Marco Cianfanelli
An image from the artist's
web page on the CAMA site
The Contemporary African Music and Arts Archive (CAMA) is a website being built under the directorship of John Turest Swartz at the Department of Computer Science, University of Cape Town. The admirable objective is to eventually be able to cross reference the whole of Africa either by artist, country or discipline, but that point lies well into the future. Artists have been divided into "traditional" and "contemporary". Sticking to checking out the contemporary visual artists of South Africa (since that is ArtThrob's main interest), one finds rather a random group on the list so far - a few well known names amongst rather more relatively unknowns. No doubt this will change in time.
A design quibble - does everything African have to go against a handmade textured paper background? Even the contemporary stuff? In London, Chris Ofili is using elephant dung in his work as a protest to those who are looking "for the African in my work". Let's not perpetuate the colonial attitude towards Africa in our art sites.
A New York-based website which is one of the best and the biggest, constantly updating current information on exhibitions, and offering excellent reviews and magazine coverage.
Focusing on an interchange of material about Africa, this fresh-looking Dutch-based site has a particular emphasis on the arts and culture of this continent, and searches for new virtual exhibitions to host online.
A site of truly wondrous projects. Breathing Earth, for instance, is a visualisation of earthquakes that have happened worldwide in the past 14 days. A globe with a map of the world comes into view, and on each of the 14 dates, swellings bubble up indicating the location of the seismic activities. Other projects involve the number of kilometres the world has swung round the sun while you have been busy on the website, and the sounds of the web itself.
One of the best - great artist projects, articles, news.
Intriguing initiatives especially designed for the web from a variety of artists. All of them are worth checking out.
Other locally-related links
Cape Town Museums Online
The new website for all of Cape Town's museums - an easy way for potential visitors to decide exactly how to spend their time. One of the most striking features on the South African National Gallery page is a 360 degree view of Jane Alexander's Butcher Boys, the gallery's best-known and most popular piece.
Bringing Up Baby
This is the website of the 'Bringing Up Baby' exhibition, currently on at the Standard Bank Gallery in Johannesburg. Photographs of all the work on the show, plus catalogue material.
http://www.mg.co.za/mg/art/fineart/ listing/fineart-jhb.htm
Luckily you can click through to the mega address of the Electronic Mail & Guardian's fine arts page, or you might pass up this extremely useful and concise listing of all the current visual art activity across the country.
http://www.artslink.co.za
Winner of the Arts and Culture Trust Award for best electronic media, when this fledgling site fulfils its aim of providing a comprehensive resource on all aspects of culture in the country, it will be truly valuable. The visual arts side needs serious attention. In the meantime, there's lots of info, particularly on the performing arts, and many connections to be made.
http://www.onepeople.com
An online road trip by Paul and Charity, recently in South Africa, in which they meet artists of many persuasions, interview them and record their work.
http://www.goodman-gallery.com/
Johannesburg's top gallery has recently revamped its site, making access to its information on many of the country's top artists more accessible
http://www.artsafari.com
Cape Town's Lipschitz Gallery with news of recent exhibitions. The gallery will arrange tours of local artists' studios for visitors.
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