Archive: Issue No. 125, January 2008

13.01.08 Allison Kearney and Emily Stainer at Goodman Gallery
13.01.08 'Body Maps' at David Krut Projects
13.01.08 'The Collagist' at The premises

02.12.07 'A Legacy of Men' at The Johannesburg Art Gallery
02.12.07 'Three Abreast: Side by Side and Facing the Same Way at Museum Africa
04.11.07 'Impossible Monsters' at Art Extra
04.11.07 Gerhard Marx at Warren Siebrits Modern and Contemporary Art
04.11.07 Peter Eastman at Obert Contemporary at Melrose Arch
04.11.07 Varenka Paschke at Worldart

PRETORIA

13.01.08 Keith Dietrich at Fried Contemporary

The Goodman Gallery presents a show of new work by young Johannesburg-based artists Allison Kearney and Emily Stainer. The exhibition comprises work in a variety of media.

Kearney's approach often deals with the context of art production and display, and also considers how value is determined in culture. Kearney's latest output utilises mixed media, installation and photography, and explores the role of the audience in making meaning. In particular Kearney continues her interest in public art, using scale and materials to challenge the conventions around monuments.

Stainer works in gouache and watercolours, as well as in mixed media and installation. Her work deals with the fissure between childhood innocence and adult corruption. Though deadpan in their aesthetics, her paintings on this show seem to express a certain sense of the ominous, as purity is threatened by suggested rapacity.

Opens: January 19
Closes: February 9

'Body Maps' is a show of works created by the Cape Town-based Bambanani Women's Group, a group of HIV positive Khayelitsha residents on antiretroviral therapy. As part of the project, women made life-size works that explore their experiences. The exhibition examines the processes of therapy, giving a voice to this otherwise marginalised sector.

Opens: December 1
Closes: February 1

This group show 'celebrates the medium of collage by engaging artists from various fields and levels of artistic production'. A wide variety of work by a similarly wide range of artists.

Opens: December 1
Closes: January 26

Artist and curator Jacki McInnes has curated a group show in support of the '16 Days of Activism' campaign. The show features the work of an all-male ensemble of artists. With this show McInnes intends to remedy the absence of male voices on the topic of women abuse in South Africa. The seven artists represented have been chosen because they deal in various ways with the social ills that contribute to this phenomenon.

McInnes' statements around this exhibition reveal a broad understanding of the issue. She states, 'South Africa may be a culturally diverse country, but its various groups nevertheless demonstrate a remarkably cross-cultural agreement on the subordinate status of women, leaving many women subject to their male partners' authority and control. Couple this with a South African environment in which poor standards of education, unemployment, fierce competition for scarce resources and high levels of alcohol abuse cause men to feel frustrated, emasculated and inadequate, and one is left with a highly volatile situation.'

The show was opened by guest speaker Ferial Haffajee, the Editor-in-chief of the Mail & Guardian. An artists' walkabout will be held on December 8, and Bearnárd O'Riain, activist and author of the book Running to Stand Still, will deliver a talk on the same date.

Opens: November 25
Closes: January 18 2008

Wits university students Candice Hirson, Anthea Pokroy and Louise Ross present a show at Museum Africa, in fulfillment of their Fine Art degrees. The show demonstrates a broad exploration of media including painting, installation, photography and video.

Opens: November 18
Closes: January 13

Like other major centres in South Africa, Johannesburg seems to be getting its fair share of new galleries. The last few months have seen the appearance of a number of new venues, including Worldart in Jozi's Commissioner Street and Rooke Gallery in Newtown. November will see the opening of yet another space devoted to contemporary art, Art Extra, curated and managed by David Brodie, previously of the Johannesburg Art Gallery and more recently the Goodman Gallery.

The venue's inaugural exhibition is a group show entitled 'Impossible Monsters', and features work by artists such as Penny Siopis, Wim Botha, Reshma Cchiba and Lester Adams.

The show runs till next year, but the gallery is closed between December 15 and January 8.

Opens: November 7
Closes: January 19 2008

Warren Siebrits presents the follow-up to Gerhard Marx's sell-out show there in 2005. This exhibition, entitled 'photo-' seems to continue Marx's interest in working with map fragments. No other details were available at time of publication.

Opens: November 15
Closes: December 12

Obert Contemporary at Melrose Arch presents a show of paintings by Cape Town-based artist Peter Eastman. According to Eastman, 'These enamel shadow paintings reflect on our position as a viewer. The make us aware of ourselves in relation to a painting and, more broadly, of our persona and position in the world at large. They mirror our projections onto paintings, and blur the boundaries between the intentions of the artist and our preconceptions. The viewer is integral to these paintings, and in reality the viewer's shadow and reflection is a fundamental part of the transient image.'

Opens: November 19
Closes: January 31

For her upcoming exhibition Varenka Paschke has covered squares with a variety of materials, which she has then assembled as units to serve as canvases for oil paintings. The end products vary considerably in many respects, but could be summed up as mainly figurative works in a contemporary idiom, sometimes entering into a dialogue with illustration work, and even taking on a partly digital character. In some cases mosaic designs and floral patterns are integrated with figurative elements. The presentation remains stimulating and fresh, and social commentary is often embedded in an array of decorative forms and shapes. The subtle application of colour, line and light is highly favoured, which may well contribute to Paschke's works often finding their way to private and corporate collections.

Opens: November 29

Keith Dietrich presents an exhibition and an artist's book in three parts, all under the title 'Fourteen Stations of the Cross'. The 14 stations of the cross are not the traditional Catholic images one expects, but are in fact the first 14 Christian mission stations set up in southern Africa in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The show considers how Christianity's 'colonisation' of the southern African interior was a precursor to the region's subsequent economic colonisation.

Opens: December 1
Closes: February 2