Archive: Issue No. 96, August 2005

EUROPE

5.08.05 Guy Tillim at the Photographer's Gallery in London
5.08.05 Orientations and Illusions at prog:Me in Rio
5.08.05 Jan-Henri Booyens at J'en Reve in Paris

1.07.05 'Intersections' in D�sseldorf
1.07.05 'Looking Both Ways' in Edinburgh
1.07.05 Royal Academy Summer Show
1.07.05 'ART out of place' in Norwich
1.07.05 [prologue] new feminism / new europe in Manchester

3.06.05 51st Venice Biennale
3.06.05 Prague Biennale
3.06.05 'meanwhile in Africa...' in Germany

9.05.05 'Africa Remix' at the Pompidou in Paris
9.05.05 Hentie van der Merwe at MartA in Germany

USA

5.08.05 Kendell Geers at inSite_05 on the Mexican Border
 

Guy Tillim at the Photographer's Gallery in London

Guy Tillim exhibits diptychs and triptychs of colour photographs of the Congo region in his series 'Leopold and Mobutu' at the Photographer's Gallery in London. The photographs explore the traces of the colonial occupation of the Congo by King Leopold II of Belgium alongside remnants of the Congo's more recent pillaging under Mobutu Sese Seko. (see Reviews)

Opens: August 12
Closes: September 25

Orientations and Illusions at 'prog:Me' in Rio

'Orientations and Illusions' is a large group show curated by Miguel Petchkovsky for 'prog:Me', the first electronic arts festival in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The artists selected occupy a diverse range of cultural spaces and explore how individual experience, identity and social and personal memory find expression in contemporary art practice.

South African artists Tracey Rose, Zen Marie, Gregg Smith, Moshekwa Langa, Thando Mama, Dineo Bopape , Dean Henning and Rick Sitas as well as Peter van Heerden are included in the exhibition.

Opens: July 8
Closes: September 18

Jan-Henri Booyens at J'en Reve in Paris

Jan-Henri Booyens exhibits his video piece, B.W.A.M, in 'J'en Reve' at the Cartier Foundation in Paris. 'J'en Reve' is an exhibition of 58 young artists from around the world, mostly in their early 20s. The participants are recommended by internationally renowned artists and the show functions as a celebration of youth and all its joys and insecurities. Booyen's trained at the Durban Institute of technology and is now resident in Cape Town.

Opens: June 24
Closes: October 30

David Goldblatt: 'Intersections' in Düsseldorf

Distinguished photographer David Goldblatt has a major solo show of his Intersections photographs at the prestigious Kunst Palast in Düsseldorf Germany to coincide with the Prestel publication of his book by the same name. The collection of photographs, which was on show at the Michael Stevenson gallery in Cape Town earlier this year, comprises of four bodies of work; stark landscapes of the Northern Cape, personal and public memorials within these landscapes, small South African towns in the time of AIDS, and portraits of municipal officials.

Opens: June 11
Closes: August 21

Looking Both Ways in Edinburgh

The highly acclaimed exhibition, 'Looking Both Ways: Art of the Contemporary African Diaspora' originally opened in 2003 at the Museum for African Art in New York, and now moves to Edinburgh to coincide with the Edinburgh Festival and G8 Summit.

The exhibition, curated by Laurie Ann Farell, 'explores the increasing globalization of the African diaspora through the presentation of Africa-born artists who now live and work in the West', with the title of the exhibition referring to the artists' practice of looking at the ever shifting terrains of Africa and the West and the complex geographies in between.

Kendell Geers constructs a museum of African/other art within the museum, using steel factory shelving and panels of poured concrete set with shards of broken green glass for his enclosure. His 'exhibits,' ranging from flea market African artefacts to a Shiva figure to a statuette of Lara Croft are all wrapped in Geers' signature chevron tape.

Moshekwa Langa presents a series of energetic mixed media work. His Garden of Earthly Delights, a visual version of one of Langa's 'list' works, packs the picture frame with faces, one of them possibly a self portrait, a jet, a village hut, a stray with bared teeth, spiders and webs and a pasted cat.

The full list of participating artists is: Fernando Alvim, Ghada Amer, Oladélé A. Bamgboyé, Allan deSouza, Kendell Geers, Moshekwa Langa, Hassan Musa, N'Dilo Mutima, Wangechi Mutu, Ingrid Mwangi, Zineb Sedira and Yinka Shonibare.

Opens: June 18
Closes: September 11

Mandy Lee Jandrell at Royal Academy

South African born photographer, Mandy Lee Jandrell, is exhibiting her digital Lambda print, Swan, Hampstead Heath, London at the 237th annual Royal Academy Summer Show, focussed this year on printmaking and the multiple. Her often humorous expositions of constructed cultural spaces and tourist icons have been increasingly well received, both in South Africa and the UK. With her print sharing an exhibition space with the likes of Tracey Emin, Sam Taylor Wood, Gavin Turke and Julian Opie at the Royal Academy show, Jandrell seems to be heading swiftly towards an happy integration into that ever elusive London art scene.

Opens: June 7
Closes: August 15

Frances Goodman on 'ART out of place'

Norwich Castle in Norfolk, England, is the venue for 'ART out of place' a show of contemporary art by a number of leading artists to encourage a confrontation between the old and the new, the museum and the contemporary.

The work is located in all areas of the museum from the natural history and archaeology sections to the corridors, toilets and reception where the work is intended to draw attention to the museum as a social space.

Artists on the exhibition are: Dorothy Cross, Neil Cummings and Marysia Lewandowska, Frances Goodman, Lucy Gunning, Des Hughes, Marina Kappos, Richard Long, Rory Macbeth and Darren Phizacklea, Cornelia Parker, Marc Quinn, Gavin Turk, Elizabeth Wright.

July 2 - September 25, 2005

[prologue] new feminism / new europe

The result of a Europe-wide project that sets out to examine the social, economic and cultural position of women in the new Europe, [prologue] new feminism / new europe is a radical and witty exhibition and weekend of live performances by female artists addressing prejudice against the word 'feminist' through art. [prologue] will consider a young generation of artists unafraid to be known as feminists. Collectively organised by seven curators from venues across Europe, the gallery-based exhibition at Cornerhouse and weekend of live-art at Green Room will feature 27 artists from 17 countries. The project will see Manchester welcome participating artists, academics and delegates to discuss theory, activism, and the visual and political forces affecting women in the new Europe.

Artists featuring in the gallery show include Chicks on Speed, Frances Goodman, Senam Okudzeto, Anna Jermolaewa.

[prologue] Live, a weekend of live-art, interventions and performances at Green Room, extends the traditional frame of the gallery exhibition and allows for the experience of live art - an essential medium in which feminist artists have worked for generations. It will begin on Friday 29 July and conclude on Sunday 31 July with a brunch and one-day symposium featuring Katy Deepwell, editor of n.paradoxa; and theoretrician and Alena Williams, an Art Historian from Colombia University, New York and an internet consultant to Rhizome; with artists from the exhibition and curators in conversation about the value of feminist criticism.

Exhibition: July 30 - September 18, Cornerhouse, Manchester

Live Art Weekend: 29 - 31 July 29 - 31, Green Room, Manchester

51st Venice Biennale opens

Under the direction of the first women to be appointed to the position, Maria de Corral, and Rosa Martinez, the most venerable of the world's biennales, the 51st Venice Biennale, opens in the Giardini di Castello and its surroundings on June 12. Continually lambasted by critics from all sides for not presenting a cohesive vision of the new, the event holds its position as the grand old lady of the art calendar. For a full rundown on the event and the South African participation, go to Andrew Lamprecht's preview on News.

Opens: June 12
Closes: November 6

Prague Biennale: A Second Sight

Opening immediately after the Venice Biennale (and one might have thought it would have been politic to wait a day or two longer so the international art crowd could finish partying in Venice before moving on), the International Biennale of Contemporary Art - A Second Sight will showcase the work of 400 artists from 20 countries. The biennale will 'focus on the traditional phenomena of post modern culture', presenting extensive new media projects while not abandoning the 'traditional' media of painting and sculpture.

German gallerist Dr Ralf Seippel has curated the African section of the biennale, entitled 'African Facets', pointing out in a curatorial statement that Africa 'cannot be pressed in to an artistic idiom just as little as the rest of the world. The positions that are presented in 'African Facets' consistently deal with African history, identity and urbanity'.

Participating artists are: Mbongeni Buthelezi, Zwelethu Mthethwa and Beezy Bailey, Minnette Vàri and Andrew Tshabangu from South Africa, Ingrid Mwangi from Kenya and Susan Hefuna from Egypt. A catalogue, in Czech and English will be available.

Opens: June 13
Closes: September 11

'Meanwhile in Africa...': presentations in Germany

'Gleichzeitig in Afrika...' is a series of lectures and artistic presentations to take place in a number of venues in Germany this month. Curated by Christian Hanussek under the auspices of Africome, a governmental information organisation, the series was conceived, says Hanussek because art in Africa 'remains rather an exotic topic in the German art world'. Lectures will be accompanied by presentations of a number of initiatives from across Africa, one of which will be the CDRom ArtThrob: The Archive 1998-2003

The programme remaining is:

'Taxis Zinkpe', installation by Dominique Zinkpe

Opens: 11am, June 3
Closes: September 4

Iwalewa House, Bayreuth
Munzgasse 9

'Africa Remix' at the Pompidou Centre, Paris

The mega show of contemporary art from the continent of African and the diaspora, 'Africa Remix', opens at the Pompidou Centre in Paris on May 15, on the third leg of a world tour which opened at the Kunstpaleis in Düsseldorf and continued to London's Hayward Gallery.

Under the artistic direction of Simon Njami and a team of international curators and featuring the production of 88 artists showing work made over the past 10 years, the show also includes furniture design, music, literature and fashion. South African-born artists make up 14 of the total - Jane Alexander, Andries Botha, Wim Botha, Willie Bester, Tracey Derrick, Marlene Dumas, David Goldblatt, Jackson Hlungwani, William Kentridge, Moshekwa Langa, Santu Mofokeng, Zwelethu Mthethwa, Rodney Place, Tracey Rose and Guy Tillim.

Marlene Dumas' work is a sober grid of ink and wash portraits of blindfolded or hooded figures, Jane Alexander shows her 'African Adventure' mixed media installation, Tracey Derrick presents a commissioned series of photographs of Western Cape farm workers, and Tracey Rose is represented by her seminal video, TKO, in which a camera concealed in a punching bag records her attack thereon. Jackson Hlungwani exhibits his outsize wooden figures with a biblical theme.

The exhibition is divided into three categories, with somewhat unoriginal titles - History and Identity, City and Land, and Body and Soul. This may not have been the curator's fault, however. Njami's original title for the entire exhibition was not the one the show now carries. His choice was the much more interesting 'Chaos and metamorphosis', but institutional pressure insisted on the inclusion of 'Africa' in the title.

In London, some critics took the attitude that while what was on offer was undoubtedly art from Africa, it could not be called 'contemporary' in terms of the British art world's understanding of the term. It will be interesting to see what the French critics have to say. Inevitably, comparisons will be drawn with 'Magiciens de la Terre' the 1989 show curated by Jean Hubert Martin at the Pompidou. Endlessly referred to in art journals as the exhibition which for the first time showed artists like Esther Mahlangu alongside western artists, as Njami has pointed out, the difference between Magiciens and Africa Remix is fundamental: not one of the African artists on the former had any art school training. All were self taught.

Plans are underfoot to bring Africa Remix to the Johannesburg Art Gallery after its next date, at the Mori Art Museum of Tokyo.

Opens: May 15
Closes: August 20

Hentie van der Merwe at MartA

South African-born Hentie van der Merwe will be part of a group show entitled '(my private) HEROES' to open in a new Frank Gehry-designed museum called MartA in Herford, Germany. The show is under the direction of one of Europe's top curators, Jan Hoet.

A curatorial statement reads: 'The depiction of heroic individuals is one of art's great themes. This exhibition tells of heroes and the images of them in art stretching from the 19th century until the present day. In the 20th century, artists continuously rediscovered heroic modes of expression sometimes self-mockingly, such as Martin Kippenberger and Andy Warhol, and sometimes with a tragic, existential flavour, such as Jean Fautrier and Joseph Beuys.

'(my private) HEROES' deliberately avoids attempting to present unambiguous definitions of the heroic. Instead, it presents a much wider approach to themes such as idol and star, perpetrator and victim, and wounds and martyrdom. The exhibition calls into question the very nature of the hero. It investigates the ways in which artists nowadays portray themselves and work. The artist-heroes and media stars on show in this exhibition make up a subjective selection.'

Opens: May 7
Closes: August 14

Kendell Geers at 'inSite_05' on the Mexican Border

Kendell Geers, the man South African artists love to hate, is taking part in the museum-based component of 'inSite_05' on the Mexico/San Diego border. The exhibition, 'Farsites: Urban Crisis and Domestic Symptoms in Recent Contemporary Art', is organised by the San Diego Museum of Art and the Centro Cultural Tijuana and infiltrates a number of galleries spanning the two areas. For more than 10 years, inSite has focused on stimulating artistic practices that explore what we understand by the terms 'public', 'urban', and 'border' and 'Farsites' is the culmination of two years of lectures, public projects and artists' residencies.

Opens: August 27
Closes: November 13