CAPE
In Cape Town, 34 Long makes changes to their current show of work in stock
entitled 'Four', the UCA puts together a diverse range of work in 'Twenty
Artists/Twenty Portraits', while Whatiftheworld extends the run of 'Big
Wednesday', their summer showcase. Deborah Bell presents 'Flux' at the
Goodman Gallery Cape.
GAUTENG
Although the year's start is typically slow, Johannes Phokela's 'I like my
neighbours' opens at the Standard Bank Gallery, and Robin Penn presents 'A
Brutal year' at Brodie/Stevenson.
KWAZULU-NATAL
Durban wakes up slowly with the KZNSA's annual Members Exhibition, and
Under my Skin', a joint show by Liz Speight, Hermine Spies Coleman and
Anni Wakerley at artSPACE Durban.
INTERNATIONAL
The Kyle Kauffman Gallery presents a comprehensive survey of Marlene
Dumas' prints and editioned works, Vulindlela Nyoni exhibits linocut prints
at artSPACE berlin and Deborah Poynton has her first museum solo exhibition
in Savannah, Georgia.
INTERVIEW
An exhibition by Grahamstown-based artist, writer and lecturer Maureen de Jager entitled 'In Sepia', travelled to Johannesburg for a showing at Gordart Gallery in November and December. Editor Michael Smith spoke to her about the work, her processes and her interest in the poetics of disintegration.
OPINION
Johannesburg-based artist, writer and urban researcher Ismail Farouk recently spent three months in Los Angeles on a residency with the Mak Center's Urban Future Initiative. This month he gives us a report-back in an opinion piece titled 'Explorations into Spatial Justice'.
CAPE
Andrew Putter submits a review of Kate Gotggens' show at João Ferreira entitled 'Asleep Inside You', finding a painter at the height of her powers. 'How the Troubles Started' features work by Lizza Littlewort and Wilhelm Saayman, two artists who 'take their jokes very seriously'. While Littlewort takes pops at the self-importance of the artworld in her paintings, sketches and text works, Saayman spends more time on the tragedy of human emotion and relationships in his drawings and text pieces. Linda Stupart reviews. Octogenarian painter Robert Hodgins' painting just gets better and better, says Sue Williamson, regretting that his exhibition at the Goodman Cape ever had to come down. Katharine Jacobs draws parallels between Anton Kannemeyer's 'Fear of a Black Planet' and the writings of Fanon in her review of this show which forces a viewer to locate oneself in the comics Kannemeyer references in these highly charged and layered graphic works.
GAUTENG
While the prospect of curating a show of contemporary Scandinavian and South African art seems to have provided Clive Kellner and Maria Fidel Regueros with breathing space, and despite individual instances of brilliance, Anthea Buys feels that the connections between the respective artists and practices are tenuous. Wim Botha's first solo outing in Johannesburg entitled 'New Work', is decribed by Cara Snyman as 'monumental, imposing and iconic', and quite appropriate for the launch of Brodie/Stevenson. The installation, sculpture and drawings, rich in imagery and substance, draw on the canon of art history, natural history and Classical mythology, engaging notions of evolution, mortality and materiality. Michael Smith follows up last month's interview with Jo Ractliffe with a review of her recent Warren Siebrits show, 'Terreno Ocupado', which he describes as '... a powerful addition to an already-stellar career, one in which the nuances of African cities' changing characters are frequently the subject'.
KWAZULU NATAL
Bronwen Vaughan-Evans' 'Memento Mori' at Bank Gallery finds the artist employing her signature light-on-dark gesso technique in works comprising pairs of portrait- and landscape- formatted images. The juxtaposition of humans, or suggestions of humans, with elements of land- and cityscape explores the relationship between her subjects and their environments. Carol Brown reviews. Regular contributor Peter Machen reviews Cameron Platter's 'Studio' a show and event held at the KZNSA, and finds much to get excited about, not least of which is the absence of 'the slightest hint of masturbation often associated with event-based art' at the show's closing party.
INTERNATIONAL REVIEWS
Candice Breitz recently showed her Soliloquy Trilogy from 2000 at 'Worlds on Video' at Strozzina, Florence. Amy Halliday feels the work's production is a little tired, its mode of deconstruction too familiar. She was far more interested by Breitz's new work shown at Temporäre Kunsthalle in Berlin.
STUDENT REVIEWS
Ivana Abreu reviews Avhashoni Mainganye's 'Journey', an exhibition of paintings, collages and sculpture.
Tavish McIntosh writes about Dineo Bopape who is currently doing her Master's at Columbia University in the US.
Chad Rossouw explores 'feed readers' or 'aggregators', a useful way of keeping in touch with blog and website updates.
Chad Rossouw visits Christo Doherty's 'Small Worlds', the artist's online archive of his photographs of model train landscapes and layouts, which layers notions of 'virtual' worlds.
Fried Contemporary runs creative courses and Absa anounces submission
dates for this year's L'Atelier competition. Start - The Nivea Art Award
invites submissions.
A quiet month for feedbackers. Come on, SA, vent your spleens.
Send us your feedback.
Young artist Mikhael Subotzky is currently featured in MoMA's annual 'New Photography' exhibition, on show until the January 12, 2009. Curator Roxana Marcoci describes Subotzky's achievements in photography as a 'reinvention of documentary photography to picture diverse conditions of everyday life in South Africa'. Editions for ArtThrob is proud to be offering an original Subotzky print from his first photographic series that explores conditions in the notorious Pollsmor Prison. Johnny Fortune, 2004 is printed by Tony Meintjes to the highest digital archival standards and is available from R3 500.
See Editions
Browse through past editions of ArtThrob.
Who's who and how we started. New email addresses for ArtThrob staffers make it easy to contact the right person.
CONTACT US
Submit a message to the editor online - to contact a specific sub-editor,
which we'd prefer you do, please find their email address in the ABOUT
US section.
Subscribe to our monthly email update.
