Archive: Issue No. 93, May 2005

09.05.05 Marina Abramovic and Paolo Canevari at JAG
09.05.05 Dutch Collection at JAG
09.05.05 Recent Acquisitions at JAG
09.05.05 Maggie Dunbar at Spaza
09.05.05 Universal Declaration of Human Rights at University of Johannesburg
09.05.05 Wehrner Lemmer at ABSA
09.05.05 Ian Waldeck at Artspace
09.05.05 Paul Cooper and Brenden Gray at Gordart
09.05.05 Kudzanai Chiurai at Obert Contemporary
09.05.05 Porn Again at Merely Mortal
09.05.05 Phillip Jacobson curates at Cyril Harris Community Centre
09.05.05 Mary Wafer and Cobi Labuschagne at the Substation
09.05.05 Jacqueline Hassink Workshop results at the Substation
09.05.05 Paul Molete at Art on Paper
09.05.05 Watercolours and Works on Paper at Warren Siebrits

26.04.05 Terry Kurgan at Goodman
26.04.05 Belinda Zangewa at Alliance Francaise
26.04.05 Through the Looking Glass at Standard Bank Gallery
26.04.05 Gold of India at Standard Bank Gallery
26.04.05 Fujifilm Prophoto Awards at Bensusan

PRETORIA

09.05.05 Marcella de Boom at Association of Arts
09.05.05 Hardus Koekemoer at Association of Arts
09.05.05 Simon Gush at Outlet
09.05.05 Bertie Loubser at National Cultural History Museum
09.05.05 South African Photographers at National Cultural History Museum
 

How does a contemporary artist communicate the experience of sheer physical trauma, especially to an audience jaded by television, movies and special effects? Yugoslavia-born Marina Abramovic uses performance as her medium.

Since the 1960s, Abramovic, who is considered a pioneer of the genre, has shocked and provoked audiences by gestures like whipping herself until she bled, carving a pentagram on her belly with a razor or lying on a block of ice until she had to be pulled off by her audience when signs of hypothermia start to show.

For her, interaction with other cultures and expressions has always been part of her work and inspiration. The South African project, sponsored in part by the Goodman Gallery, will be based on a dialogue between Abramovic's spiritual heritage and that of the Zulu people.

Italian installation artist Paolo Canevari will be showing work alongside Abramovic. His area of engagement is public structures, architecture, war, the petro-chemical industry and global politics. For the Liverpool Biennale he suspended an inactive bomb between two buildings, in an area of Liverpool that had been completely flattened by bombing during World War 2, commenting on our fragile sense of global security.

Opens: May 1
Closes: May 31

The JAG's 17th century Dutch art collection embodies much that is typical of Dutch painting from this period - intimate mood and everyday naturalism, infused with symbolic overtones. The genre also includes specialised themes and includes portraits, still lives and landscapes. Some are religious in nature, while others represent myths and parables.

Most of the paintings in this collection were made during the 'Golden Age of Dutch Art', the century of this nation's greatest prosperity and artistic wealth. It was a time when Holland gained independence from Spain, began trading with the Far East, established important trade links, and built a settlement at the Cape in 1652.

The exhibition, which boasts enormous aesthetic and well as educational value, has been curated by Sheree Lissoos and is to be found in the Basement Lace Room of the gallery.

Opens: May 4
Closes: May 31

'Collections/Connections' is an exhibition of the gallery's most recent acquisitions of contemporary art, and 'Present Continuous' is an exhibition showcasing recent acquisitions from the traditional South African collection.

The former is concerned with the links that exist between old and new works in the collection. In this way, the show highlights different ways to engage with the artwork. Curated by Khwezi Gule, the exhibition is divided into themes, dealing both with aesthetics and theory.

The latter is an exhibition which builds on the JAG's already very fine collection of late 19th and early 20th century traditional southern African material. Curated by Nessa Leibhammer, the exhibition draws on recent acquisitions to explore how the past is carried forward today, while reflecting a contemporary context of production. In this section of the JAG the focus and priority for new purchases is on items with exceptionally fine qualities.

In new traditional African acquisitions, there is extensive provenance-related material, which extends the gallery's understanding of traditional practices in contemporary South Africa.

Opens: May 4
Closes: May 31

An exhibition of montages and paintings, entitled 'Fresh Flash' by Maggie Dunbar reflects on her awareness of gender constructs and iconography.

Opens: April 24
Closes: May 15

An international print portfolio, based on the 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), will be exhibited for the first time in Gauteng at the University of Johannesburg Art Gallery.

Artists from 30 countries were invited to produce a monochrome wood/linocut print based on a selected article of the UDHR, and produce an edition of 50 original prints plus six artist's proofs. This project gave the participating artists an opportunity to express in visual terms the human rights situation in each of their respective countries.

The General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed by the UDHR on December 10, 1948.

This is an Artists for Human Rights Trust initiative and has been endorsed by a number of international leaders including Dr Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the UN, and Wole Soyinka, African Poet Laureate. South African dignitaries endorsing the project include Breyten Breytenbach, Helen Suzman, Justice Richard Goldstone and Justice Albie Sachs.

Opens: May 4
Closes: June 22

Born in 1963 and educated in Port Elizabeth, Wehrner Lemmer became a full time sculptor in 2000. His exhibition is entitled 'Karoovlaktes' and presents a comment on his respect for Africa's landscape in general and the Karoo in particular. 'The balance within my work is a reflection of the balance found in nature,' he comments.

'The omnipresent circle in my work represents the cyclical character of nature and growth', he continues. Lemmer aims to evoke the rhythms and calmness of nature. Working in copper and steel, Lemmer offers no political or social commentary in his work - 'It's merely my love and passion for nature and the material that I use.'

Opens: May 16
Closes: May 27

In a new solo exhibition at Artspace, in collaboration with Gallery @ 157, Ian Waldeck violates famous paintings by masters of modern art. Characteristically anarchic in his approach, Waldeck here challenges codes of exhibition, juxtaposition and preciousness, in a body of work which bills itself as unsettling but revealing.

Art history and art practice boast a long tradition of artists paying homage to their predecessors: Pierneef was influenced by Mondrian and Van Gogh copied Millet while Kentridge has dabbled with Baines.

Paintings by European greats are raw material for Waldeck, who plunders images at will. One of his works quotes Picasso's Les Demoiselles D'Avignon. Waldeck cuts it, crunches and folds it until the violated painting is three-dimensional. He then mounts this image, which portrays French whores with African masks, on top of an image of casual workers in suburban Johannesburg similarly plying their trade. The result is a shocking social comment: the black males are selling their physical strengths just as the white females are selling their sex.

Waldeck explains that defacing the preciousness of the paintings that have long captivated him is liberating. Like a surgeon, he reveals the anatomy of a painting, its ideological entrails, political bones and social heart. He has always felt oppressed by the masters looking over his shoulder as he is making his own art. These painters have used and abused Africa to their own ends by colonising its cultures.

Opens: May 15
Closes: June 11
Walkabout: 11am, May 21

Paul Cooper and Brenden Gray, lecturers at the Design Center in Greenside, collaborate to form an exhibition in three parts: 'Territory' by Cooper, 'Stateless' by Gray and '...in the same boat' by both of them. The works collectively explore general understandings of space - as multivalent, cognitive, personal, imaginary, ideological, psychological, physical or political.

In 'Territory', Cooper obsesses over surface as demarcated, imagined, geographical landscapes. His body of work suggests a determination but also a delimitation of space and spatial relationships. Works included in this part of the exhibition comment on a measuring up or marking of space.

Cooper's process begins with a mapped place. In most cases this place is imaginary. Markers in the form of circular dots are placed randomly and are offset by an ever-present grid. The inclusion of gold numerals in some works recalls urban landscape. On another level the works set up a tension between things measured and precise and things random and fluid.

Gray explores states of desire and 'unbelonging' in 'Stateless', a body of work conceived from personal experience of a specific urban space. Gray's starting point was his decision to work with labour-intensive processes. His 50 journal folio drawings are ritual meditations on the commonplace.

'...in the same boat' comprises a series of 17 images, which, beginning with imaginary watercolour landscapes, proffer a rereading of Joseph Conrad's colonialist novel Lord Jim (1909), as a departure point for drawings.

Opens: May 8
Closes: May 21

Eleven variously scaled mixed media works by this young Zimbabwean artist, trained in Pretoria, comprise 'Y Propaganda'. The exhibition addresses issues related to failed leadership, xenophobia and urban culture. This show follows Chiurai's acclaimed sell-out exhibition 'The Revolution will be Televised' shown last year at this gallery (formerly known as Zuva).

Opens: May 7
Closes: May 22

Gordon Froud, director of gordart Gallery, has curated an exhibition called 'Porn Again'. It comprises works by artists examining the presence of the erotic and the pornographic in contemporary fine art in South Africa.

In 1997, Froud was responsible for curating a major exhibition of erotic art, entitled 'A big little thing', at the Thompson Gallery. This was the first exhibition of its kind in a democratic South Africa. Confronting all that was taboo and censored under the old government, it was received with delight by visitors.

This exhibition was inspired by a book of art images published by Taschen called Porn. Froud comments: 'In this book various artists responded to the word 'porn', and in a very sophisticated and non-crude way, created works of art. ... What struck me in this magnificently constructed book, was the level of sophistication and beauty in the images, very few of which relied on the obvious.'

'Porn Again' takes its premise from the understood permissiveness of a democratic South African audience and arts industry, toward erotica and pornography as a means of sexual expression, but also on the type of beauty Froud discovered in the Taschen book.

Opens: April 20
Closes: June 4

In collaboration with Terrence Sack, Phillip Jacobson has curated an exhibition of international and local art as well as glassware and ornaments. International work being showcased includes pieces by Picasso, Chagall, Moore, Miró, Marini, Dine, Hockney, Brassilier, Dali, Chadwick and Kahn. Local artists include Pierneef, Preller, Laubser, Sekoto, Pemba, Caldecott, Ngatane and Villa. Art Deco objects and glassware from Lalique, Murano and Gambia will also be shown. Opens: May 17
Closes: May 25

An exhibition of paintings by Wits School of the Arts students Mary Wafer and Cobi Labuscagne will be held at the Substation.

Opens: May 8
Closes: May 21

The result of workshops conducted with Wits School of the Arts students by international photographer Jacqueline Hassink will be on show at the Substation. See Newsstory in this month's issue of ArtThrob on Hassink.

The workshop and exhibition were sponsored by the Netherlands Embassy and Wits School of Arts.

Opens: May 13
Closes: May 15

In 'First offering after the fire', Artist Proof Studio printmaker Paul Molete who was the Brett Kebble Art Award recipient for Printmaking in 2003, presents a body of Marley tile prints.

The artist comments: 'I address issues that affect and disturb me and images that I cannot change. The act of artmaking ... releases emotions in me and connects me to my sense of freedom.

'It is the environment that influences my thinking', he continues, '... My work conveys themes of confusion, sexuality, pain, awareness and acceptance. I believe there is freedom in acceptance.'

Opens: May 7
Closes: May 26

Warren Siebrits Modern and Contemporary Art presents its third exhibition this year. With an emphasis on exceptional examples of work on paper, a broad and unusual cross section of artists has been included in this exhibition. The collection includes older artists like Walter Battiss, Fred Page and Gerard Sekoto, Polly Street artists, including Sydney Kumalo, Durant Sihlali, Ephraim Ngatane and Louis Maqhubela. Alongside these are contemporary artists such as Malcolm Payne, Keith Dietrich, William Kentridge, Sam Nhlengethwa and Moshekwa Langa.

Due to enthusiastic response, the gallery will be giving weekly walkabouts at 2pm on Saturday afternoons for the duration of this show.

Opens: April 19
Closes: May 12

Terry Kurgan, working in photography and installation, draws attention to how photographs mediate our experience of ourselves in the world.

Over the last number of years, alongside and intimately connected to her gallery- and museum-based exhibitions, Kurgan has worked on many site-specific, public realm projects and commissions. These projects have ranged in scale from the domestic to the monumental and have been sited in spaces as diverse as a maternity hospital, a popular Johannesburg shopping mall and a prison.

Underpinning all of this work Kurgan indulges a preoccupation with what and how photographs �mean�, and with the complex relationship of photography to personal and cultural identity and memory. Kurgan was awarded the FNB Vita Art Prize in 2000, for the installation Lost and Found, which deals with such themes.

Her new work for the current exhibition is an intimate body of photographs of Johannesburg children and teenagers focused on their awkward, self-conscious passage from childhood to adulthood.

Working with a large format camera in indoor and outdoor studio environments has required her subjects� patience, participation and collaboration. In this potentially sentimental realm of late childhood Kurgan and her subjects regard each other with empathy and the keen focus of a critical gaze.

Opens: April 21
Closes: May 14

As an adjunct to the Absa Atelier Awards, the French Embassy, French Institute and Alliance Francaise introduced the Gerard Sekoto Award for the most promising artist for the first time in 2004. The award comprises a return ticket to Paris, three months' stay at the Cité Internationale des Arts, a nation-wide touring exhibition, French language classes and a catalogue for the exhibition.

This award was won by Rhodes graduate Belinda Zangewa, with Faith, Love and Hope, a mixed media triptych of clutch bags depicting city scenes of Johannesburg. They celebrate the contradictory nature of the CBD: beautiful and at the same time, dangerous, whilst asserting the artist's femininity through the chosen media.

The upcoming exhibition entitled 'Hot in the City' explores this further. The city is a setting for stories with the action taking place in its streets and building interiors. The cityscapes introduce the story about to be told, as well as telling their own stories by appearance alone.

As with Faith, Love and Hope , she has worked on a raw silk 'canvas' forming images and words in silk collage, embroidery and beading to create these tapestries. The combined use of illustration and text communicates with the viewer on visual, conceptual and emotional levels, with things left unsaid to allow the viewer to participate in the story-telling.

Opens: April 9
Closes: July 8

'Through the Looking Glass' is a ground-breaking exhibition curated by Professor Brenda Schmahmann to celebrate the centenary of Rhodes University. It is complemented by her book of the same name.

It examines representations of self by South African women artists. Comprising a wide range of significant works that have been borrowed from public and private collections, it explores the many intriguing ways in which paintings, sculptures, prints, photographs and artwork in other media speak of women's relation to their communities and themselves.

The title of the exhibition alludes to the adventures of Alice in the celebrated writings of Lewis Carroll. Equally, it refers to the mirrors that artists have historically used to make images of themselves. As the show reveals, however, women artists in South Africa do not produce self-representations that are uncritical reflections of traditional ideas.

If Alice traverses a universe that inverts or defies convention, South African women artists, likewise, unsettle and challenge inherited norms.

The exhibition was launched at the 2004 National Arts Festival in Grahamstown and has since been travelling the country.

Opens: April 19
Closes: May 28

An exhibition entitled 'Gold of India', showcases pieces drawn from the Musée Barbier-Mueller collection of handcrafted Indian gold jewellery and represents a tradition that is thousands of years old.

From 3000 BCE, Indian jewellery has been depicted in art forms such as sculpture and painting. While there is no dearth of this pictorial and literary evidence, the material itself is not as commonplace. These rare items of ancient Indian jewellery show a consistency of form, design and reason for being, which has not changed through the ages.

Based on the myths and legends of Indian gods and goddesses, abstract and obscure philosophical concepts are conveyed in layman's terms to be easily comprehensible. While most of the Barbier-Mueller collection, which dates from the late 19th and 20th centuries, once belonged to various individuals, it is believed that some of the pieces originated in temples where images of gods and goddesses were fashioned from stone and metal and worshipped daily using prescribed rituals.

The 25-piece Barbier-Mueller collection is not only pleasing to the eye but takes the viewer on a fascinating journey through cultural structures that few will have the opportunity to visit otherwise.

Opens: April 19
Closes: May 28

Professional photographers from Southern Africa and the Bensusan Museum of Photography showcase award-winning work. The exhibition will be opened by Sean O'Toole, former ArtThrob editor, now at the helm of Art South Africa.

Opens: April 10
Closes: May 13

Marcella de Boom's exhibition comprises a series of oil paintings entitled Times of Light. These works have been inspired by the artist's self-built earth house in Cullinan, with its handmade glass windows, ceramics and raw textures. De Boom's paintings depict precious moments imbued with a light which is at times mysterious and at times joyful and radiant.

Opens: May 1
Closes: May 19

'Totem', an exhibition of paintings by Hardus Koekemoer, will be opened by Zuanda Badenhorst.

Opens: May 4
Closes: May 31

An exhibition by Simon Gush, entitled 'Thank you Johannesburg' shows at Outlet this month.

Opens: April 23
Closes: May 17

An exhibition of digitally reconfigured photographs by Bertie Loubser submitted for his M Tech Degree in Photography at Tshwane University of Technology is on show at the National Cultural History Museum.

His thesis, entitled 'Digital image-inputs reconfigured as composite photographic-art outputs' theoretically supports his body of work. The aim of Loubser's study was to investigate the applicability of a method-driven definition of photography and photographic processes.

In the works, all photographic inputs were digitised before the image was reconfigured. The inputs could be colour photographs, colour negatives, black and white negatives or slides. Once in the computer, different images were composted and manipulated in Adobe Photoshop, until a final image was reached.

Bearing allegiance to the American superrealist Chuck Close, the images are up to 2 x 3m. Each part of an image was printed on a separate sheet of A4 photo paper with up to 110 prints per image, and then 'constructed' into a final photographic-art output, held together with small key rings.

Opens: May 6
Closes: May 29

'The impact of land dispossession on the rural poor, in particular, at a spiritual and emotional level, is phenomenal and is the most dehumanising feature of South African life', Mark Weinberg quotes Dr. Mgoqi, former chairperson of the Trust for Community Outreach and Education (TCOE), in M&G Leisure. He cites a number of initiatives that have been implemented in the quest to address poverty issues, one of which is the exhibition 'Our land ... our life ... our future', aimed at building a bridge between urban and rural communities.

'A key element of the exhibition is public dialogue', Weinberg continues, 'Various seminars and workshops have been held with the stakeholders in rural and other sectors... This exhibition creates a space for rural leaders to speak out in a public domain, and for all South Africans to gain insight into the lives and struggles of the rural poor.'

Opens: April 27
Closes: June 10