MTN New Contemporaries Exhibition
The MTN New Contemporaries, back for its biennial run, is days away from announcing its winner. The process, through which a short-listed group has been further whittled down to just four commissioned entries, will arrive at a winner on July 11 at the opening of the accompanying exhibition at the University of Johannesburg Art Gallery.
Artist, curator, writer and ArtThrob alumna Melissa Mboweni was chosen as this year's curator, selecting Dan Halter, Themba Shibase, Dineo Bopape and Michael MacGarry as the top four.
Halter typically considers the fate of Zimbabwe, his land of origin, with acerbic wit and uncanny accuracy. Taking various physical manifestations, from soapstone to government documents, Halter's works trade in a wry humour that belies the gravity of his content.
Shibase works primarily in paint, creating images that insert themselves at key points into Africa's unfolding socio-political dramas. A direct, muscular formal sensibility underpins his fresh approach, in which parody and tragedy seem to effortlessly coexist.
Bopape makes work that deals with excess, confession and self-exploration: well-known for her expansive installations that frequently border on the grotesque, Bopape has most recently been seen through an installation of small scale diary-page-style drawings and paintings at the KZNSA in Durban.
MacGarry has been knocking around the Johannesburg scene for a while now, but 2008 looks to be his year: a prominent part of Art Extra's stand at March's Joburg Art Fair, he is also currently exhibiting at the gallery. MacGarry's work deals with the effects of colonisation's fallout in Africa, with surprising and refreshing vigour. Like Bopape and Halter, MacGarry's work takes many forms, from sculptural and found objects to text, photography and installation.
Contact Annali Cabano-Dempsey on (011) 559 2099 for more details.
