Archive: Issue No. 103, March 2006

7.03.06 Cascoland in New Crossroads
2.03.06 Night Vision in the CBD
2.03.06 Zanele Muholi and Rotimi Fani-Kayodé at Michael Stevenson
2.03.06 Roger Palmer at the Michaelis Gallery
2.03.06 Noria Mabasa at Bell-Roberts
2.03.06 Kerim Seiler at Blank Projects
2.03.06 Wendy Anzinska at 34Long
2.03.06 'Cloud City' at what if the world...
2.03.06 Bernd Ada Mer at 3RD I GALLERY
2.03.06 'KRISP' at Artb
2.03.06 Tammy Griffin at João Ferreira
2.03.06 Jan Du Toit, Jaco Sieberhagen and Humzah Goolam at the AVA
2.03.06 Out of Order at The Bin
2.03.06 Jacques Dhont at Erdmann Contemporary

3.02.06 Pieter Hugo at Michael Stevenson
3.02.06 Roelof Louw at Bell-Roberts
3.02.06 Kevin Mackintosh at 34Long
3.02.06 Lauren Palte at Rust en Vrede Gallery
3.02.06 Sharon Peers at 3RD I Gallery
3.02.06 Jill Trappler at the AVA
3.02.06 Out of Context at Erdmann Contemporary

13.01.06 Woven into Life: Basketry in South Africa at the Castle of Good Hope

9.12.05 Contemporary beadwork at the Old Town House

2.09.05 'ReVisions: A Private Narrative of SA Art' at SANG

STELLENBOSCH

3.1.06 Crosstalk at US Gallery
 

Cascoland is a collaboration between European and South African artists/architects/designers and residents of New Crossroads, Cape Town. During a four week laboratory, from February 1 until March 2, a series of interventions is being explored in the public spaces of New Crossroads, through an application of various techniques, local materials, initiatives, skills and talents, informed by an engagement with the community of New Crossroads. Actions and structures are starting to arise around the Mayenzeke Centre and between Lansdowne Rd and Koornhof St, mobilising people to participate in the shaping of their public space. The project was initiated by Cascoland and is partnered by Public Eye and the Mandlovu initiative in Cape Town.

Cascoland is open to the general public for 10 days, during which a number of activities will take place. Next to the constructed objects, there will be a restaurant, a film festival, a radio studio, music and dance and visitors will even be able to book a night in their b&b-objects.

Projects in process include 'RadioTower' by Rob Sweere, a videohall project by Fiona de Bell (with a programme by Michiel van Oosterhout), 'Silent Sky Project' by Rob Sweere, 'Moving Hands' animation, a bed and breakfast by Bert Kramer, recycle design by Verna Jooste, a coffeeshop/meeting place by Rauw designers. In addition a linefootball field and tournament has been initiated by Yarre Stooker, recycled architecture (mostly from tyres) by Jan Korbes and Denis Oudendijk, graphic design by DesignArbeid. There is a graphic design and photography project by students from the University of Stellenbosch and new projects by Ruben Abels, Carol anne Gainer and Jacky Murray. For a programme of events see www.cascoland.com

Opens: March 3
Closes: March 12

The Cape Town festival's inner-city urban art party extends an open invitation to capture the 'freedom of the night' and join in the festivities in Cape Town's Long Street. Follow the Art Night Route through surrounding art galleries and other venues for a taste of cutting-edge visual art. Interactive live theatre, dance, fashion and music transform the city centre into a multi-sensory, if messy, playground. For more on the Cape Town Festival see News

March 10

Trained as a photographer at the Market Photo Workshop, prominent activist in black lesbian empowerment organisations and winner of the 2005 Tollman Award, Zanele Muholi came to national attention in September 2004 with her exhibition 'Visual Sexuality: Only half the picture' at JAG. Whether confronting hate crimes against black lesbians or documenting the accoutrements of sex and sexual identity (strap-on dildos, breast-wrapping), Muholi was able to represent the black female body in a frank yet intimate way that challenged the history of the portrayal of black women's bodies in documentary photography. The exhibition will coincide with the publication of a book on her work.

Rotimi Fani-Kayodé was born in Nigeria in 1955 to a family of Yoruba ancestry who left Africa as refugees in 1966 and settled in Britain. He studied in the United States, moved back to London in 1983 and died there of HIV/Aids complications in 1989 at the age of 34.

He wrote: 'On three accounts I am an outsider: in matters of sexuality; in terms of geographical and cultural dislocation; and in the sense of not having become the sort of respectably married professional my parents might have hoped for.' Through the medium of photography, and in collaboration with his partner Alex Hirst, Fani-Kayodé produced a body of work in the 1980s that was not only aesthetically seductive but also seminal in terms of his portrayal of black homosexuality. His images are visually and conceptually provocative in their exploration of eroticism, homophobia, traditions and conventions, and ultimately mortality.

This exhibition is a rare showing of an extensive series of his historic black-and-white images, and the first time a substantial body of his work will be shown in South Africa. The exhibition is presented in conjunction with Autograph, London.

Muholi will conduct a walkabout of her exhibition at 11am, Thursday March 30. It costss R30, proceeds go to the Friends of the South African National Gallery.

Opens: March 29
Closes: April 29

'Plume' is British artist Roger Palmer's third solo exhibition in Cape Town, and has been specially configured for the Michaelis Gallery. It comprises a group of black and white photographs and a set of four drawings. Historical, yet ephemeral, 'Plume' presents photographs of insignificant roadside events with re-covered portraits from a different era in South Africa's history.

One can expect another of Palmer's wry and intelligent meditations on aspects of colonialism in this country.

Opens: February 27
Closes: March 20

Noria Mabasa is the recipient of the prestigious 'Silver Level of the Order of the Baobab' which was awarded her by President Thabo Mbeki in 2002. Together with Claudette Schreuders, she was commissioned to create a sculpture for the recently opened Nobel Square at the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town. This will be Mabasa's first solo exhibition in Cape Town, although she has exhibited both locally and abroad and her work is to be found in all of the country's major collections.

Opens: March 22
Closes: April 22

As a follow-up to his notorious 'Clone International' series presented in Guguletu, Cape Town, New York and Hamburg in 2005, blank projects is pleased to present Swiss artist Kerim Seiler's latest exhibition 'Creature Comfort'.

Inspired by some remarkable South African fauna, Seiler proposes a group of ridiculous offspring reminiscent of the inbreeding inherent in South African game-culture. The show's title does not reflect on South Africa specifically but rather on the recent global phenomenon of denaturalisation. Seiler's exhibit scrabbles through questions of platonic idealism versus the contemporary traveller's creature comforts and enhanced iconography.

Opens: March 1
Closes: March 22

Wendy Anziska exhibits recent paintings in a show entitled 'Our Realities' at 34Long. Anziska has been painting for many years and is represented in most South African public collections and in numerous private and corporate collections abroad and locally.

Art, fashion, the media, family life, memories and dreams inhabit this artist's imagination and animate her art. She has an insatiable appetite for diversity and fantasy and her work is often humorous, bordering perhaps on flippant, but it never loses its reflective subtext. Her imagery is gleaned from diverse ideological, visual, and personal sources and she often composes her works in panels in order to invest them with layers of visual and narrative complexity. By working intensely with deeply personal and intimate experience, she paradoxically achieves a rich universality of expression that invites and compels.

Opens: March 7
Closes: April 1

Cloud city is a performance coordinated by Francesco Nassimbeni which brings together a selection of texts, objects and sounds to play out a variability of fictions using movement, spoken text and poetry. Three writers were commissioned to contribute work for this theatrical experiment. Design is by knolc, with Derek Eyden performing his original score on site. It features actors Gina Pauling and Johan Vermaak. Nassimbeni is one of the artists who make up the Drawing Room collective which held several very successful exhibitions in Cape Town last year.

Cloud City opens at 10pm, Friday March 3. Tickets cost R30.

Show times: 10pm, Fri March 3; 9pm, Sat March 4; 4pm and 8pm, Sun March 5; 8pm, Mon March 6; 8pm, Tue March 7; 8pm, Wed March 8

In 'What is Reality', Austrian artist and photographer Bernd Ada Mer exhibits medium format and digital photographic images that explore ideas of reality and photographic truth. The filmic, grainy, urban pace of the images is amplified by their presentation, with each image made up of a series of compositions, a 'multiple photoimage reality'.

Opens: March 15
Closes: April 22

The Arts Association of Bellville, will be hosting a group exhibition of new talent entitled 'KRISP' in the Artb Gallery. The main aim of this exhibition is to create a platform for emerging artists who have not necessarily had formal training, but whose work is fresh and of an high standard. The participating artists are Hannah Morris, Ilena Jacobs, Alisa Farr, Natasha Norman, Cale Brewin and Michael Taylor.

Opens: February 22
Closes: March 8

Tammy Griffin exhibits a series of multi-media paintings at João Ferreira this month. For this exhibition she adds moving light to her palette to animate the works - oils, mixed media and electronics on canvas. The artist has used 500 LED's, 1500 meters of wire and 20 microprocessors to drive the lights. The result, apparently, is full of texture, movement, music and rhythm.

Opens: March 8
Closes: March 31

At the AVA this month Jan Du Toit's new oil landscape paintings of the Boland in are exhibited in the main gallery. In the long gallery are steel sculptures by Jaco Sieberhagen of Worcester and upstairs are new abstract works by Humzah Goolam, a newcomer to the art scene in Cape Town.

Opens: March 6
Closes: March 25

'Write or print these simple words onto a small pieceof paper, and you are armed with a very effective psychological tool that can temporarily shut down almost every mode or form of machinery, while at the same time communicating a very important message... Keep an "Out of Order" sign and a small amount of tape or tack with you at all times - you never know when an opportunity will arise for you to quickly and quietly employ this simple tool to make your feelings known - and bring one small corner of the world to a grinding halt.'

This graphic exhibition includes work by Peet Pienaar, Heidi Pieterson, Tyler Murphy, Maciek Strychalski, Senyol, Warren Lewis, Heath Nash and Matt Edwards.

Opens: February 19
Closes: March 18

Jacques Dhont will be exhibiting a series of recent sculptures in mixed media in an exhibition entitled 'Blindness' at Erdmann Contempory. Dhont has become well known for his figurative works made from woven vines and wattle. He currently has a piece on 'Out of Context' at the Erdmann.

Opens: March 8
Closes: April 2

In his second solo show at Michael Stevenson, photographer Pieter Hugo explores machismo, presenting three new series of often theatrical images in which the pageantry of masculinity comes to the fore. These include his startling photographs of men posing with captive hyenas and baboons in Nigeria as well as portraits of taxi washers in Durban and (male and female) judges in Botswana.

Hugo will conduct a walkabout of his show at 11am, Thursday February 23. Cost is R30, proceeds to Friends of the South African National Gallery.

Opens: February 22
Closes: March 25

In 'Demon's Party', his 3rd solo exhibition at the Bell-Roberts Contemporary Art Gallery, Louw exhibits limited edition mixed media prints. These burlesque iconic images were inspired by his body of flourescent light works Who the Villian, which can be seen at the Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees in Oudtshoorn in early April.

Opens: February 15
Closes: March 18

'Dancers on Glass Horses', is a flamboyant, theatrical photographic exhibition by one-time South African Kevin MacKintosh. Commissioned to compile a series of images of the Bolshoi ballet theatre in Moscow just before its recent closure for renovation, MacKintosh, set designer Daryl Mcgregor and a group of stylists, lighting technicians and assistants spent two frantic months in a studio in a disused section of the crumbling building. The photographs aim to capture the grandeur, fantasy and romantic decay of the dancers and the buildings of the Bolshoi.

Opens: February 14
Closes: March 4

Lauren Palte's 'When I Grow Up' is an exhibition of wry oil paintings that expose the fractures and inconsistencies of power, pose and identity embodied in even the most sacred and saccharine of family photographs.

Opens: February 21
Closes: March 16

'Tao Africa: Seeing Beyond Seeing' is an exhibition of photographs by gallery co-owner Sharon Peers in which the artist can apparently be seen to be 'playing with the ancients of Egypt and the San' and 'celebrating Nature's present spiraling plan...'.

Opens: February 4
Closes: March 11

Jill Trappler exhibits new non-figurative work in all three gallery spaces at the AVA. The work includes both her familiar acrylic on canvas and more innovative multimedia configurations. This is her first solo show here since 2003.

Opens: February 14
Closes: March 4

'Out of Context' comprises photography, painting, sculpture, works on paper and installation from artists including Conrad Botes, Nicola Grobler, Manfred Zylla, Sean Wilson, Johann Louw, Jennifer Lovemore-Reed, Anton Kannemeyer, Lien Botha, Jo O'Connor, Jacques Dhont, Bruce Arnott, Dario Matter, Pieter Badenhorst and Marike Herselman. All the work on the show has been taken from existing bodies of work and placed in a context where it can establish dialogue with other work to which the same thing has been done. The opening features a once-off performance by Jennifer Lovemore-Reed.

Opens: 6pm, February 7
Closes: March 4

This exhibition in the Grain Cellar at the Castle of Good Hope intends to reveal the artistry of southern African baskets, paying tribute to the deep environmental knowledge and ways of life of South African basket-makers, past and present. The baskets on display cover a wide range of techniques, uses and regions of origin, collectively reflecting the knowledge and skill of their creators, as well as the beauty to be found in these practical constructions.

Opens: December 20
Closes: July 1

'Synergy', featuring contemporary bead art, opens at Iziko Michaelis Collection (The Old Town House) from December to March next year.
The brainchild of Dr. Elbé Coetsee of Mogalakwena Craft Art Development Foundation and Jeanetta Blignaut of Cape Town-based Qalo, the exhibition celebrates the work of 11 renowned South African artists, who have created designs that have been interpreted and realised by bead workers. The participating artists who have been commissioned include Willem Boshoff, Mbongeni Buthelezi, Paul Edmunds, Faiza Galdhari, Rookeya Gardee, Claire Gavronsky, Liza Grobler, Nicholas Hlobo, Karel Nel, Lindelani Ngwenya, Rose Shakinovsky and Doreen Southwood.

Opens: December 1
Closes: March 31

This exhibition at the South African National Gallery claims to be drawn from one of the most impressive private collections of South African art assembled by an individual. Bruce Campbell-Smith started collecting in the mid-1980s and the result is a collection of work by almost 90 artists, mostly black South Africans, working from the 1920s until 1994.

Hayden Proud, curator at Iziko, says the collection is impressive because of its scope, its items of rarity and the fact that the collector has had a fine arts training himself, which has informed many choices. He says the collection contains works by well-known and now historical figures the public have never seen before. It is focused on artists working in the figurative traditions of painting, printmaking, drawing and sculpture, with a strong Natal bias.

Artists represented include Gerard Bhengu, Trevor Makhoba, Sthembiso Sibisi, Maggie Laubscher, Amos Langdown, Arthur Butelezi, Mizream Maseko, George Pemba, Gerard Sekoto, Dumile Feni, Billy Mandindi, Peter Clarke, Neville Lewis, Gregoire Boonzaier, Marianne Podlashuc, Selby Mvusi, Irma Stern, Gladys Mgudlandlu, Sydney Khumalo, Louis Maqhubela, Tommy Motswai, Alfred Thoba, Noria Mabasa and Johannes Segogela.

Opens: September 24
Closes: March 19, 2006

The US Gallery in Stellenbosch will be holding an exhibition of contemporary glassworks by Lisa Gherardi, Helena Kagebrand, Katrin Maurer, Ryoko Sato, Elizabeth Swinburne, Ellen Urselmann and Elmarie Costandius.

Opens: February 16
Closes: March 11