Archive: Issue No. 78, February 2004

15.02.04 Images of displacement and disappropriation
15.02.04 Up Front and Personal at DAG
15.02.04 Lungelo Gumede at the Cupboard Gallery
15.02.04 Nkosi, Ziqubu and Gule at NSA
03.02.04 Ezequeil Mabote at the Menzi Mcunu Art Gallery, BAT Centre
03.02.04 'Share our Inner City Vision' - iTrump at DAG
03.02.04 'Umcebo' - Ningizimu School Banner Project at DAG
03.02.04 'Thumbprint' at artSPACE Durban

'Frontiere Borders Fronteras' is an exhibition by Giuseppe Lanzi, director of the Scalabrini Development Agency in Cape Town. Subtitled A Photographic Exposition of Migration around the World, the exhibition is a photographic document of involuntary migration and refugee movement in different parts of the world.

Lanzi's exhibition provides valuable insights into a worldwide phenomenon: the displacement and disappropriation of large numbers of people around the world. The images invoke stories of hardship and adversity but also of endurance and courage under extreme conditions and address the presence of borders at institutional, physical and conceptual levels.

'Up Front and Personal' presents three decades of UK graphics and design. The exhibition reflects the quality of thought and production that British designers, advertising agencies, artists and activists have brought to projects relating to British and global social and political causes. Ranging from landmark advertising campaigns to iconic poster images, spray-can billboard liberation and ephemera from community workshops and the alternative press, the exhibition covers a wide variety of statements, approaches and techniques.

The exhibition was curated by design historian and writer Liz McQuiston and was commissioned by the British Council in partnership with the Johannesburg Art Gallery, the South African National Gallery, Iziko Museums and the Durban Art Gallery.

Closes: March 28

The Cupboard Gallery, Home will be exhibiting various pieces of art by Lungelo Gumede, a recent graduate from the BAT Centre's Annual Artists in Action Residency Programme.

This program offers budding artists the opportunity to develop their skills under the tutelage of experts in their respective fields. The program is designed to equip artists with the expertise they require to earn a viable living from their work. Launched three years ago, it already boasts more then 90 successful graduates.

The Artists in Action Residency Program is made possible by the sponsorship of the National Lottery Development Trust Fund and the Durban Metro Department of Economic Affairs. Lungelo Gumede recently personally presented to the president a portrait he had painted of him and Nelson Mandela.

For more information contact Lisa Turner:
Tel: 084 515 9899
Email: thestoreroom@home-ind.co.za

Opens: February 17
Closes: March 14

'Unveiling the Other Me' is a collection of lyrical and haunting prints by Gabisile Nkosi, in the main gallery. In the mezzanine and park galleries check out the fascinating mixed-media installation of Sicelo Ziqubu entitled 'World According to an Artist'. The first artist to join the prestigious Young Artists' Project ranks this year is Khwezi Gule who presents his enigmatic exhibition 'Paleotech'.

Opens: February 17, at 6pm

Born in Mozambique, in 1979, Ezequeil Mabote's background bestowed upon him a multicultural fluency that includes Portuguese, Spanish, Shangaan and IsiZulu. He received his early training at the Nucleo de Arte Art Centre in Maputo, where he was influenced by observing textile workers and local wood carvers. His interest in printing and design was later reinforced in South Africa when he was an artist-in-residence at the Bat Centre. Here he met with Samuel Natangwe Mbingilo, a woodcut artist from the John Maufangejo Art Centre in Namibia. Later a stint at the Caversham Press in Pietermaritzburg gave him further skills as a bookbinder.

Utilising the emphasis of narrative in his training, Mabote pays tribute in his work to the oral tradition from which he comes, translating the traditional folk tales and family stories told by his grandparents into visual form. His pictorial narratives often have a mythic dimension, but can also be extremely intimate reflecting his childhood memories. The exhibition at the BAT Centre focuses on his painting.

Mabote has exhibited widely in South Africa. In 1999 'Art Of My Life' travelled to Pretoria, Johannesburg and Durban, under the auspices of the Alliance Francaise. In 2001, Mabote, together with six other artists, was awarded the Ithunga Fine Art Award for collaboration in an art calendar exhibited at the Durban Art Gallery. For many contemporary artists a peripatetic existence is not only a mark of growing success but has become a necessity for survival. Mabote has recently returned from the USA where he exhibited in Chicago and New York. He is soon due to return there.

Opens: February 5, at 6pm
Closing: March 6

Having had a brief initial run at the NSA, the Inner Thekwini Regeneration and Urban Management Programme (iTrump) presents documentation of its many endeavours in Durban for a while longer. Seven areas of focus have spread iTrump's projects around the city from Umgeni Estuary and Blue Lagoon; the Point and uShaka Development; the Beachfront; the Victoria Embankment; Warwick Junction; Albert Park and the CBD.

Encouraging an ongoing relationship with artists and the city, iTrump have been instrumental in funding projects such as the colourful mosaic work for hawkers in the CBD, overseen by Jane du Rand. Employing a wide range of people many of the projects have empowered artists by equipping them with new skills as well as giving them much needed exposure.

This exhibition of colour photographs captures the visionary work of the task team created by the City Council and headed by the much-respected Richard Dobson.

Closes: February 15

Special learners at Ningizimu School have become renowned in KZN for their production of colourful and inventive banners that are often seen at cultural events around the city. Often working collaboratively with artists they have, under the careful guidance of Robin Opperman, Director of Umcebo Trust and Workshop Environment, produced a diversity of banners of all shapes and sizes. Made from anything that comes to hand the banners include bottle tops, foil, embroidery thread, tin cans and sequins. Each banner also employs a variety of skills such as beadwork, wirework and sewing.

Broad themes such as The Sun, Moon and Stars, Ancestral Beliefs, God or Durban provide a focus for the work. "We opted for single concept banners, which had a very strong message, but which also told of the joy of everyday life which the pupils manage to experience, despite them often coming from very economically disadvantaged backgrounds and experiencing all the disadvantages of their mental and sometimes physical challenges," says Opperman.

'Umcebo' is a Zulu word meaning treasure, and the exhibition reflects the treasure of the individuals who have made, against great odds, these inventive and inspiring banners.

The exhibition travels to Port Elizabeth next.

Closes: February 15

'Thumb-print' is an experimental project of digitally created images or text on paper all restricted to a small scale. Produced from a workshop run by 3rd Eye Vision, the socially conscious collective with Error! Bookmark not defined. and Thando Mama at the helm, the project aims to contribute to the vocabulary of images produced by artists who engage with computers, photocopy machines, fax facilities, printers and drawings, where images are created as prints, copies and scanned images. The paper on which the images occur is equally diverse - hand-made, waste, industrial or specialised - and the works are produced collaboratively, in the spirit of experimentation.

Opens: February 2, at 6pm
Closes: February 15