Archive: Issue No. 103, March 2006

2.03.06 Kentridge at the Whitechapel
2.03.06 'Black, Brown, White: South African Photography' in Vienna
2.03.06 William Kentridge in Italy
2.03.06 Ina van Zyl in the Netherlands

4.11.05 Ed Young and Mikhael Subotzky in Turin

THE AMERICAS

2.03.06 'Personal Affects' in Honolulu
2.03.06 'Snap Judgments: New Positions in Contemporary African Photography' in New York
2.03.06 Samson Mudzunga and Sibusiso Mbhele in New York

3.02.06 Jo Smail and William Kentridge at the Axis Gallery in New York
3.02.06 �Fabricated Harmony� at �The Light Factory�, Charlotte, NC

AUSTRALIA

2.03.06 Berni Searle in Australia
2.03.06 South African artists at Next Wave Festival
 

William Kentridge exhibits amongst masters and mistresses of the art historical canon in 'Faces in the Crowd - Painters of Modern Life from Manet to Today' at the Whitechapel, truly cementing his status in contemporary art discourse. Taking Edouard Manet as its starting point and moving through master figures such as Umberto Boccioni, Edward Hopper, Francis Bacon, Andy Warhol, Gerhard Richter, Cindy Sherman and Jeff Wall, this exhibition traces a history of avant-garde figuration.

Other artists whose work will be represented in this major art historical survey include Eve Arnold, Eugene Atget, Francis Bacon, Stephan Balkenhol, Rene Burri, Christian Boltanski, David Bomberg, Sophie Calle, Robert Capa, James Ensor, Valie Export, George Grosz, Andreas Gursky, John Heartfield, Seydou Keita, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Käthe Köllwitz, Fernand Legér, Helen Levitt, René Magritte, Edvard Munch, Eduardo Paolozzi, Pablo Picasso, Thomas Schüte, Cindy Sherman and Jack B. Yeats.

Opens: February 3
Closes: March 10

In 'Black, Brown, White...' at the Kunsthalle in Vienna, South African photo artists of various generations, who see themselves not as political documenters but rather as observers of everyday life, will show thematic series of their works which represent diverse facets of a country between apartheid and new departures. Work included ranges from David Goldblatt's famous 'Kwa Ndebele' series, which treated the compulsory commuting of black workers from the townships to the centre of Pretoria in the days of the passport law, to Omar Badsha's 'Imperial Ghetto', a study of everyday life among the Indian population of the harbour city of Durban.

Also participating are Pieter Hugo, Thando Mama, Zwelethu Mthethwa, Jo Ractliffe, Berni Searle and Andrew Tshabangu.

Opens: February 24
Closes: June 18

Kentridge shows alongside other art superstars, including Kiki Smith and Jake and Dinos Chapman, in the 'Biella Prize for Engraving 2006' at the Museo del Territorio in Biella, Italy. The exhibition represents the work of 34 contemporary artists from a number of different countries including Argentina, Austria, China, Denmark, Ethiopia, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Israel, Mexico, Holland, Palestine, Poland, the US and South Africa.

The aim of the Biella Prize, which takes place every three years, has traditionally been to give prominence to contemporary printmaking. It takes an international outlook and showcases a broad spectrum of techniques, from woodcuts to photogravure, thereby demonstrating the continuing vitality of the graphic arts as an instrument of expression. The theme of the exhibition this year, 'Art in the Age of Anxiety', is a critical reflection on the social and political realities of our times. 'Insecurity, anger, escape from a painful reality, satirical criticism, idealisation of the past, an interest in ecology, a focus on the contingent, the informal and the worthless, the numbing of feeling, dystopia, regeneration, extinction and chaos are among the themes of the artists I have selected for the show. Consciously or unconsciously, artists mirror the world. They are sensitive barometers of our time, expressing opinions, observing its complexities and displaying our ambivalences.' writes Jeremy Lewison in the catalogue.

Opens: March 19
Closes: June 4

South African born Ina van Zyl will be having a solo show of drawings, watercolours and oils from the last nine years at the Dordrechts Museum this month. Van Zyl studied at Stellenbosch University and has contributed work to Bittercomix and other South African comics.

Opens: February 11
Closes: May 14

'T Turin Triennial Threemuseums' is a new exhibition curated by Francesco Bonami and Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev that plans to present the most innovative developments in the visual arts. The triennial is organised by the Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo and the GAM Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Torino

Each edition of 'T' plans to be organised in two parts: the first is an invitational section of 75 young artists from around the world, this year including Ed Young and Mikhael Subotzky. The second section of the event pays homage, with solo exhibitions, to two mid-career established artists, this year including Takashi Murakami.

Young will be exhibiting Damn Those Bitches Represent, Bruce Gordon and the performance Do Nothing.

Opens: November 11
Closes: March 19

Blockbuster exhibition 'Personal Affects: Power and Poetics in Contemporary South African Art' travels to Hawaii this month, showcasing work by 17 artists from South Africa working in diverse media including sculpture, drawing, photography, painting, installation and video.

The Hawaii presentation of 'Personal Affects' reveals the increasingly mutual artistic concerns between artmaking practices in Hawaii and places as distant as South Africa. The distinctive cultural hybridity in both Hawaii and South Africa speaks to the dynamics of difference and inclusion in race, socio-economic divisions, language, customs, belief systems, and object/image making, among other things. As other locations in the world become increasingly less marginal to those inside and outside of (mainly Western) socio-economic urban centres, these dynamics become interwoven as one rich, discursive cultural fabric - one that is as familiar and spirited in Hawaii as it is in South Africa and which thus tangentially addresses issues of exclusion from the circuit of international contemporary art.

Participating artists are Jane Alexander, Wim Botha, Steven Cohen, Churchill Madikida, Mustafa Maluka, Thando Mama, Samson Mudzunga, Jay Pather, Johannes Phokela, Robin Rhode, Claudette Schreuders, Berni Searle, Doreen Southwood, Clive van den Berg, Minnette Vàri, Diane Victor and Sandile Zulu.

Opens: February 24
Closes: May 27

Organised by Okwui Enwezor, 'Snap Judgments' at the International Center of Photography will be the first major US presentation to focus on photo-based artwork from the African continent since 1996. More than 200 works by 35 artists from across Africa, the majority of whom will be exhibiting in the US for the first time, will be presented. The show's four sections - Landscape, Urban Formations, The Body and Identity, and History and Representation - reflect important themes being addressed by African artists today. ICP will produce a series of public programmes in conjunction with the show, as well as a landmark catalogue. A number of South Africans including Guy Tillim and Nontsikelelo Veleko will be exhibiting.

Opens: March 10
Closes: May 28

The Jack Shainman Gallery in New York shows work by South African artists Samson Mudzunga and Sibusiso Mbhele this month. The exhibition will include a number of Mudzunga's carved, drum-like sculptures as well as performances on opening night. Mbhele shows his fanciful renditions of imaginary flying machines such as helicopters and airplanes made with basic materials such as colour pencils and markers.

Opens: February 20
Closes: March 11

When one-time South African Jo Smail suffered a devastating stroke in 2000 she began her artistic practice anew. Battling her brain damage, including loss of speech and mobility, Smail's spills of black paint, not fully controlled, became her way of making sounds. She took comfort in the security of simple, identifiable forms and used her mistakes as springboards. In these paintings and prints, things, sounds, actions, ideas, and the relations between things take form, as if conjured from the void by the logic of a secret system of conceptual synaesthesia. There are paintings that celebrate being able to write such things as 'tongues wag': words that she had learned to repeat she could not voluntarily speak.

These paintings and prints, in paralleling Smail's relearning of words and writing and their attachment to corresponding concepts in the world, also suggest how arbitrary all systems of meaning are, yet how inevitable and automatic they appear to us. They embroil us in a compact of consensus while simultaneously pointing back into the abyss where everything is alphabet soup. In this they are like totalitarian regimes, the experience of which Smail shares with her compatriot, William Kentridge, who also shares her interests in communication.

Included on this exhibition are 11 collaborations with Kentridge, created long-distance. These works reflect a seamless blend of their techniques and aesthetics, in which stark, silhouetted, sometimes collaged and often burdened forms lurch or hesitate in vast spaces, evoking existential battles and fragile realities.

Opens: January 20
Closes: March 4

In this two-person exhibition in the Southern banking city of Charlotte, South African Sue Williamson and American Pat Ward Williams show such well known pieces as For Thirty Years Next to his Heart (Williamson) and Move (Williams) together with a new interactive video projection entitled Comfort Zones especially commissioned for the event by The Light Factory.

For this piece, the artists interviewed people in their own countries inviting frank discussions on racism, and whether forgiveness was or was not an option, and then intercut the clips into a somewhat dissonant 'dialogue'. A Powermate disc gives the audience the possibility of speeding the action forwards or backwards, which causes new text to appear on the screen. 'Comfort Zones' was programmed by Andries Odendaal.

January 13 - March 16, 2006

Berni Searle takes part in '2006 Contemporary Commonwealth', the second major collaborative survey of contemporary art presented by the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) and the National Gallery of Victoria at Federation Square. The exhibition juxtaposes 11 artists from Commonwealth nations with 11 artists from Australia. Sharing an interest in migration and exchange, their diverse works explore the globalised nature of cultural and social connection.

Some of the artists featured in this exhibition include Shane Cotton (New Zealand), Rodney Graham (Canada), Fiona Hall (Australia), Isaac Julien (United Kingdom), eX de Medici (Australia), Patricia Piccinini (Australia), Berni Searle (South Africa), Yinka Shonibare (United Kingdom), Jemima Wyman (Australia) and Ah Xian (Australia).

The biennial Next Wave Festival has been showcasing young Australian art for the last 20 years. This year it forms part of the Cultural Programme of the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne. The Festival is presenting artists from across the Commonwealth this year, and South African artists taking part include Mak1one, Faith47 and Mike Saal from Matt Black, Ralph Borland, and Andre Manuel and Chantel Erfort from Dala Flat Music, who are taking part in the Container Village section of the festival.

Ree Treweek is also attending Next Wave and showing work by The Blackheart Gang as part of '100 points of light'. Margaret Stone's photographs are to be shown at the festival and Xavier Ferreira from the Khamissa Collective is also exhibiting.

Ralph Borland's contribution to the Container Village is his project 'Sideshow', an exhibition of 'Political Art and Provocative Technology' within a space to exchange ideas and hatch plans. 'Sideshow' showcases South African and global creative resistance, from protective gear for protestors and magnetic LED graffiti, to the Polite Force, red T-shirts from both Laugh It Off and the APF, and mechanical statements Crank the Web and the Playpump.

Opens: March 14
Closes: April 5