Archive: Issue No. 108, August 2006

4.08.06 'New Work 2006' at David Krut Arts Resource
4.08.06 Aryan Kaganof, Catherine Henegan and James Webb at The Market Theatre
4.08.06 'Rembrandt (1606 - 1669), 400 Years' at the Johannesburg Art Gallery
4.08.06 'Role/Robes' at fried Contemporary Art Gallery and Studio
4.08.06 Siobahn McCusker at Everard Read
4.08.06 Diane Victor at Goodman Gallery
4.08.06 'New Painting: a Group Exhibition of Recent South African Art' at the Johannesburg Art Gallery
4.08.06 Ismail Farouk at the Parking Gallery
4.08.06 Angela Banks and Maxi Pennelli at gordart Gallery
4.08.06 Gina Waldman at Obert Contemporary
4.08.06 'Photography - Manuel Alvarez Bravo to Pieter Hugo' at Warren Siebrits Modern and Contemporary Art
4.08.06 Clifford Charles, Johann Louw and Sam Nhlengethwa at Art on Paper Gallery
4.08.06 'Cruise at Krut: Wilma Cruise Works on Paper' at David Krut Arts Resource

7.07.06 Jan van der Merwe at Pretoria Art Museum

 

A follow-on from 2005's '25 Years of Prints and Multiples', this show features new work from the David Krut Print Workshop. With works by artists such as David Koloane, Mary Wafer, Deborah Bell, Colbert Mashile, Alastair Whitton, Bronwen Findlay, Nelson Makamo, José Ferreira, Johan Engels, Nathaniel Stern, Trasi Henen, and Sean Slemon, it promises to be a solid yet varied show.

Opens: July 8
Closes: July 29

Enjoying considerable visibility at the moment with the recent release of his film SMS Sugarman, Kaganof continues to collapse the boundaries of being a visual artist with a multi-media production at the Laager Theatre at the Market Theatre complex this month. For the production of 'The Shooting Gallery', he is joined by Catherine Henegan, an Amsterdam-based multi-disciplinary artist, and internationally renowned electronic sound artist James Webb. Kaganof plays himself as a conflict photographer whose line of work precipitates moral dilemma. Exploring the relationship between photojournalist , the media and the consumer, the piece is accompanied by digital projections edited by Henegan, which track media construction of news and fiction.

The work is particularly timeous as it explores a set of ideas not dissimilar to those dealt with by Dan Krauss in his Oscar-nominated film The Death of Kevin Carter: Casualty of the Bang Bang Club, which formed part of the Encounters South African Film Festival in Johannesburg in July.

Opens: July 11
Closes: August 6

Show times:
Tue - Sat 8.15pm, Sun 3.15pm

A fascinating show of Rembrandt's work showcasing the JAG's collection of 41 original copper plate etchings, dealing with the genres of portraiture, biblical scenes and landscapes, runs from July to September. The incredible delicacy and variety of mark remind (if any such reminder were necessary) of Rembrandt's authority in this area. The works 'serve as a window onto the Dutch Golden Age (and) provide glimpses of aesthetics and situations at that time.'

The show has particular resonance with numerous contemporary artists represented in the JAG collection, like William Kentridge and Diane Victor, for whom etching has been a cornerstone discipline. This exhibition reveals Rembrandt to be a consummate storyteller, with his dense and visually complex style employed to render images of powerful emotional impact.

Opens: July 15
Closes: September 17

A group show featuring works by such local luminaries as Kudzi Chiurai, Leora Farber, Penny Siopis, Nathaniel Stern and Diane Victor (amongst others), this exhibition deals with the 'roles that South Africans have played and continue to play, and the robes - whether real, imagined or virtual - that have been and are worn at different times and places.'

Opens: July 15
Closes: August 5

The winner of the Everard Read Art Award for 2006 which was announced earlier this year, is Siobahn McCusker. Her highly anticipated show 'Armed as Appropriate' features recent work by this important emerging artist. Another interesting young voice, Richard Penn, is the recipient of this year's Merit Award. Be sure to catch this one.

Opens: July 20
Closes: July 31

Diane Victor returns to the Goodman Gallery this month with a stellar show. Comprising work generated over the last three years, the exhibition gives a broad view of her increasingly multifarious production. Of particular interest is a series of Smoke Portraits, an extension of a series she first showed at Michael Stevenson in Cape Town. The series reveals Victor's willingness to experiment, and in so doing move in to unchartered waters.

Victor's hallmark engagement with the perversions and perversities of power that wrack South Africa is ever present. Works on show include large-scale etchings with blind embossing, smoke works, and some charcoal works that incorporate water stains.

Opens: July 22
Closes: August 12

The international trend towards reinvestigating the medium and processes of painting manifests on our shores in this show, 'New Painting', showing at the JAG from July to September. Curated by Storm Janse van Rensburg, the show seeks to present a survey view of current practitioners' work in the medium, and to reveal the multitude of languages present. As Janse van Rensburg states, 'For the past three years the idea to compile an exhibition of new South African painting has steadily grown, and resulted in this exhibition.'

Originally conceived as a way of bringing current relevant painting to Durban 'to show that the medium is still relevant', the show generated much interest elsewhere in SA. Says Janse van Rensburg, 'The interest in the exhibition from other centres has also confirmed that surveys such as these can positively contribute to the deepening of debates around the nature and substance of South African art-making.' The show features work by artists such as Ryan Arenson, Conrad Botes, Jan-Henri Booyens, Dineo Seshee Bopape, Kuzanai Chiurai, Tom Cullberg, Dorothee Kreutzfeldt, Moshekwa Langa, Mustafa Maluka, Colbert Mashile, Tracy Payne, Johannes Phokela, Deborah Poynton, Tanya Poole and Dinkies Sithole.

Opens: July 23
Closes: September 3

Photographer and urban geographer Ismail Farouk presents a show of photographic work entitled 'Sometimes a Fire', as well as a video work made in collaboration with electroacoustic composer Dimitri Voudouris, entitled 'JHB626GP'. The show reveals Farouk's interest in exploring the socio-economic inequalities in urban living, and especially how these are exacerbated by the rampant gentrification that is evident in Johannesburg. The works are an attempt to document the rhythms and complex networks that characterise downtown living before they disappear to make way for commercialised spaces fit for the 'nouveau riche'.

Opens: July 29
Closes: August 5

Featuring paintings by Angela Banks and manipulated photographs by Maxi Pennelli, 'Psykotrope' is an exhibition largely inspired by the artists' stay at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris in April and May of this year. Leaving South Africa for a short while and being exposed to French art, culture, style and design inspired work that makes use of one of the latest trends in art and design. It is evident that artists and designers today are making reference again to some of the Romantic era's thoughts, ideas and visuals in order to balance out a computer-based and technology-driven world. Images of nature, insects, animals, plants, boats, historical sculptures, landscapes, objects, fantastic places and decorative patterns are combined with or superimposed onto posed human figures to create layered collaged images. Just as each patient in a mental examination interprets a psychotrope card differently, so will each work on this show be dissected and read individually by each viewer.

Opens: July 30
Closes: August 19

Gina Waldman presents 'Shrines', a show of mixed media works. Best known for her work that explores concepts of kitsch, decorating and consumerism, Waldman here presents a body of work constructed of found images and objects that she collects and embellishes.The show opens at Obert Contemporary Braamfontein, and then moves to Obert Contemporary Melrose Arch on August 12.

Opens: August 10
Closes: August 30

What often makes Warren Siebrits interesting as a curator is his willingness to contextualise South African contemporary art within existing local and global trends and histories. This show is no exception, as Siebrits' acumen as a buyer has enabled him to assemble an important survey show of both international and South African photography. Stretching as far back as the work of celebrated Mexican photographer Manuel Alvarez Bravo, whose picture Striking Miner Murdered was taken in 1934, to the very current work of South African Pieter Hugo, whose chilling and visceral Rwanda Series from 2004 documents the mass burial sites of 1994's genocide of Tsutsis by Hutus, the show seems concerned with exploring photography's dual purpose as art and reportage.

The cityscapes of Jurgen Schadeberg and David Goldblatt, from the late 50s and early 60s respectively, hang alongside those of Leon Krige and Bob Cnoops from the mid-80s and early 90s. Paul Alberts' bleak homeland landscapes are pitted against Jo Ractliffe's studies of the Port Nolloth area from half a decade later. Elsewhere, George Hallett's portraits of James Matthews and Gerard Sekoto, and Patrick de Mervelec's moody shot of Alfred Thoba all resonate well with Harold Chapman's pictures of beat-era William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, and Christopher Makos' frank image of Andy Warhol looking allergic to life in a rowing boat.

On a formal level, the viewer may become involved in making their own connections between international works here and local artists not represented: for example, it is arresting to spot the formal similarities between André Kertész's Distortion 33 from 1964 and some video works by Minette Vári. This in itself makes the show a worthwhile exercise.

Opens: August 1
Closes: September 29

Art on Paper this month shows work by Clifford Charles, Johann Louw and Sam Nhlengethwa who all explore different themes. Of particular interest is Nhlengethwa's 'Black Goats', a print installation which seems to depart from his hallmark collage-based approach. Charles presents drawings and drypoints, while Louw shows drawings, etchings and lithographs.

Opens: August 5
Closes: August 24

'Cruise at Krut: Wilma Cruise Works on Paper' heralds the artist's first foray into printmaking. Wilma Cruise is best known for her potent life-sized figures in bronze and ceramic, their commanding presence a testament to her power as image-maker. While Cruise's preparatory work has always included writing, sketching, and reworking thoughts on paper, she never considered these works on paper art-making, but a means to an end. Here these 'preparatory' sketches and drawings have become, through incorporation into printmaking, the works themselves. The monotypes and prontoprints that constitute this show, flow from writings, visual diaries, photographs, photocopies, and ephemera that Cruise has accumulated over the months spent working at David Krut Print Workshop. They reflect themes expressed in many of her sculptural works but translated and altered by the print media with which she and printer and Workshop Manager Jill Ross have been experimenting.

The show continues Cruise's exploration of the body and, as she calls it, 'the idea of subliminal communication - the in-between space - the tension that emanates from bodies and between bodies.'The finished works owe much to the collaboration between Cruise and Workshop Manager Ross. Cruise calls their work together 'a collaboration in the best of traditions - a partnership between artist and printmaker'. The show will be opened by Elfriede Dreyer.

Opens: August 5
Closes: September 23

Working as an 'archaeologist' excavating the stories and memories of and references to the past that hide in the objects others throw away, Jan van der Merwe presents a show entitled 'The Archaeology of Time' this month. Van der Merwe gives existing objects 'archaeological' status by covering them with layers of rusted steel cans. These objects become remnants of a way of life, a civilisation fallen into decay and fossilised by the passage of time and by rust. He places objects in an archaeological time capsule, thereby commanding intensive study, as is the case with real archaeological finds.

Van der Merwe's installations focus on the human situation, on victims of violence, political events and social realities.

Opens: June 28
Closes: October 29