Archive: Issue No. 73, September 2003

15.09.03 Roger Botembe at Gallery Momo
15.09.03 Vuzi Mfupi at the Goethe-Institut
15.09.03 Elza Botha at Art on Paper
15.09.03 Vaal Triangle Technikon at PhotoZA
15.09.03 Geof Kirby at PhotoZA
15.09.03 Trevor Coleman at Bamboo
15.09.03 'Choose your own' at Wits School of Arts
15.09.03 Clive van den Berg at Goodman Gallery
15.09.03 Collin Cole at the Stewart Gallery
15.09.03 Exhibition by Bag Factory artists in residence
01.09.03 'Makeshift' at the Johannesburg Art Gallery
01.09.03 'Contemporary Natural' at Mukondeni Fine Arts Gallery
01.09.03 Orlando de Almeida at Go-Ra Gallery
01.09.03 Alex Trapani and Antoinette Murdoch at Merely Mortal
01.09.03 'The Soul of Africa: Art as a cornerstone for development'
01.09.03 Du Toit, Mullins and Janse van Rensburg at Artspace
01.09.03 Claudia Shneider, Jeannette Unite and Mandla Manana at the Bag Factory
16.08.03 'Design-in Africa' at Mukondeni Fine Arts Gallery
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 MTN New Contemporaries Award at MuseumAfrica

PRETORIA

15.09.03 Open Window Lecturers at Open Window Art Gallery
15.09.03 Isabel le Roux at Association of Arts Pretoria
16.08.03 'Afrika Borwa' at the Pretoria Art Museum
16.08.03 'Celebrating Women' at the Pretoria Art Museum
16.08.03 Eddie Rafferty and Kay Hassan at Outlet

Private art consultant turned gallerist, Monna Mokoena launches his newest venture with a show of paintings by Roger Botembe. Mokoena's choice of artists for his inaugural show at Gallery Momo makes explicit a business plan that actively seeks to reintegrate Africa into the nation South Africa. Francophone Botembe is already well known in his native Kinshasa, and not an unfamiliar face to South Africa either. This is his third exhibition locally. His works are large canvasses noted for their vivid colours and somewhat formal abstraction.

Opens: September 18, at 6.30pm
Closes: September 31

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'Space' is an exhibition of drawings, paintings and mixed media works by Vuzi Mfupi, the first of four exhibiting artists selected jointly by the Johannesburg Art Gallery and the Goethe-Institut.

Opens: September 2, at 6pm

Elza Botha, better known as Elza Miles, is widely known for her feminist work of the 1960s and 1970s and for her politically inspired art of the 1980s and 1990s. As a printmaker she favours black and white lino and woodcuts, but also works in mixed media on paper and has produced important sculptural work making use of found objects.

In this exhibition, the playful titles of the individual works are used in sharp contrast to the critical subject matter. The proverbs used in the titles of the work, along with the metaphoric works themselves, provide sharp commentary on contemporary society and politics. Even further, and possibly more chilling, Botha is decisive and pointed in her crucifixion of the personal.

In addition to practicing art, Botha is a prolific art historian, teacher, curator, critic and consultant, and has published on artists including Ernest Mancoba, Selby Mvusi, Durant Sihlali and Gladys Mgudlandlu. Her publications include 'Lifeline out of Africa' (1994), 'The world of Jean Welz' (1995), 'Land and lives' (1997) and her most recent 'Nomfanekiso who paints at night' (2002). Her current project is researching the Polly Street Art Centre.

Botha is a recipient of the Vita Award, the Recht Malan Prize and the Old Mutual Award.

Opens: September 6
Closes: September 20

Thinus Mathee and a group of seven of his students from the Vaal Technikon set out on a weeklong documentary photography excursion near Mkuse in Kwazulu-Natal. The body of work on exhibition, titled 'Kwazulu-Natal Encounters' represents their visual encounters with rural communities and the surrounding landscape.

Opening concurrently is 'strawberryvelvet' by Tamsin Pavis and Marius van Rensburg.

Opens: September, 8 at 6pm
Closes: September 27

Physics teacher turned professional photographer, Geof Kirby, recorded the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens with infrared film. 'Hidden Light', an exhibition of his panoramic black and white photographs, shows the haunting ethereal world of Kirstenbosch in a strikingly different way.

Recording parts of the invisible light spectrum, Kirby demonstrates the striking tonal relationships in a world we cannot see with the naked eye.

Opens: September 10, at 6pm
Closes: September 24

'The Caribbean' is Coleman's solo show of large-scale, oil on canvas works, based on travels in the Caribbean, Mexico and the Bahamas.

Opens: September 13, at 10am
Closes: September 25

'Choose your own...' is an annual, interactive art event organised by third year Fine Arts students of the Wits School of Arts as part of their course work.

This year students recognised the need to reach audiences beyond the somewhat elitist audience normally associated with art exhibitions. Intending to move away from traditional notions of an 'art exhibition', the focus of the event is on audience participation. It aims to promote the arts as part of a wider cultural development.

Part of the event will take place in a new gallery recently opened to the public (11- 17 University Corner, Jorissen Street). The event is intended to coincide with the inner city initiatives to create a cultural axis linking Braamfontein to the Market Cultural Precinct.

Free, covered parking is available in University Corner on Jorissen Street

Opens: September 18, at 6pm

Love is the subject of Clive van den Berg's new exhibition, 'Love's Ballast'. Sexual love, especially, has always been linked to mortality. Van den Berg uses the body, skin and ghosts to reconfigure, within the context of HIV, the petit mort explored by romantic poets.

Recently returned from a residency at the Civitella Ranieri Centre in Umbria, Italy, Van den Berg will be showing work completed there as well as large-scale mixed media works using combinations of wood, stone, fabric and light bulbs.

Since his last exhibition at the Goodman, van den Berg has been involved in many large-scale projects, most recently as the co-ordinating artist for the New Legislature buildings for the Northern Cape Province in Kimberly.

Opens: September 25, at 6pm
Closes: October 18

'A circle with a centre' is the title of the exhibition of mixed media work by Collin Cole.

Opens September 27
Closes October 18

's.u.m.' is the titled of a show by current Bag Factory residents Claudia Shneider, Jeannette Unite and Mandle Manana.

Opens: September 17, at 6pm
Closes: September 28

The Joubert Park Project continues to examine the Johannesburg Art Gallery in relation to its surroundings. In 'Makeshift', an exhibition of interventions, 26 artists work in and with the park, markets, and taxi ranks. The pressures of daily survival in these areas, combined with the resourcefulness of the people who live, work, or pass through them, leads to a continual reuse and reformulation of space and objects that often appear makeshift and temporary.

'Makeshift' aims to examine the contradictions and connections between the fixedness of the Gallery and the relative flux characterizing its immediate environs.

Each artist was given a production budget of R100 to work in a public and interactive way, with limited time and resources. The interventions have been taking place throughout the month of August, in a variety of locations. Each project has been documented and reconfigured in the Gallery as an intervention in itself.

Several projects are still happening throughout the week of August 25, with the JAG as the starting point for most of them.

Please contact Veronika Klaptocz at (083) 332 8744, Merryn Singer at (083) 302 7758, or Keren Ben Zeev at (072) 323 9393 for up to date information.

Opens: August 30, at 3pm

Mukondeni Fine Arts Gallery 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.

See garden furniture, sculpture, functional art, tribal art, paintings, photography, design and pottery by 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 for directions. Transport to and from the gallery can be arranged by request.

Opens: September 1

'The Journey' is a retrospective exhibition by internationally renowned artist Orlando de Almeida. Born in Mozambique but currently living in South Africa, this self-taught sculptor is currently up-scaling his 'Moving Into Dance' into a statue for the new Constitutional Court Buildings at Constitution Hill.

Orlando's sculptures are lively, energetic and imaginative works varying from "authentically" African to classic European. This variation in style can be ascribed to his Portuguese heritage and Mozambican birthplace.

Opens September 3
Closes September 22

Following on their recent powerful group show '(Out of) Community of Property', Trapani and Murdoch continue their prolific output with 'Pure Pop'.

Murdoch's interest is in perfection, popular culture and consumerism, and she continues to explore these themes in a new body of wry works. The exhibition, she writes, is about "Pink for girls, the fact that Barbie is the most popular doll ever," and that "women are often reduced to their measurements � fake or real."

Using diverse media, Trapani further explores the idea of "the pure" in his obsessive searching for perfection and dissection of the soul.

Opens: September 4
Closes: October 4

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Showing at the premises of the Development Bank of Southern Africa in Midrand are a selection of contemporary arts and crafts by black artists from Namibia, Mozambique, KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape, Limpopo and Mpumalanga.

Contact Manda Bester for further details on the opening, viewing and educational programmes on Tel: (011) 313 3320 or (082) 964 9169 or Email: MandaB@dbsa.org

Dr Ben Ngubane will open the show.

Opens: September 4
Closes: September 18

In a group show called 'Offbeat', Ivan du Toit, Nigel Mullins and Martli Janse van Rensburg exhibit a visually and conceptually eclectic range of work.

Du Toit's enamel on canvas "reflects the chaos in the life of most people"; Mullin's oil on canvas is the last in the Hopeful Monster and brings to an end his figurative journey; while Janse van Rensburg's handblown glass "conveys a message of interaction between people and how different cultures communicate".

A preview will be held on September 13, between 10am and 2pm.

Opens: September 14, at 5.30pm

The ongoing artist's in residence programme at the Bag Factory has yielded a number of intelligent solo and group exhibitions that variously interrogate global concerns from a localized perspective. Up next is the group show by recent residents Shneider, Unite and Manana.

Opens: September 17, at 6pm
Closes: September 24

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

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

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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

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.

'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

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

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

'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

This exhibition profiles work by artists, designers, illustrators and photographers who lecture at The Open Window School of Visual Communication. The exhibition includes painting, sculpture, design, 3D animation and video, and participants include Gustav Vermeulen, Karlien de Villiers, Louisemari� Combrink and Steven Brewis.

Opens: September 10, at 7pm
Closes: October 7

'Art often does not come alone' is result of Isabel le Roux's travels locally and also in Paris, Provence, Florence, Venice, Tuscany, Sardinia.

Although on the surface the works on show give an account of her journeys, they also reveal personal impressions of the physical and spiritual spaces surrounding the artist. Word fragments as used as expressions of le Roux's constant dialogue with her works. Through moods induced by strong colours and composition, the works give expression to themes of relationships, love, spiritual safety and compassion.

Le Roux's press release states that "her work illustrates a personal rediscovery, for our modern times, of the glories and beauties of the European Renaissance and in that sense, it acquires meaning in the dawn of our long awaited and cherished African Renaissance."

Previews September 13 from 10am to 12 pm

Opens: September 14, at 5.30pm
Closes: September 25

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

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

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