August
Tuesday, August 1
Penny Siopis went back to Johannesburg last night after a short visit to check out her space for Trans Cape. She is one of the participating artists on the new biennial, to open September 23. Her installation will be based on the urban legendary figure of Pinky Pinky and located in the rooms of Bertram House, a small museum building on the campus of the Michaelis Art School. I had never been inside Bertram House before, which is filled with English furniture, but I think it will be an ideal foil for the androgynous figure of Pinky Pinky. This will not be Penny's first intervention in what might be called a domestic museum - last year, she showed at the Freud Museum in London.
Wednesday, August 2
Flu has set all of Cape Town hacking and coughing and I have not escaped. And ArtThrob goes live on Friday. Try to dull the headache and concentrate.
Thursday, August 3
An email from TRANS CAPE. The deadline for the fringe events, under the coordination of Storm Janse van Rensburg, has been extended to August 15. A group of us will be showing at the new project space, SALT, near the Salt River station.
Wednesday, August 9
Can this be true? Someone just phoned me to tell me TRANS CAPE is postponing for six months. At this late stage? How can this be possible? Phone Storm. It's true. Funding problems. Will have to rewrite the lead editorial for this month's ArtThrob editorial.
Thursday, August 10
Phone Gavin Jantjes, to get the whole TRANS CAPE cancellation story. Sympathise, but remain entirely unconvinced that the whole financial problem could not have been avoided with a more realistic timetable in the first place. Gavin says he is busy notifying participating artists and others.
Once a year, I meet with Michael Godby's graduate class at an exhibition to discuss approaches to art criticism. Over the next weeks, the students will review shows and send them in to ArtThrob, where they appear as student reviews. Today we meet at Michael Stevensons, which is between shows, but Nicholas Hlobo's work is in the process of being installed, and there are great photographs by Guy Tillim, Pieter Hugo et al to get the discussions going.
Friday, August 11
TRANS CAPE sends out a press release in which too much emphasis is put on the unreliability of the funders (not a good idea if you want to keep them on board). The major disruption and in many cases, financial loss this will cause, is airily apologized for as an 'inconvenience'. I have no feeling from this email that the writers have taken responsibility for their unsuccessful planning, or have any idea of how much this postponement affects the professional image of art curation and artists in South Africa, and in fact, the entire continent of Africa.
Monday, August 14
Emails start coming in from art world people expressing various levels of surprise at the TRANS CAPE news.
Thursday, August 17
Tonight is the opening of rising star Nicholas Hlobo at Michael Stevenson. His first solo. Images of some of the works have been seen before, and the gallery is filled with his striking pieces and installations. Each is unique, yet there is a sharp sensibility which clearly links all of the work. Each is fastidiously crafted in Hlobo's materials of choice - which might range from billowy transparent fabric to smooth black sensuous rubber, from rough wood poles to pink woven ribbons.
The surprise for me is the work on paper. Here again, Hlobo's touch is sure and confident, precise stitching contrasting with explosive globs of vivid paint and lacy trails of white silicone or stitched pink ribbons. None of the pieces look anything like other work on paper I have seen. Hlobo manages to
marry complete control with a spontaneous looseness which is unique. All three works were sold before the opening.
Saturday, August 26
Call in at the Gold of Africa Museum this morning to take in the Ernest Mancoba exhibition. A humble artist who spent many years in exile, Mancoba is now recognized as a key figure in African art history. One of his quotes reads: 'African Art is a heritage which belongs to all mankind, a heritage which we must carry for our survival, because if we lose contact with out heritage, we risk damaging humanity.'
There is less work than I would have liked to have seen, but the curators have contextualized it well with videos and other art objects reflecting Mancoba's sources.
Vladimir Tretchikoff, the irrepressible king of kitsch, has died at the age of 92. His obituary is in NEWS this month. Many years ago, when my daughter Amanda was about 11, she was invited by the Cape Argus to give her opinion of a new Tretchi exhibition installed in the gallery of Garlicks department store. Scorned by art world critics, Tretchi had declared that his work was best understood by children, with their clarity of vision.
Predictably perhaps, the invited group were properly admiring of the heightened realism of Tretchi's galloping horses, exotic ladies, and crayfish still lifes. Amanda's reward for her crit was a signed print of an orchid lying discarded on a flight of stairs, and R10 from the Argus for her efforts.
When I remind Amanda, she says although she loved the work she couldn't understand why the women were blue. And adds that Jeff Koons is a big Tretchi fan.
Wednesday, August 30
Last chance tonight to catch up on Ralph Borland's 'Promised Land' at Blank Projects, open only on Wednesday afternoons or by appointment. The space is small, necessitating a tightly edited show.
Not easy to tackle the abyss between the nobility of the aspirations and ideals of the African National Congress in the years when they were suppressed and banned and the day to day realities of governance in the 2000's by what Nic Dawes has described as 'a very ordinary political elite'. Borland has achieved it remarkably successfully.
A blowup of an old photo of a top hatted Pixley Seme, ANC founder and president, signifies the early years, a series of objects like a Keiskamma tapestry depicting recent evictions of a community by red-clad government workers (the 'red ants') reflect disruptions of the dream of a home for all.
