We asked our regular writers and permanent staff to help us round up the year. Read below for our favourite stuff and weirdest moments.
Tim Leibbrandt
Top 3 exhibitions of the year (in no particular order):
Serge Alain Nitegeka- ‘Black Passage’, Stevenson. Nitegeka’s translation of his trademark aesthetics into immersive, traversable terrain made spectacular use of Stevenson’s gallery space.
‘Fantastic’- Michaelis Gallery. Nomusa Makhubu and Nkule Mabaso’s smartly curated exhibition was a resounding success both as a curatorial project and as an academic one.
Kemang Wa Lehulere- ‘History Will Break Your Heart.’ Wa Lehulere continues to find surprising and sincere ways to push his growing project further. Surely the most fully-realised artist’s framework in SA art right now (and still bursting with potential avenues).
Artwork of the year
David Goldblatt’s #Rhodesmustfall photograph, more as a surrogate for the event itself. I’m not sure of the actual title of the work, but the message that mass, unified mobilisation towards a cause can achieve results is one which is likely to need to be heard over and over again very soon.
What you’re most looking forward to in 2016
James Webb’s exhibition at Blank Projects and whatever Mary Sibande does next. I may be in the minority here, but I sincerely hope that she delves deeper into the purple works.
Favourite art-related text you’ve read this year
Ivan Vladislavić’s 101 Detectives has an amazing short story called ‘Dead Letters’ which centres on a fictional photographer named Neville Lister. Lister is currently photographing undelivered letters from Jeppe Street Post Office during apartheid and then travelling to their return address and taking photographs of the houses there. The story includes documentation of these images. Ultimately, the photographs end up in an exhibition curated by Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin in Kraków. Irrespective of the fact that I’m a Vladislavić fanboy, this story was genius.
Most FOMO event of 2015? (ie event you most regret missing)
Three-way tie: Athi-Patra Ruga’s The Elder of Azania performances at Grahamstown, ‘Post-African Futures’ at Goodman, Johannesburg and Miguel Llanso’s Crumbs at the ‘African Futures’ festival (dying to see it!).
Chad Rossouw
Top 3 exhibitions of the year (in no particular order)
‘Sightings’ at KZNSA. Tightly curated, super smart show, which looks at history and its objects.
Igshaan Adams’ ‘Parda’. I loved Adams’ worn cloth sculptures. A wonderful intersection between materiality and meaning.
Kemang Wa Lehulere’s ‘History Will Break Your Heart.’ Man… Kemang Wa Lehulere is just getting better and better.
Artwork of the year
Sethembile Msezane’s performance at the Rhodes Must Fall protests. I’m not normally a big fan of performance, but this seemed so relevant, so timeous. And also really beautiful.
Favourite art-related text you’ve read this year
I enjoyed Thuli Gamedze’s piece in Africah around decolonisation as art practice. It’s not a fully resolved piece, but I like the thinking. Also, the exchange of letters between Kemang Wa Lehulere and Khwezi Gule in Wa Luhelure’s recent book. It’s in turns corny and contrived, as letter writing often is, mixed with lashings of honesty, compassion, openness and insight. Very brave text.
Most FOMO event of 2015? (ie event you most regret missing)
Haroon Gunn-Salie’s ‘History After Apartheid.’ I think Gunn-Salie is a great young artist, mixing a kind of conceptual canny with a sense of compassion and activism. I wish I could have seen his debut solo.
And I missed the talk by Kodwo Eshun at CCA. Heartbroken.
Most WTF art moment of the year
The bizarre behaviour and buying habits of the Zeitz MOCAA
Isabella Kuijers
Top 3 exhibitions of the year (in no particular order)
For it’s gummy, palatable dose of postcolonial theory, Lizza Littlewort’s We Live in the Past, is in my top three exhibitions of 2015. Her re-renditions of historical paintings are painterly and playful and her pallette is lush and satisfying. One of the few exhibitions at which I stayed long enough for the wine to kick-in.
I think it might be cheating but the Cape Town Art Fair also gets a spot – for sheer peacock-like splendor, for the galleries balancing breathing-space with volume and for the collectors, bless their smug, gleeful, excitable hearts. Work by Jaco van Schalkwyk (at Barnard Gallery) and Moataz Nasr (at Galleria Continua) have stood the test of memory and deserve a mention.
Thirdly, a throwback to January at Stevenson for the group-show; CHROMA, a well-researched look at colour theory peppered with anecdotes from noteworthy colourists. Zander Blom’s oozing oils paired well with Meschac Gaba’s formidable nail polish collection.
Artwork of the year
Haroon Gunn-Salie’s suspended white hats at the Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg. It’s topical but sensitive. It’s part visible, part invisible.
What you’re most looking forward to in 2016
Cleverly curated group shows.
Favorite art-related text you’ve read this year
Sometimes when I’m seeking shelter on the internet in the corner that is Paul Graham’s not-intentionally-retro website I find an essay on art. This one is bucket of cold water over the head for notions of completely relative (read:postmodern) taste.
http://paulgraham.com/goodart.html
Nevermind that, just read this:
and this:
https://artthrob.co.za/2015/02/22/monologue-1-648-untitled/
Most FOMO event of 2015? (Ie event you most regret missing)
JHB Art Fair.
Most WTF art moment of the year
Gallerists leaving marks from previous hangings in the walls. I cannot bring myself to believe that it’s an aesthetic decision. I hope you know who you are.
Lwandile Fikeni
Top 3 exhibitions of the year (in no particular order)
Kemang Wa Lehulere’s ‘History will break your heart’
Sabelo Mlangeni’s ‘No problem’
Haroon Gunn-Salie’s ‘History after apartheid’
Artwork of the year
I hope I’m allowed to pick a work of literature because one of the most arresting pieces of art I came across this year is a work of literary fiction by a South African author, a book called ‘The Reactive’ by Masande Ntshanga. The only other work that had as profound an effect on me would be, again, Kemang’s Another Homeless Song (for RRR Dhlomo) 2 from his show ‘History Will Break Your Heart.’
What you’re most looking forward to in 2016
I’m really curious about Buhlebezwe Siwani and I hope she gives us a solo show, soon. She’s just finished her masters at Michaelis and she’s a very strong conceptual thinker and an overall strong artist. I’m also keeping an eye on Sipho Mpongo’s work.
Favorite art-related text you’ve read this year
I remember reading something on the artistic and intellectual heritage of Ernest Mancoba which I wholly enjoyed as much as I was burdened by the lack of talk about his work and legacy in everyday conversation and general discourse.
Most FOMO event of 2015? (Ie event you most regret missing)
I would’ve loved to see the Venice Biennale 2015, especially the South African Pavillion. I hear it was really dodge.
Most WTF art moment of the year
The WTF moment for me was Ed Young’s ‘I see black people’ piece at the Joburg Art Fair and seeing people, black and white, take pictures in front of it. It is always very interesting to note the kind of psyche (dark, sadistic and self loathing) that Ed Young’s pieces, specifically, tap into. And how much of that psyche is shared by the greater South Africa.
Same Mdluli
Top 3 exhibitions of the year (in no particular order)
Santu Mofokeng – Museum Africa
Johannes Phokela – AOP
Turiya Magadlela – JAG
Artwork of the year
Flight of Europa – Johannes Phokela
What you’re most looking forward to in 2016
My solo exhibition
Favorite art-related text you’ve read this year
Hypervisibility: How Scrutiny and Surveillance Makes You Watched but not Seen – Megan Ryland
Most FOMO event of 2015? (Ie event you most regret missing)
Bamako Encounters 2015: Biennale Africaine de la Photographie (10th Edition)
Most WTF art moment of the year
JAF – Joburg Art Fair
Thuli Gamedze
Top 3 exhibitions of the year (in no particular order)
Fantastic at Michaelis Galleries, curated by Nomusa Makhube and Nkule Mabaso, for its selection of magical, futuristic digital and video work from the continent.
CONJUGAL VISIT: the intimate inmate, at Alma Mater, curated by Khanyisile Mbongwa, for its weird, painful, visceral, sometimes hilarious, and sometimes crass performances that brought to surface expressions of the experiences of being black, and of oppressive gender norms.
Cape Mongo by Francois Knoetzee, at Michaelis Galleries and Grahamstown National Arts Festival. This is a really captivating, fascinating and strange engagement that blurs lines between art practice, performance, film-making and self-reflexive, site-specific activism.
Artwork of the year
The UKZN students’ paint intervention with their statue of King George V.
Favorite art-related text you’ve read this year
Visualising The Body by Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí. It relates to art inasmuch as it relates to all areas of knowledge production in Africa, and has given me a really interesting reference point from which to think about the notion of an ‘African’ art.
Most FOMO event of 2015?
Post African Futures, curated by Tegan Bristow at the Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, because it looked ridiculously interesting in its variety of African post-internet, digital explorations, and in its challenge to the notion of the Afro-future as a movement that does not pertain to the local African.
Most WTF art moment of the year
OLD WHITE MAN, at Alma Mater in Cape Town (of course). If we’d have been able to withstand the violence employed by this show- founded on obscene racist and sexist conceptualization, framed (ironically) as ‘irony’- it would have received the same treatment as the Rhodes statue earlier this year.
Renee Holleman
Top 3 exhibitions of the year (in no particular order)
Kemang Wa Lehulere’s ‘History will break you Heart’. Original, incisive and empathic.
Paul Edmund: ‘Elemental’. Paul’s characteristically perceptive sense of materiality shines.
Turiya Magadlela: ‘Impilo ka Lova’, for it’s clever and subtle disruption of the gallery space.
What you’re most looking forward to in 2016
As ever, more racial diversity in art institutions (in case no-ones said it already)
Favorite art-related text you’ve read this year
Forgetting the Art World by Pamela Lee – I confess I haven’t finished this book, but Lee writes about of the imbrication of globalisation and the ‘art world’ in an interesting if sometimes uneven way.
Most FOMO event of 2015? (ie event you most regret missing)
African Futures Exhibition. I was organising another conference at the time and this was so much sexier.
Most WTF art moment of the year
Matthew Partridge’s appointment as director of the Cape Town Art Fair came as a surprise.
Kira Kemper
Top 3 exhibitions of the year (in no particular order)
The Johannesburg Pavilion (Venice Biennale)
Post African Futures curated by Tegan Bristow (Goodman Johannesburg)
Athi-Patra Ruga ‘The Elder of Azania’ (Grahamstown National Arts Festival)
Artwork of the year
Samson Kambalu, Sanguinetti Breakout Area (Venice Biennale)
Favorite art-related text you’ve read this year
Which Art History in Africa? By Serubiri Moses, March 10, 2015 (Africa is a Country) – This article for me really engages with issues around African historical and contemporary writing. Put succinctly, Moses talks about how the conversations on contemporary art in Africa tend to overwhelm the actual art itself.
http://africasacountry.com/2015/03/which-art-history-in-africa/
Most FOMO event of 2015? (ie event you most regret missing)
Serge Alain Nitegeka’s Black Passage– reading the review by Ashraf Jamal in Financial Mail I loved the connections he made between this work and design and architecture, as well as the age of the “pop up” with reference to the way her altered the space temporarily. It seems it was one of those “you had to be there” shows, kicking myself.
Most WTF art moment of the year
Robin Rhode’s Recycled Matter exhibition at Stevenson Johannesburg- this experimental film was baffling to me, it felt like a very irritating mime had been let loose in the gallery with a suitcase that he would inevitable climb in and out of. Save me. The live drummer who was present at the opening, made the film even more unbearable. WTF? Maybe I just hate mimes.
Claire van Blerck
Top 3 exhibitions of the year (in no particular order)
Agnes Martin, Tate Modern, London – This show was one of the few I became quite lost in, simply looking at colour and line, and I genuinely miss now that it’s over.
Penny Siopis, Iziki South African National Gallery, Cape Town – Penny’s short films are some of my most favourite artworks, seeing them again was my highlight.
Ai Weiwei, Royal Academy of Arts, London – The most epic show I saw this year by far, overwhelming in terms of politics (in and around the show), emotions, and the sheer amount of work displayed.
What you’re most looking forward to in 2016
Abstract Expressionism, Royal Academy of Arts, London – All those paintings I haven’t yet spent time with in the flesh, and with a promised inclusion of names I won’t know. Whitechapel gallery will also be showing William Kentridge later in 2016, which is bound to be impressive.
Favourite art-related text you’ve read this year
Most articles by Kenny Schachter, he’s sardonic and gossipy and it makes for a good light read, and ‘Breakfast at Sotheby’s: An A-Z of the Art World’, by Philip Hook, read also in preparation for a course at Sotheby’s I’m just finishing.
Most FOMO event of 2015? (i.e. event you most regret missing)
Venice Biennale. But I’m making certain I get to it next time, that’s for sure. Or Performa, which I feel might actually be more interesting.
Most wtf art moment of the year
The chaos of stories around South African Pavilion at the Venice Biennale.
Anna Stielau
Top 3 exhibitions of the year (in no particular order)
Penny Siopis’s ‘Time and Again’
Kemang wa Lehurere’s ‘History will break you heart’
Monique Pelser’s ‘Conversations with my father’
I think they speak for themselves.
Artwork of the year
Kemang we Lehurere’s The Bird Lady in Nine Layers of Time. I don’t have a witty reason. I just liked this piece – which is about the r(e)discovery of Gladys Mgudlandlu’s wall murals in Gugulethu – very much.
Favourite art-related text you’ve read this year
I’m doing a masters, which has pretty much purged me of pleasure reading. But I guess most recently Maggie Nelson’s ‘The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning’. She writes criticism like it’s poetry.
Most FOMO event of 2015? (ie event you most regret missing)
The African Futures conference. Man, this just looked so wonderful.
Most wtf art moment of the year
The ongoing delays in Zwelethu Mthethwa’s trial. Is that an art moment? It’s art-adjacent. And awful.
Lloyd Pollack
Favourite art-related text you’ve read this year
I don’t regret saying Chad’s article on Zander was my favorite text. I just fear it makes Artthrob sound like a bit of a mutual admiration society particularly as I have often heard it said that the ArtThrob critics write for each other, rather than the public. The alternative would be Mary D Garrard’s magnificently resarched book on Artemesia Genitleschi published by Princeton University Press in 1991.
Sue Williamson
Top 3 exhibitions of the year (in no particular order)
The year kicked off at Iziko South African National Gallery with Penny Siopis’ memorable retrospective, ‘Time and Again’, with six of the SANG’s galleries and an in situ installation in the atrium offering up an extraordinary reflection on Siopis’ more than 30 years of production as painter, installation artist and filmmaker.
Serge Alain Nitegeka’s ‘Black Passage’ at the Cape Town Stevenson, the final exhibition before the gallery turned their two central spaces into one, showed the artist’s mastery of activating space and spatial form. Nitegeka completely transformed the gallery by freely cutting through walls, painting some with strong geometric lines, and installing works from paintings to sculptures.
Ex Capetonian Natasha Becker returned from decades overseas to become senior curator at Cape Town’s Goodman Gallery, and introduced herself by curating ‘Speaking Back’, a thought-provoking and cohesive exhibition of work by women. A langorous video tribute to her mother and muse, entitled ‘Happy Birthday to a Beautiful Woman’ by Mickalene Thomas was a favourite, but strong work was also seen from such as Candice Breitz, Ghada Amer, and Ellen Gallagher.
Artwork of the year
Violence towards women, endemic in our society, is a subject which is not easy to address with restraint. Gabrielle Goliath’s Elegy, performed at the Goodman Gallery Cape Town, brought together a group of trained women singers to vocalize a wordless elegy mourning the murder of Ipeleng Christine Mohoane. The performance lasted an hour, giving viewers space to give themselves up to the mournful but beautiful sound and to engage with their own thoughts.
What you’re most looking forward to in 2016
Having spent most of 2015 collating and writing material for my monograph, Sue Williamson: Life and Work, I am looking forward to working again intensively in the studio.
Favourite art-related text you’ve read this year
Funniest book on the art scene I read this year was the first novella of Geoff Dyer’s Jeff in Venice; Death in Varanasi , in which journalist Jeff cuts a swathe through the vernissage week of the Venice Biennale, perfectly capturing the endless FOMO of the art crowd as they rush frantically from party to unmissable event to opening.
Most FOMO event of 2015? (ie event you most regret missing)
Having just written the above and thinking of my own experience at Venice this year …I was sorry to miss The Ford Foundation party being hosted by Okwui Enwezor. As we reached the boats ferrying guests to the Hotel Excelsior on the Lido, it began to rain, and the party organisers informed us that two party invitations could not cover four people, so we could not board ….
Most wtf art moment of the year
The moment when an upturned child’s paddling pool metamorphosed into an urban mermaid.as embodied by Nelisiwe Xaba.
