Current Review(s)
Black: the antithesis of the fraudulent sensuality of culture's façade. An experiment in voluntary asceticism.
Liza Grobler, Mary Wafer, Hentie van der Merwe, Zander Blom, Kathryn Smith and Nomthunzi Mashalaba at blank projectsFor blank’s last show in their Buitengracht Street space, the walls have been painted black. Ditto the floors and ceiling, and what with the blistering spotlights burning down from above, it’s a rather uncomfortable space to find oneself in. Standing on the floor in one corner a doll-sized figure captures the mood: she’s wreathed in layers of black and brown tights, unable to see out, yet seems to be gazing up at a sickle moon through a little jail window, drawn on the black wall with white chalk. This playful chalk drawing effectively turns the whole gallery into a jail; a touch of magical realism not unlike that of Robin Rhode.
For the show, curators Jonathan Garnham and Pierre Fouché challenged artists to undertake a vow of ‘voluntary asceticism’, producing work in black only. Being contrary by nature however, several of the artists took this as something of a challenge and Liza Grobler's Little White Lies is not the only work which shows signs of mutiny.
05 August 2009 - 25 August 2009
Listings(s)
Black: the antithesis of the fraudulent sensuality of culture's façade. An experiment in voluntary asceticism.
Liza Grobler, Mary Wafer, Hentie van der Merwe, Zander Blom, Kathryn Smith and Nomthunzi Mashalaba at blank projectsInspired by the eternal-, yet sensual darkness of Adorno's observations on aesthetics & Anaïs Nin's multiplicative expansionist core, blank has decided to invite artists to engage in an experiment of voluntary asceticism, to produce an intimate work in which, formally, colour is reduced to black. Zander Blom, Liza Grobler, Nomthunzi Mashalaba, Kathryn Smith, Michael Taylor, Hentie van der Merwe and Mary Wafer are participating in this black-cube group exhibition.
05 August 2009 - 25 August 2009
James Webb, Kathryn Smith & Nontsikelelo Veleko on 3rd Arts In Marrakech Biennale
James Webb, Kathryn Smith and Nontsikelelo Veleko at AiM International BiennaleJames Webb, Kathryn Smith & Nontsikelelo Veleko will be showing on the 3rd Arts In Marrakech biennale. The exhibition is curated by Abdellah Karroum and participating artists include Isaac Julien, Adel Abdessemed, Francis Alÿs, Ninar Esber, Naoko Takahashi and Otobong Nkanga.
19 November 2009 - 20 January 2010
'Artistic Practice and Social Imaginaries' - 11th Havana Biennial
Doreen Southwood, Steven Cohen, Kathryn Smith, Trinity Sessions and Nontsikelelo Veleko at Various venues around HavanaThe 2012 Havana Biennial explores the relationship between visual productions and the social imaginary, referring to the way people imagine their social space and express themselves through cultural and historical references. Besides fine arts exhibitions, the Havana Biennial will include lectures, workshops and master classes, documentaries, performances and video screenings in sites across the city.
11 May 2012 - 11 June 2012
'Incident Room'
Kathryn Smith at Goodman Gallery'Incident Room', recently shown in Johanneburg, is a response to one of South Africa’s most infamous unsolved crimes, the murder of the eighteen year old Jacoba ‘Bubbles’ Schroeder, whose body was found lying in partially burned, bushy veld in Birdhaven, Johannesburg on the morning of 17 August 1949. She had been strangled with a ligature of some sort, and pieces of white, chalky material had been forced into her throat. She had spent the evening of 16 August 1949 in the company of three young men from prominent Jewish families – Morris Bilchik, David Polliack and Hyman Leibman – but no evidence was found linking them to the murder, and no one was ever brought to trial.
As Rahla Xenopoulos’ recent novel (Penguin, 2012) shows, the murder of ‘Bubbles’ Schroeder has all the intrigue and messy class politics of a bestseller: a young, working-class Afrikaans girl comes to post-war Johannesburg in pursuit of a life more interesting than the mines of Lichtenburg or Vereeniging. With no income or prospects, she nonetheless has exacting standards, and will not do menial work. She soon finds herself taken in by a middle-aged Jewish bookie she meets at a dance in Orange Grove, who grooms her to be ‘Bubbles’, the kind of girl rich men would pay to be entertained by. Her murder soon thereafter brings an abrupt and brutal end to her short and tawdry life.
Although written and rewritten by journalists and true-crime buffs, Jacoba Schroeder’s murder remains a deeply unsatisfactory narrative, where she remains a literal bubble, a lacuna in the maelstrom of dogged detectives, rich boys and frantic mothers. In collecting everything published on the case since she encountered her story in her mid-teens, as well as unearthing a host of unpublished documents, and reconstituting it through the lens of her creative practice, Smith attempts to burrow beneath the myth of Bubbles and find Jacoba, to reinscribe her subjectivity, dignity and her memory. “I feel exactly the same now as I did when I first encountered her story,” says Smith, “a girl should not be found dead in a plantation after a night of dancing and socializing. And 63 years later, we should know who was responsible for her death and the violence done to her.”
Engaging public, private and long forgotten documents, archives and other repositories of human memory, 'Incident Room' is a fascinating selection of objects, images, actions and films, and will be on view for one week only.
The artist will be in the gallery on 25 August from 11.00 to 15.00 to discuss the project with visitors.
25 August 2012 - 01 September 2012
