Gallery MOMO, Cape Town
22 June – 15 July 2017
Gallery MOMO Cape Town is pleased to present Be Kind. Please Rewind; a group exhibition of local and international artists who engage with history and memory through the medium of film and video. By grappling with personal histories and collective memories, nostalgia, and storytelling, the videos in this exhibition seek to explore the various complexities of video’s relationship to the construction and perception of history and memory.
Be Kind. Please Rewind is Gallery MOMO’s third annual video exhibition, marking the gallery’s sustained commitment to providing a platform for furthering the medium of film and video art. Gallery MOMO is proud to be the only gallery that has a full video exhibition in South Africa.
The work of Zimbabwean visual artist, Lucia Nhamo explores the counter-narratives and power relations present in her home country through performance, animation and video. Kukunguruka (I) & (2) are an animation and video recorded treatment of the Chiremba Balancing Rocks – the national monument and iconic symbol of the Zimbabwean currency, satirising the largest denomination of the Zimbabwean currency; the 100,000,000,000,000 (one hundred trillion) dollar note.
Cape Town-based artist, Carla Inez Espost is a storyteller-artist. Her work, located betwixt art and film, integrates the private and the public to create new myths that help reclaim authority over skewed ideologies. Her featured work, Bettie & Clive merges the disciplines of installation and video to create a paradoxal shrine to the “Afrikaner Apokolips”.
Tanzanian multimedia artist, Rehema Chachage investigates her own intimate stories and experiences of being a woman in Africa. She draws her inspiration from the daily encounters associated with living with her daughter, her mother and grandmother, giving her the a muse to explore traditional cultural and religious rituals from.
Francois Knoetze was born in Cape Town. His work incorporates video, performance and sculpture as he retraces the life cycles of discarded objects and explores junctures between material and social histories. Through his sculptural suits, the synthetic is welded to the human – bringing focus to the objectification of persons, through the personification of objects.
Be Kind. Please Rewind also includes a colloration work between artist Martin Wilson and Kyu Sang Lee. Originally from Durban, Martin Wilson seeks to bring together the worlds of science and art. His work is deeply entangled in scientific enquiry – adopting and critiquing both its methods and values; particularly through questioning the legitimacy of any true objective knowledge in this unpredictable world. Korean artist, Kuy Sang Lee explores the haunting presence of anxiety often clouding his view of the world. For Lee anxiety acts as a medium in which we can be ourselves. His work extend an invitation to the multifarious cultural spectrum, questioning the diverse tensions between a community and self, beliefs and subjectivity, memory and oblivion, and time and eternity.
Participating artists: Rehema Chachage | Carla Inez Espost | Francois Knoetze | Kuy Sang Lee | Lucia Nhamo | Martin Wilson
The exhibition will run from 22 June to 15 July 2017.
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