CAPE TOWN

A drawing of a rose? In a painting by Kevin Atkinson? In his first painting show since 1989, this star of the 70's has allowed figuration to re-enter his painting vocabulary along with all the bravura painterly passages we expect of him, and the result is a big, beautiful show fairly bursting with brilliantly considered, often sombre colour and assured brush work. In one particularly likeable painting, Atkinson establishes his position in a long line of masters. On a washed-in deep sky blue, his body is outlined in charcoal, arms outstretched in the Leonardo da Vinci position.

Scrawled in around the body are written thanks to all the artists Atkinson admires - Brancusi, Picasso et al. Don't miss this show. Until November 19.

More, much more painting - in a show curated by artists Clare Menck and Johann Louw, work by 20 artists from around the country covers the walls of the long Good Hope Gallery at the Castle. The curators' intention was to show that in the age of installation art, painting is still absolutely relevant to contemporary life.

The point is proved, though some of the works do not help the curators' case, and could have been omitted. Luan Nel's witty piece Pa se Tent is a 15-metre long canvas cylinder with a missile-like point on one end, with the surface covered in footprints and Nel's signature miniature landscapes. Deflated, this lies on the floor like a giant slug, but periodically an air pump fills the shape and it inflates to hover self importantly a few centimetres off the floor. Other exhibitors include Clare Menck and Johann Louw themselves, Richard Baholo, Bitterkomix's Conrad Botes, Luan Nel, Trevor Makhoba, Dorothee Kreutzfeldt, Clive van der Berg and Simon Stone.

Until December 5.

To see this show, you have to take the 40 minute ferry ride to Robben Island.

Starting from the beginning of this month, art tours leave three times a week, on Saturdays, Sundays and Wednesdays at 1 p.m. In the confined and restricted cubicles of the building where prisoners would meet their rare visitors, nine Cape Town artists have each addressed the history of the building in some way. Kevin Brand exhibits prison objects such as windowlatches and intercoms modelled in the maizemeal pap which was the staple diet of the prisoners, decorated with the plastic beads one picks up on beaches.

Lionel Davis, once a prisoner himself, scribbled scraps of conversation on every visible surface of his space, overlaid with large red letters reading NO POLITICS! or NO OVAMBO! - prisoners were restricted to talking about family matters, and could not speak in any language the guards did not understand. The other artists involved are Willie Bester, Kevin Brand, Lisa Brice, Tracey Derrick, Randolph Hartzenberg, Malcolm Payne and Sue Williamson.

'Shopping Trolley Project Launch' at the Mau Mau

The Shopping Trolley Project to be held on December 15th will be the fourth in the series of wildly successful annual art parties to be organised by the Mother City Queer Project. To get everyone in the mood, photos and videos of last year's high camp extravaganza, the Twinkly Sea Project line the walls of the Mau Mau. Until November 30.

The richly modulated landscape photographs of Hugo Platt, reputedly one of London's master monochrome artists, can be seen at the Area in Radio House. Until December 5.

Dhont is known for his figures of people and animals made from woven bark. Using materials found on and around the farm where he lives at Riviersonderend, Dhont considers the impact of technology on the environment. His new installation 'From Where the Wind Blows' opens on November 12. Until December 5.

Now on at the Hanel is a show by three of Germany's most important contemporary artists - Jorg Immendorff, painter and sculptor Georg Baselitz and Christof Kohlhofer, who now lives and works in Los Angeles. Immendorff, a student of the legendary Joseph Beuys is represented by eight overpainted linoleum cuts based on his well-known series 'Cafe Deutschland'.

Brett Murray and Lisa Brice at the Goodman

Two shows first seen in the narrow space of the Hanel in Cape Town will now hang together at the Goodman, where they should provide an interesting counterpoint to each other. Each artist has used as a central device drawings in metal set a little in front of a white background, so that the shadows thrown against this background become integral parts of the pieces. Even their themes are interlinked: Murray's show is called 'Own', and his 18th century landscapes recreated with the jagged lines of a blow torch are embellished with jars of soil and engraved plaques - landscapes enjoyed not for their visual beauty, but as possessions. Brice's show is called 'Staying Alive', and takes a wry look at South Africans engaged in ordinary activities while balaclavaed figures attempt to remove their possessions. November 8 to 22.

If you hurry, you can still catch this show befoe it closes on November 13. Leora Farber applies obsessive intelligence in interpretations of the way the female body is represented - or mis-represented - in medical science, in fashion, in erotic art, in life. The combination of materials Farber uses, mingling surgical steel with wax, reworking and embellishing in strange ways female underwear from corsets to suspenders, gives these works an eerie resonance.

Timed to concide with the events around the 2nd Johannesburg Biennale, the opening of this show at which the overall winner was announced was a disappointment. This was the first year that a new system of selecting a winner was attempted: six nominees were each given R4 000 to make a piece for this show, and the overall winner received R20 000. It did not seem the fault of the new system that the show appeared so makeshift and lacklustre: one felt that possibly with the Biennale on, the participants had directed too many of their energies elsewhere. Tracey Rose's bread-making project might have been great on the day that it happened, but her documentation of it didn't rise above high school level. Peet Pienaar's videoed interview with a rugby player seemed just that and no more.

Joint nominees Patrick Mautloa and Kay Hassan contented themselves with attaching dozens of old shoes to one wall. The most workmanlike and considered piece came from Willem Boshoff, a catalogue in stacked small wooden tablets and in words printed in black on white paper attached to other small tablets and covered with square sheets of glass of all the trees of South Africa. It was no suprise when he was announced to be the winner. As admirable as research and as formally satisfying as Boshoff's piece might have been, it lacked the humanity and emotional depth which made The Blind Alphabet such a hit at the last Biennale.

Lene Tempelhoff at the NSA

Entitled 'Wing on Hand: Sculpture, Architecture and Dancers' , Lene Tempelhoff has drawn on local architecture and environment for her assemblage pieces in bronze and recycled wood. From November 2 - 20.