Archive: Issue No. 81, May 2004

01.05.04 The tremor of 12 SA artists in Belgium
01.05.04 South African photographers on FotoGrafia
01.05.04 Frances Goodman in Belgium
01.05.04 James Webb in Barcelona
03.03.04 Amaler-Raviv, Yudelman and Mthethwa in Norway
03.03.04 Minnette Vari in Switzerland
03.03.04 Marlene Dumas at Museum for Actual Art, Ghent

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

01.05.04 Kendell Geers in New York
01.05.04 Big name South Africans in Washington DC
01.04.04 Claudette Schreuders at Arizona State University Art Museum
03.03.04 William Kentridge at New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York: Extended Run
16.01.04 'A Decade of Democracy: Witnessing South Africa', in Boston

AFRICA

01.05.04 Five South Africans on Dak'Art 2004

AUSTRALIA

01.04.04 Candice Breitz at Queensland Art Gallery, South Brisbane

'Tremor: Contemporary South African Art' is a showcase of painting, photography, video/ DVD, sound installation and sculpture by 12 South African artists. The work on show variously tackles the unstable and fluid expanse that exists between an internalised, personal space and an exterior, outer reality during a time of intense social transformation.

The 12 artists are: Jane Alexander, William Kentridge, Willie Bester, Tracey Rose, Jo Ractliffe, Senzeni Marasela, Robin Rhode, Clive Van Den Berg, Dorothee Kreutzfeldt, Johannes Phokela, Sandile Zulu and Thando Mama.

The event is complemented by a catalogue, and features a critical text by Nic Dawes. The catalogue, in English and French, is available at a cost of Eu20. The event also features a number of screenings of South African films.

Opens: April 22
Closes: June 20

The third edition of 'FotoGrafia', Rome's international photography festival, is a showcase of over two hundred photographers. It includes over forty exhibitions held in some of the city's most evocative venues. As in the previous editions, the 2004 festival will also focus on a single country. This year it is the turn of South Africa.

'FotoGrafia' represents the highpoint of the encounter between contemporary art and Rome's unmatchable heritage. The exhibitions, which are held in different locations (museums, archaeological sites, international academies and art galleries), are concentrated in two main regions: the Historic Centre and the Flaminio quarter, both areas with high concentrations of public and private museums and galleries.

Kathy Grundlingh, formerly of the South African National Gallery and currently with Michael Stevenson, is curating a group exhibition titled 'Sugar in the Petrol', at the British School at Rome Gallery (April 6 - June 4). The featured artists are Abrie Fourie, Andrew Tshabangu, Zwelethu Mthethwa and Doris Bloom.

Bloom is also holding a solo show, titled 'Sod, Myth of origin and other African stories' at Studio Stefania Miscetti (April 6 - May 8).

DaimlerChrysler award winning photojournalist Guy Tillim will be showing his evocative Angolan colour portraits, 10 photos taken in Kunhinga during the civil war. Tillim's work will be on show at the Sala 1 gallery from April 3 - May 31.

Pieter Hugo, a self-taught Cape Town photographer, is showing an impressive body of images at the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna (April 15 - May 16). 'Ritratti di Albini' (or 'Portraits of Albinos') has been described as "a thought-provoking reflection on diversity in the South African population". A selection of intimate portraits of people born with a deficiency of photo-protective pigment, or melanin, three of these images were recently shown at Michael Stevenson, on the show 'Staged Realities'. Hugo's transcontinental body of work is soon to be available in book form.

Sally Mann will be showing 'Deep South', a series of anthropomorphic landscapes created by the artist in Mississippi and Louisiana. The exhibition will be held in Palazzo della Calcografia (April 27 - June 6).

The theme of this year's festival is "Dura Bellezza" (or Hard Beauty). The festival is produced by Zone Attive, with the artistic direction of Marco Delogu, who proposes a reflection on the dual nature of photography: hard-hitting testimony and work of art. For further information, in English, visit: www.fotografiafestival.it

Frances Goodman is one of 28 artists appearing on 'Mo(NU)ment@Bornem'. The rather post-modern title refers to the moment of meeting between cultural history, contemporary art and nature. Art asks for time, a moment of attention for what it has to tell. The exhibition will take place along the scenic routes of Bornem, in Belgium, an area eagerly visited by walkers and cyclists the whole summer through.

The event is spread over four locations: the gallery and park of Monumental at Bornem, the gardens of the 15th century Sint-Bernardusabdij at Bornem, the regional museum 'De Zilverreiger', at Weert, and the tourism and recreation information centre of the Scheldt 'De notelaer', at Hingene.

Opens: May 9
Closes: August 29

James Webb exhibits his politically charged "White Noise" on Zèppelin 2004-Festival de Arte Sonor.

This year, Zèppelin2004-Festival de Arte Sonoro is focussing on audio material relating to situations of conflict and consensus in human societies. In this spirit, and specially conscious of the important role played by sound in the mass demonstrations against the pre-emptive attack on Iraq that took place throughout the world in March and April 2003, Z�ppelin have invited artists to create sound pieces expressing a total rejection of armed conflicts of any kind, to be played back on a high-quality, 8-speaker system in the CCCB Hall area during the festival.

The speakers will be arranged around a large semi-circular space and operate continuously between the 19th and the 22nd of May 2004, so that individual pieces will be played various times during the festival.

James Webb's White Noise, a 10 second clip of George W Bush repeating, �Make a weapon� We thought he had weapons... The international community thought he had weapons� But he had the capacity to make a weapon and then let that weapon fall into the hands of a shadowy terrorist network� is phased over an extended period of time to produce a jumbled rap of words sounding like an ever-changing stuck record. A sculptural installation version of the work can be seen locally on the ABSA L'Atelier show in Johannesburg.

Opens: May, 2004

Arlene Amaler-Raviv and Dale Yudelman's collaboration 'Live Stock', recently shown at the 8th Havana Biennial in Cuba, has been selected along with Zwelethu Mthethwa's work to be shown at the Henie Onstad Kunstenter in Oslo, Norway.

'Postcards from Cuba - A Selection from the 8th Havana Biennial' is curated by Selene Wendt, and presents a selection from the 8th Havana Biennial. The exhibition includes an international mix of artists working in a variety of mediums.

The venue, Henie Onstad kunstenter was established in 1968 by the famous ice skater Sonja Henie and her husband Niels Onstad. With a collection of modern and contemporary art at its core, the gallery's emphasis is on presenting changing exhibitions of international and contemporary art. Artists who have recently shown at Henie Onstad include: Marlene Dumas, Yinka Shonibare, Olu Oguibe and Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, amongst others.

Opens: February 6
Closes: May 2

Minnette Vari has her first monographic museum show in Lucerne, Switzerland.

Curated by Susanne Neubauer and funded by a generous grant by the Art Club Lucerne, the show opened at the Museum of Art, Lucerne. The exhibition features eight of video and video-based works, including a large installation of the two-channel piece The Calling (2003) with 'found' stone sculptures loaned from the Historical Museum of Lucerne; an installation of the four-channel work Chimera (the white edition) (2001); a large outdoor projection of REM (2001) which can be seen 'floating' every night below the vast ceiling that juts out from the building. A catalogue accompanies the exhibition.

Shown for the first time is Vari's brand new two-channel video work entitled Riverrun (2004), which looms like a double spectre, filling the entire volume of a 6,5 meter tall room. It features two video as well as two stereo audio components of different durations, which run out of synch, so the viewing experience is somewhat liquid and never quite repeats in the same way. Riverrun is as seamless a loop as is James Joyce's Finnegans Wake (of which the first word, of course, is "riverrun").

Many of the work's conceptual concerns can be traced in the sentence that links the end of that book back to its beginning, namely "A way a lone a last a loved a long the (...) riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodious vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs". This last reference to a place often doubles as the initials of the book's protagonist, but is also used by Joyce to mean here comes everybody.

The piece is essentially a meditation on the courses that we cut in our lifetimes, like water does into earth; sometimes resulting in flood and at other times a dry riverbed. It also contains biographical references and cryptic messages to family members no longer in this world.

"Riverrun", explains the artist, "runs a course set in a loop journey that I made by car to places of personal significance, a loop of footage that serves as the route or backdrop against which many smaller visual encounters take place. The 'journeying' footage runs backwards, creating a strange vertigo: to me a way of communicating that, although the world gears us into thinking of life and progress as rising and forward-moving, like all things we are constantly drawn back into the earth; we fail and fall in big ways and small, and are re-absorbed into something primordial."

The artist will present a talk at the museum on April 28.

Opens: February 7
Closes: May 9

'Grasduinen 1' is the pilot of a series of exhibitions organised by the City Museum for Actual Art (S.M.A.K.) in Ghent, in collaboration with the coastal village of Bredene.

Former Walker Art Center curator Cis Bierinckx dug around in the S.M.A.K. collection and added privately and artist-owned work to it. The project aims also to commission and introduce artists who have not yet shown in Belgium for the show. Bierinckx has commissioned the Croatian artist Milijana Babic, until recently resident in Durban, to create a new work in situ, while Capetonian Ed Young will present a performance at the opening.

The exhibition looks at art as a seducer but at the same time as a disturbing agent that forces the viewer to take a position. In this way the viewer becomes a participant rather than a consumer. Other artists on the show include Vito Acconci (USA), Lawrence Weiner (USA), Steven Blum (Switzerland), Wim Delvoye (Belgium), Noritoshi Hirakawa (Japan), Marlene Dumas (SA/Netherlands) and Maria May Post (Netherlands).

Opens: April 3

Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn is a dealer and art advisor, whose Artemis Greenberg Van Doren Gallery on 57th Street represents many of the hot young women photographers. On November 10 last year she opened Salon 94, a "furnished domestic environment" for art lovers in the manner of the legendary salons of Gertrude Stein and Florine Stettheimer. The 1,500 square foot space, located on the ground floor of 12 east 94th Street, was designed by Rafael Viñoly and features a 40 x 20 ft. glass curtain wall overlooking a garden designed by Paula Hayes.

It is in this opulent space that Kendell Geers was asked to present his first solo show in New York. 'In the flesh' has been described as a politically charged, site-specific installation and consists of a curtain wall formed with razor wire. For an insightful overview of the show, read Kim Levin's Village Voice piece 'A Provocateur and Insider's Outsider From South Africa' at:
www.villagevoice.com/issues/0417/levin.php

Closes: May 12

Advance Notice: How does a work of art work on us? Henry Art Gallery Chief Curator Elizabeth Brown has been developing a concept of 'The Work of the Work' (WOW) over the last two years to probe the way certain works of art actively engage the viewer. Our connection to artwork might be intellectual or visceral or kinaesthetic; it is often multiple, involving some change in bodily sensation at the same time it provokes emotions or mental associations. Such responses are critical to the effectiveness of most, if not all, works of art.

'WOW' presents a selection of works by a small group of international and multi-ethnic artists. By featuring more than a single work by these artists, the exhibition increases audience attention. Viewers are encouraged to focus and therefore more productively engage with the works. Aside from Candice Breitz, the artist line-up includes Catherine Yass, Anne Appleby, Hannah Villiger, Callum Innes, Steve McQueen, Kim Sooja, Gary Hill, and Olafur Eliasson.

'WOW' is curated for the Henry Art Gallery by Chief Curator Elizabeth A. Brown.

The show opens in three parts:

Gary Hill: Tall Ships: August 13, 2004 - February 13, 2005
WOW Stroum Gallery: September 18, 2004 - February 13, 2005
WOW North Galleries: November 6, 2004 - April, 2005

The show 'Insights' features the work of nine contemporary artists from the National Museum of African Art's collection. These artists are: Sokari Douglas Camp, William Kentridge, Jeremy Wafer, Zwelethu Mthethwa, Georgia Papageorge, Ezrom Legae, Iba N'Diaye, Gavin Jantjes and Sue Williamson.

By displaying ensembles rather than individual works, the exhibition reveals the artistic process and play of experimentation, continuity and change in each artist's chosen subjects and materials. The artwork on exhibit reflects the collection's strength in contemporary South African art. As artist Sue Williamson suggests, "Art has several lives - it has one life when you are actually making it, and that process is important for the artist� Then when that's finished, the art begins the second phase of its life, where people react to it in a particular space - in a gallery."

Artists' insights are presented in quotes that illuminate and personalise the works on display, while the curators' comments impart the broader cultural and political themes that inform each artist's work. Together, these insights reveal the artists' varied use of visual metaphor, allegory, myth and even movement to evoke a range of experiences - the joy of masquerade, the resiliency of community, pride of place and the physical and psychic violence of political oppression.

The exhibition, co-curated by Kinsey Katchka and Allyson Purpura, reflects museum director Sharon F. Patton's interest in fostering inventive approaches to exhibiting the museum's collection by including newer staff members in the curatorial process.

Closes: November 28

The Arizona State University Art Museum presents an exhibition of sculpture and prints by Claudette Schreuders. Entitled 'The Long Day', the show features 11 new sculptures, lithographs and drawings. Schreuders is best known for her autobiographical figurative sculpture inspired by family photographs and memories and by the specific social experience of growing up white, female and Afrikaans in the broader political context of South Africa.

Assembled from carved and painted wood, the works often include other materials such as iron, leather, nails and found objects, reflecting the influence of African sculpture. Schreuders' accessible but moody works convey the revolutionary changes in South Africa and of individuals grappling with the country's inscrutable past.

In her artist's statement, published in the catalogue Liberated Voices: Contemporary Art from South Africa, she remarks: "(The) sense of (my) dislocation was not only the result of a European heritage within an African context, but also the marginalisation that formed part of a restrictive society that set limits and threatened to reject those who did not conform."

Her new work reflects on the burden of representing contemporary South African political and social realities. Her allegorical figures range from works inspired by family history to anonymous figures observed in private moments that become political in a public space - like reading the newspaper about Rwanda in a park.. Schreuders draws inspiration from the iconography and style of African tribal art, the Colon figures of West Africa, and Western traditions of religious woodcarving, particularly Northern and Spanish baroque sources.

Claudette Schreuders received a Master of Fine Arts degree at the University of Cape Town in 1997. Her work has been exhibited in numerous group exhibitions in South Africa, Japan, Germany, Great Britain and the United States, and in solo exhibitions at the Jack Shainman Gallery in New York.

Opens: March 20
Closes: June 19, 2004

   SEE REVIEWS

'Point of View: An Anthology of the Moving Image' is an innovative commissioning and publishing project featuring new works by eleven leading artists representing different generations and different cultural perspectives: Francis Alys, David Claerbout, Douglas Gordon, Gary Hill, Pierre Huyghe, Joan Jonas, Isaac Julien, William Kentridge, Paul McCarthy, Pipilotti Rist and Anri Sala.

'Point of View', produced by Bick Productions (Ilene Kurtz Kretzschmar and Caroline Bourgeois) and the New Museum of Contemporary Art, was conceived to make accessible the work of some of the most important artists working in video, film and digital imagery today. Produced as a publication in an unlimited number, 'Point of View' is the first commercially available anthology of the moving image, serving as a point of entry to these new works, and as an ongoing resource for museums, universities and art schools around the world.

The Anthology consists of a boxed set of eleven DVD's, each containing a newly-commissioned work; an in-depth interview with the artist conducted by either Dan Cameron, senior curator at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, curator Hans Ulrich Obrist of the Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, or Richard Meyer, Associate Professor, Department of Art History, University of Southern California; an image library of the artist's previous work; and biographical material. The initial print run is 1500 and will be available through the New Museum store and website.

William Kentridge's contribution is titled Automatic Writing (2003), and consists "hauntingly beautiful" series of animated black and white drawings brings viewers into the artist's unconscious.

The New Museum of Contemporary Art, founded in 1977, is the only museum in New York City dedicated exclusively to contemporary art and shows the best art from around the world. Over the last five years, the Museum has exhibited artists from Argentina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cameroon, China, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Germany, Poland, Spain, South Africa, Turkey, the United Kingdom among others. The Museum has also mounted ambitious surveys of important but under-recognized artists such as Ana Mendieta, William Kentridge, David Wojnorowicz, and Paul McCarthy. The Museum's Zenith Media Lounge, launched in November 2000, is the only museum space in New York City devoted to presenting new media art.

In Spring 2006, the New Museum will open a new home at 235 Bowery at Prince Street. This 60,000 square foot facility, designed by the Tokyo-based firm Sejima + Nishizawa/SANAA, will greatly expand the Museum's exhibitions and programs, and will be the first art museum constructed in Downtown New York's modern history.

Opens: February 27
Closes: May 11

Taking their cue as the tenth year of our fledgling democracy, curators Sophia Ainslie, Thembinkosi Goniwe and Tumelo Mosaka present a show that bravely showcases the work of a diverse cluster of emerging contemporary South African artists. According to the curators, "the 20 young artists featured critically reflect on how identity used to be defined by the binary black and white opposition under apartheid. They also explore the new multidimensional identities that are possible today, and probe their limits and contradictions".

Reading through the list of participants there are a number of surprises, but whatever ones personal reservations the choice is welcome given the almost hegemonic power young(ish) artists like Candice Breitz, Kendell Geers, Moshekwa Langa and Zwelethu Mthethwa seem have abroad. Taking that favoured theme for unearthing truths about South African art practice, the show examines ways how identity has been defined through the use of more personal modes of expression.

Artists Thando Mama and Rudzani Nemasetoni, for instance, reflect differently on how the state defined identity. In Nemasetoni case, the artist uses images from his family's Pass Books, while Mama uses his own body as a site for the recovery of meaning and power associated with the black subject. On the other hand, artists such as Nkosinathi Khanyile, Mthunzi Ndimande, and Nirupa Sing explore influences of African heritage in modern culture. Through their use of natural materials and implementation of traditional skills such as grass weaving, they recover and celebrate an African heritage that is marginalized and threatened by modern society.

'A Decade of Democracy: Witnessing South Africa' articulates the variety of strategies that South African artists use to connect their living history with its past. The framework is to allow for the works to create a conversation that explores the impact of apartheid witnessing the complexities and multitude of issues that South Africa is confronting today. The exhibition will act as a catalyst to generate discussion around the progress and change that has occurred over the last decade transforming a society struggling to reconcile its past legacy. It presents a transient moment in South African history portraying how emerging artists negotiate between what was, what is, and what is to come.

The full list of participating artists is: Bongi Bengu, Pitso Chinzima, Matthew Hindley, Nicholas Hlobo, Fanie Jason, Alison Kearney, Nkosinathi Khanyile, Jeanott M. M. Laderia, Fritha Langerman, Brenton Maart, Thando Mama, Colbert Mashile, Pauline Mazibuko, Mthunzi Ndimande, Rudzani Nemasetoni, Christian Nerf, Charles Nkosi, Roderick Kevin Sauls, Nirupa Sing and Nontsikele Lolo Veleko.

Sipho Mdanda is assistant curator on the project.

Opens: April 2, at 6:30pm

Since it was first hosted in 1992, the Dak'Art Biennial of Contemporary African Art has become the foremost destination for viewers interested in cutting-edge contemporary African art. Held every two years in the Senegalese capital of Dakar, this year's event will showcase 33 artists and five designers from 16 countries, exhibiting 94 works.

The only pan-African art event of its sort, Dak'Art offers a critical platform for artists and thinkers from across Africa to meet and engage one another. As Sue Williamson, another participant on this year's event has said: "Dak'Art aspires to be part of the international circuit of biennales� while at the same time attempting to hold onto its African identity, and maintain for its artists the right to make work on their own terms."

Sue Williamson is one of the five South Africans artists selected, and will be presenting her 'Better Lives' series. The other four include two recent local competition winners. Thando Mama last year won the MTN New Contemporaries for his video installations, while Doreen Southwood clinched top honours at the Brett Kebble Art Awards for her beautifully distraught sculptural evocation of a woman on the edge, titled The Swimmer. The other two artists are Mgcineni 'Pro' Sobopha and Gregg Smith.

Aside from the various art exhibitions scheduled, this year's biennial also features a design show, film festival and digital arts forum.

Opens: May 7
Closes: June 7

'Video Hits: Art and Music Video Exhibition' brings together works by music video directors and visual artists - several of whom have never before exhibited in Australia. It focuses on the dialogue between art and music video and offers an original and challenging framework for the MTV generation to engage with a form of popular culture that has defined a new aesthetic.

The first stage of the exhibition features large-scale projections of clips by leading international directors. The second stage, scheduled to coincide with 'Prime 04: Art+Music+Video', presents video works that were made for or influenced by music television.

Anyone familiar with Candice Breitz's recent output will know that this is intimately her territory. An artist who utilises video with fluent ease, and sometimes to achingly beautiful effect, her most recent videos presented Breitz painstakingly miming popular songs. Karaoke it isn't.

Breitz will show her works alongside Sadie Benning (Chicago), Tony Cokes (Rhode Island), Dick Donkeys Dawn (London), Art Jones (New York), Liisa Lounilla (Helsinki), Pipilotti Rist (Zurich/Los Angeles) and Annika Str�m (Stockholm/Berlin).

Opens: March 27
Closes: June 14