: 6pm, Monday May 5
Closes: May 24

João Ferreira Gallery, 80 Hout Street, Cape Town
Tel: 021 423 5403 or 082 490 2977
Fax: 021 423 2136
Email: info@artjoao.co.za
Website: www.artjoao.co.za
Hours: Tue - Fri 10am - 6pm, Sat 10am - 2pm

Art.b (formerly the Arts Association of Bellville) is hosting Andrea Desmond-Smith's 'The Hollow Woman'. Desmond-Smith, in her paintings, combines elements of fantasy with a deeply felt concern for our planet. Metamorphosis, resurrection, and the four elements of Western Alchemy, i.e. water, earth, air and fire, permeate her work.

Drawing on mythological and philosophical sources, Desmond-Smith proposes a fifth element - wood. She explores the tree as a symbol of Mother Nature, and the hollow woman, who contains the elements, embodies our fragility. The show also includes a tree sculpture, large enough to allow entry to a viewer.

Opens 7pm, Wednesday May 7
Closes: June 5

Art.b., Library Centre, Carel van Aswegen Street, Bellville
Tel: (021) 918 2301/2287
Fax: (021) 918 2083
Email: artb@icon.co.za
Hours: Mon - Fri 8am - 8pm, Sat 9am - 5pm

Following on the spectacle of 'Bruce Gordon', Cape Town's Cameron Platter ups the stakes with a show scheduled to be hosted in his bathroom.

'Meeting' will literally see an overflow of talent crammed into his bathroom space. Aside from Ed Young (of 'Bruce Gordon' notoriety), other confirmed participants include James Webb (of YDEsire), Bridget Baker, Matt Hindley, Joao Ferreira, Vuyisa Nyamende, Bruce Gordon (the person or the SANG artwork?), Sue Williamson, Peet Pienaar, Kathryn Smith, Malcolm Payne, Andrew Lamprecht, Teboho Edkins, Sean Slemon, Dan Halter, Zen Marie, Richard de Jager and Abrie Fourie.

Doubtlessly cynics will scoff, but there appears to be more than just a bit of idle (excremental?) fun going on here. Ed Young recently challenged the idea of what constitutes an artwork; maybe this show will challenge the idea of what constitutes the appropriate venue for viewing art. If you don't like the idea, you can probably wash your hands of it all afterwards in the bathroom basin.

Opens: 7 pm on May 17

Galerie Puta
2A Dysart Road, Greenpoint, Cape Town
(Off Greenpoint Main Road, turn up Wigtown Road. Take the second stop street left into Dysart. It's the last house on the left.)

For further details contact Andrew Lamprecht on 083 530 6141 or alamprec@hiddingh.uct.ac.za

The Community Arts Project (CAP) is hosting the exhibition 'Voicing the Abstract', curated by Stina Edblom, a museology student from the University of Umeå, Sweden. The exhibition presents the work of three emerging black women artists based in Cape Town, Ernestine White, Trish Lovemore and Thembeka Qangule.

The exhibition seeks to probe the boundaries of widely held preconceptions and stereotypes about the content of black South African art. A video installation by artist and filmmaker Vuyile Voyiya and curator Stina Edblom, based on interviews with the artists will give a voice to the personal experience of these three women artists. Curator Stina Edblom describes the exhibition as "an attempt to create a platform where artists can speak for themselves," thereby allowing them to become active participants in creating the history and present of contemporary South African art.

Ernestine White, a Masters student at the Michaelis School of Fine Art, specialising in lithography, will exhibit abstract works dealing with issues of identity and belonging. Regarding herself as a hybrid person living within two cultures her work is based on her experience of returning to South Africa from many years of living in the USA.

Trish Lovemore, a student at the Ruth Prowse School of Arts is working with abstract painting. For Trish the process of painting has a therapeutic effect. Without making preparatory drawings her painting comes spontaneously and dark backdrops in her work give way to bright colours. These represent a notion of overcoming the negative aspects of her life.

Thembeka Qangule, a Masters student at the Michaelis School of Fine Art, working with non-figurative art in mixed media, is an artist dealing with issues relating to the marginalisation and experience of black women in general and black women artists in particular. Thembeka will exhibit two of her pieces from the Thupelo workshop 2000.

Contact Stina Edblom on tel: (073) 314 9196, email: stina_edblom@hotmail.com

The exhibition will be opened at 7pm on May 19 by 2003 Standard Bank Young Artist award winner Berni Searle, and performance poet and playwright Malika Ndlovu.

Opens: May 19
Closes: May 31

Community Arts Project
15 Buitenkant Street (The Sacks Futeran Building), Cape Town
Tel: (021) 465 3689
Email: cap@iafrica.com
Hours Mon - Sat 10am - 4pm

Marilyn Martin, Director for Iziko Art Collections, will conduct a walkabout of Jane Alexander's show, currently on at the SANG. Alexander has won numerous awards including the 2002 DaimlerChrysler award for exceptional artistic achievement on which occasion this exhibition takes place. Her enigmatic creations offer a powerful commentary on the disturbing socio-political issues of our time. The show runs from April 26 - July 27.

10.30am, Sunday May 4

The walkabout costs R50 for Friends of the SANG and R55 for guests, including brunch. Numbers are limited and early booking is advisable.

Tel: (021) 467-4662 (Tue - Thur 10am-2pm)

South African National Gallery, Government Avenue, Company Gardens, Cape Town
Tel: (021) 481-3823 from 8:30am-1pm
Fax: (021) 461 0045
Email: ebedford@iziko.org.za
Website: www.museums.org.za/sang
Hours: Tues - Sun 10am - 5pm

Cape Town artist Uwe Pfaff is opening Studio 77 to the public for his second show in recent years in the city. 'Uwe Pfaff 2003' includes sculpture in ceramic, wood and steel as well as Pfaff signature cutout steel pictures. The latter have revealed themselves as respectable musical instruments, and these 'sound sculptures' will be featured in a performance by the Flying Cow Gratuitous Noise Ensemble at the opening. The exhibition will be opened by Natalie Becker.

Opens: 6pm, Thursday April 24

Closes: May 17

Studio 77, 4th Floor, 77 Hout Street, Cape Town
Tel: 021 434-210 or 426-666
Cell: 082 783-8311
Email: uwepfaff@mweb.co.za
Website: www.uwepfaff.com

Roelof Louw is South African born, but he studied and later taught at Central St Martin's School of Art in London. He returned here in the 90s and has subsequently held one show at the Bell-Roberts. This show saw him working with American flags, and was shown not long after the US's last venture into the Middle East. His new body of work is entitled 'Final Jeopardy' and comprises wall sculptures of fluorescent tubes and animal bones.

Opens: April 26
Closes: May 17

Bell-Roberts Art Gallery, 199 Loop Street, Cape Town
Tel: 021 422 1100
Fax: 021 423 3135
Email: suzette@bell-roberts.com
Website: www.bell-roberts.com
Hours: Mon - Fri 8.30am - 5pm, Sat 10am - 1pm

Jill Trappler is showing a collection of her recent paintings in her second one-person show at the AVA in three years. Trappler's work is largely abstract although, to my eye anyway, there were hints of images creeping into the work she showed last. Trappler talks a lot about the process and material of her painting, and of this new work she says '(T)here are many things along the way that interest me but I decided to put them aside and not be distracted as I wanted to work closely with the weight of paint, the density, how it holds the surface and how it moves the eye'. She adds that '(T)he content determines scale and I wait to see if the surface moves, moves the eye and moves the heart. Each painting is about one thing, one thing only'.

Opens: 6pm, Tuesday April 29
Closes: May 17

Association for Visual Arts, 35 Church Street, Cape Town
Tel: (021) 424 7436
Fax: (021) 423 2637
Email: estava@iafrica.com
Website: www.ava.co.za
Hours: Mon - Fri 10am - 5pm, Sat 10am - 1pm

Jessie Colman and Wonder have entitled their joint exhibition 'Extended Windows' and say it comprises new images, old images, forgotten images and buried images. Of his contribution, Wonder says: 'It's been a year-and-a-half since I moved into Greatmore Studios. Before this I had held an exhibition at Greatmore when I was still staying on the mountain. The first thing that I took to was that my studio comes with a window facing the mountain. So these drawings are a process of an exhibition which I had earlier at the AVA, the series, 'Windows' ''. Colman says that for him, 'the 'body' is crucial as a starting point for fictional and metaphorical exploration. Using mixed media, this journey has involved discovering, losing and finding images in the passage of time, and constructing and deconstructing the distant memories which these images suggest.' This will be Colman's first exhibition.

Opens: May 8
Closes: May 30

Greatmore Studios, 47-49 Greatmore Street, Woodstock
Tel: (021) 447 9699
Email: artmore@mweb.co.za Website: www.greatmoreart.org
Hours: Mon-Fri 9 a.m � 4 p.m

Impervious of their critics, the Bell-Roberts have launched another audacious venture: Bell-Roberts Photography. In a curatorial coup of sorts, the gallery will showcase the work of Cape Town-based photographer Jillian Lochner.

Although widely celebrated as a commercial and fashion photographs, Jillian Lochner's work characteristically explores a richly emotive territory. In her Chicken Flesh series, for instance, she explored the textured look and feel of skin. Characteristically, there was a lot of nudity involved, a fact that unsettled more than a few viewers at this year's KKNK, where her work was exhibited on the group show 'Links'.

"Art" is how Jillian Lochner herself describes these private portfolio images. Aside from nudity, and a little bit of disarming crudity, also expect to see a series of self-portraits that reconstruct the little traumas of her life. On the occasion of the opening, Bell-Roberts Publishing will also launch SNLV, Jillian Lochner's debut book of photographs. SNLV , a media ratings abbreviation for sex, nudity, language and violence, will offer readers an up-close view of this enigmatic photographers images, work that is at once candid and disturbing.

Opens: May 15
Closes: May 28

Bell-Roberts Art Gallery, 199 Loop Street, Cape Town
Tel: 021 422 1100
Fax: 021 423 3135
Email: suzette@bell-roberts.com
Website: www.bell-roberts.com
Hours: Mon - Fri 8.30am - 5pm, Sat 10am - 1pm

Kendell Geers hardly needs an introduction here, but he has been pretty scarce here since his move to Belgium. He recently held his first one-person exhibition in South Africa for many years at the Goodman in Johannesburg. Geers is internationally renowned and has showed recently at the Friedman Gallery in London and was one of the first artists to exhibit at the prestigious Palais de Tokyo in Paris. Most recently Geers presented a multi-media collaborative project entitled 'Red Sniper' with Belgian musician Patrick Coldenhuys which was shown just last week at the Pompidou centre in Paris. A series of videos from this production will be shown in the Michaelis Gallery following Geers' lecture.

1 - 2pm, Monday May 5

Michaelis Lecture Theatre, Hiddingh Campus, 31-37 Orange Street, Gardens
Tel: (021) 480-7111/4
Email: lessex@hiddingh.uct.co.za

Jane Alexander, winner of the 2002 DaimlerChrysler Award for South African sculpture, is best known for The Butcher Boys, which she made in 1985. The work remains the SANG's most popular and famous work. But it is not only this work that won her the prestigious award, which provided funds for a major international exhibition and the production of an impressive catalogue.

This exhibition at the SANG includes The Butcher Boys, 'The Bom Boys' series (which she showed at the Irma Stern a few years ago) as well as her new tableau 'African Adventure'. Where the first work made specific comment on the brutality of South African apartheid society, with the 'The Bom Boys' Alexander has narrowed her focus to her immediate environs. This series found the artist looking to Cape Town's street kids, a problem which inspires empathy and fear in equal measure amongst Capetonians. These street kids are particularly prevalent on Long Street, where the artist lived for a period.

Alexander never limited herself to simply depicting these young children, and the scaled-down and masked figures spoke much more widely about the human condition and South African society generally. The odd scale and proportions of the figures was very disquieting and the recurrent trickster figures prevented any interpretation from resting too easily.

Alexander's 'The African Adventure', her most recent series, also looks to Long Street, home to an increasing number of tourist operations and adventure centres. Sculptures, photomontages and video work look at the uneasy truce between the 'African Adventures' offered to backpackers and the gritty realism of the increasingly multi-cultural street with its problems that just won't go away.

Alexander is a senior lecturer at the Michaelis School of Fine Art and has received several major awards including 1995's Standard Bank Young Artist Award and the FNB Vita Art Now Award the year following. She has exhibited extensively internationally and her work is to be found in numerous public and private collections.

Opens: April 26
Closes: July 27

South African National Gallery, Government Avenue, Company Gardens, Cape Town
Tel: (021) 481-3823 from 8:30am-1pm
Fax: (021) 461 0045
Email: ebedford@iziko.org.za
Website: www.museums.org.za/sang
Hours: Tues - Sun 10am - 5pm

Accompanying the African Human Genome Conference taking place in Cape Town is a broader visual arts programme at the South African Museum that includes both a competition and a curated exhibition. 'Lexicons and Labyrinths' is curated by artist Fritha Langerman, who has selected along with herself Alan Alborough, Willem Boshoff, Lien Botha, Nadja Dhaenke, Isaac Khanyile, Malcolm Payne and Sandile Zulu.

Langerman has chosen the above for their "conceptual approach to art production and specific concerns with language, form and science". All of the artists will show new work, which will range in media and be largely installation-based. Given the venue it's quite likely that some of the artists will establish some kind of dialogue with the museum's existing exhibits in order to explore concepts and implications of the Human Genome Project.

The original opening date has been moved from March 5 to March 22 and the closing date is unclear at this stage.

Opening March 22

South African Museum, Company Gardens, Queen Victoria Street, Cape Town
Tel: (021) 481-3943/0 or 083 316-8794
Fax: (021) 481-3941
Email: cquerido@iziko.org.za
Website: www.museums.org.za/iziko
Hours: Mon - Sun 10am - 5pm

Alan Alborough's cryptically titled show 'work[ing/ in] pro[cess/ gress]' opens at the Sasol Art Museum. Typically, the press release is devoid of much information and includes no image. Tantalisingly though, Alborough promises to be in residence at the gallery on Wednesday evenings and Sunday afternoons as the 'work evolves'.

Alborough has been remarkably prolific in the last few years, having produced his major Standard Bank Young Artist Award exhibition, a solo show at the US Gallery and having won the last FNB Vita Award with another major work last year. Most of these works and exhibitions were accompanied by no information and few images, while both the US and the Standard Bank shows evolved during the course of their running. An education programme aimed specifically at young learners will run concurrently with the exhibition.

There will be an opening reception on June 14 at 1 pm.

Opens: May 7
Closes: July 23

Sasol Art Museum, 52 Ryneveld Street, Stellenbosch
Tel: 021 808 3693
Fax: 021 808 3669
Email: lmdw@sun.ac.za
Website: www.sun.ac.za/usmuseum
Hours: Tues - Fri, 9am - 4pm, Wed 9am - 8pm, Sat 9am - 5pm, Sun 2pm - 5pm

'Locatings: a search with lines and colour' is a show by Beate Maria Wörz and Stefanie Eins. Wörz has produced a temporary installation of local sand and earth based on Stellenbosch's topography and town plans. Eins' drawings show forms and lines whose reduced architectonic characteristics have always interested her.

Alongside this, a selection from six years of photographic work narrates the history of her spatial language of space. Basic forms such as circles and squares are captured in various environments - from green European pastures to South African veldt or the Namib Desert. Both artists share a penchant for a 'bird's eye view' and in their respective practices a series of intriguing works have come into being.

Opens: 6.30pm, Tuesday April 29
Closes: May 20

US Art Gallery, corner Dorp and Bird Streets, Stellenbosch
Tel: (021) 808 3524
Email: kh@sun.ac.za
Website: www.sun.ac.za/usmuseum
Hours: Mon - Fri 9am - 5pm, Sat 9am - 1pm

Julian Rademeyer, a photojournalist at The Herald in Port Elizabeth, spent several months in India in 2000/2001. 'Pilgrim' documents the people and places encountered on his journey.

Rademeyer's journey began in Delhi, traversed northern India and Nepal, and ended in Gosainkund, a cluster of Himalayan lakes sacred to both Hindus and Buddhists. Much of the work focuses on "power places" - temples and monuments regarded as focal points of divine energy - and tirthas - pilgrimage sites believed to be fords between the secular and divine worlds. Along the way the photographer encountered devout pilgrims, foreigners in search of a quick-fix karmic epiphany, madmen and mystics, conmen and sinners - all of them united in their search for something revealing and, in many cases, ultimately cathartic.

The exhibition, which travels from The Cold Room in Cape Town, consists of 32 images in colour and black & white.

Opens: April 25
Closes: May 17

Ron Belling Art Gallery
30 Park Drive, Port Elizabeth
Tel: 041-586 3973/ 083 355 6332
Hours: Mon - Fri 10am to 4pm; Sat & Sun 10am to 1pm (Closed: May 10 - 12)
Admission: Adults R5/ Students and pensioners R2