Archive: Issue No. 60, August 2002

19.08.02 WSSD Exhibition Programme at the Johannesburg Art Gallery
19.08.02 Launch of Johannesburg Art City
19.08.02 Underground Jozi
19.08.02 'Fantastic Rubbish' exhibition for the World Summit's Ubuntu Village
19.08.02 Bag Factory celebrates ten years on
19.08.02 Perceptions at ArtSpace Gallery
19.08.02 'The Fabulous Shoe, Hat and Handbag Extravaganza' at Merely Mortal
19.08.02 'The Bold and the Beautiful' at the Manor Gallery
19.08.02 The Sacred Art of Sand Mandala Painting
19.08.02 !Xun and Kwhe San Art and Craft Project at Upstairs@ Bamboo
01.08.02 Karl Gietl at Spaza Art
01.08.02 Stephen Inggs at Art on Paper
01.08.02 Ardmore Ceramic Art Exhibition at Charles Greig Hyde Park
01.08.02 'People, Planet and Prosperity' at the Absa Gallery
01.08.02 Second Shopping Party at Spark! featuring Headspace
01.08.02 Camera Club of Johannesburg
01.08.02 Kim Berman at the Goodman Gallery
01.08.02 Zoe Mair at the Stewart Gallery
01.08.02 Martienssen Prize exhibition at JAG
01.08.02 Gordon Froud at the Alliance Francaise
01.08.02 Zulu Baskets at Kim Sacks
01.08.02 World Press Photo and Aidan Walsh at the Standard Bank Gallery
01.08.02 Adele Hamblin at the RAU Gallery
01.08.02 The Watercolour Society at the Manor Gallery
01.08.02 Ardmore Ceramics at Gallery on the Square
01.08.02 Thinus Matthee at PhotoZA
17.06.02 Lori Walselchuk - 'African Nights' at MuseumAfrica

19.08.02 Entertainment Technology Students showcase work
19.08.02 Pretoria Art Museum current exhibitions
01.08.02 Gordon Froud at Mind's i Artspace
01.08.02 Sasol New Signatures exhibition at PAM
01.08.02 Ceremonial Dinner Revelry Part II at Association of Arts, Pretoria

The JAG has designed a series of concurrent exhibitions that tackle the mandates of the WSSD from various angles and with a variety of outcomes. The programme has been given the umbrella title of '[re]vision: Art From South Africa'. While the programme does include a broad spectrum of contemporary and traditional practices, those bracketed titles that indicate an intertextual and referential specificity, only to be followed by an all-encompassing subtitle are predictable and annoying.

The exhibitions open consecutively from 10.00 a.m. on August 29. Each opening is followed by interactive walkabouts and discussions by artists and curators with a traditional African lunch at 1.00 p.m.

>> Click through for the complete schedule

Johannesburg Art Gallery, corner Klein and King George Streets, Joubert Park
Tel: 011 725 3130
Fax: 011 720 6000
Hours: Tues - Sun 10am - 5pm

The Johannesburg Art City Project, which aims to transform the centre of Johannesburg into the world's largest outdoor art gallery, has begun installation with enormous billboards featuring South African artworks popping up on the sides of buildings and above existing structures.

Although receiving good press thus far, the project has been somewhat cash-strapped, falling short of the required budget to complete the project, which has involved a national call for entries as well as selecting works from existing corporate collections around the city.

A cellular provider who is simultaneously launching a new campaign using specially-commissioned billboard artworks has since joined the Art City party, providing some necessary funding. The two projects now have a combined launch planned for August 27 at 6.30 p.m. at Newtown's Electric Workshop.

Watch this space for a follow-up in the September edition.

Andrew Lindsay, artist and owner of Spaza Art Gallery, and Tamiko Sher, marketing consultant and writer, have designed 'Underground Jozi', the map of "real" Johannesburg.

Looking to draw people to Spaza Gallery as well as celebrate and promote the lesser known, but no less fabulous, attractions Jozi has to offer, Lindsay and Sher created their own kind of tourist map, with the gallery featuring loud and proud.

Drawing on many years of experience and with help from friends, the partners walked the streets of Newtown, downtown Jo'burg and Troyeville, researched the history and listened to the fascinating stories of the background of old Jo'burg. The map is a genuine (and legal) Underground Jozi, a celebration of downtown Johannesburg, nitty gritty, moments of glamour, a mixture of cultures, class, history and everything else thrown in.

The only standards employed in the creation of the map was that it had to offer something special, either historically or currently, and they prioritised the arts and included artists' houses or workshops and art sites.

The map was fully funded by Lindsay and Sher and is available at Spaza Art Gallery, 19 Wilhemina Street, Toryeville.

Ice Station Johannesburg, an accredited parallel event to the World Summit for Sustainable Development (WSSD) 2002, will host the 'Fantastic Rubbish' art exhibition, located in Ubuntu Village (at Wanderers), and will showcase the successful and sustainable efforts and achievements of global environmental group, Mission Antarctica. In addition, the venue is available for corporate functions in the evening, and will host groups of pre-arranged scholars during the day.

Exhibition co-ordinator Jeanne Hoffman says the exhibition will transgress the boundaries between traditionally recognised fine art and craft, with a common concern to economise and preserve. Visitors to Ice Station Johannesburg will be encouraged to engage in informal workshops with the artists. Hoffmann says: "Instead of isolating and boxing individuals in separate exhibition spaces," she continues, "the unique approach of each participant will be integrated to create a stimulating experience. The intention is to provide a platform for communication between the artists and crafters on the one hand, and the general public on the other, and to inspire thoughts and discussions around the environment and waste specifically."

The exhibition seems to be designed with a journey or progressive experience in mind. The outdoor sculpture garden features work by Willem Boshoff. Lien van der Linde is responsible for the design and construction of a three-pillar archway entrance of the Ice Station. The entrance represents the three pillars of sustainability (social, environmental, economical) as described by Minister Valli Moosa.

Collaborative artworks feature artists represented by the Mukondeni Fine Arts Gallery; Jan van der Merwe in collaboration with Gozololo (Aids orphan shelter); and Chris Gous in collaboration with learners from Heuwel Primary (Pretoria West).

Ice Station boasts installations by Mbongeni Buthelezi; Gordon Froud; Liza Grobler; Moses Seleko, Vusi Mfupi and Jeff Nkabinde; Thulani Shongwe and Johan Thom.

Marna Hattingh; Ferdi Hartzenberg; and San Sibiya, Erique Motheysi and Simphiwe Belle from the BAT Centre, Durban show free-standing sculptures.

Finally visitors will exit through the 'Talking House', part of Mari-Mira, a collaboration between French artists and inventors and popular artists from Kwa-Zulu Natal. The team includes Guy-Andr� Lagesse, Pat Khanye, Jabulani Mhlabini, Sibusiso Mbhele and Doung Anwar Jahangeer as performing guide.

Opens: August 12
Closes: September 6

Contact: Jeanne Hoffman
Tel: +27 (0) 83 299 6645
Email: icestation@attglobal.net

'10/10' is both the title of the new Bag Factory exhibition, and a pretty accurate score on how the artists' studios have rated during their ten year lifetime. To mark their ten year anniversary, the studios (a.k.a. Fordsburg Artists Studios) are hosting an exhibition featuring their permanent artists-in-residence and showcasing newcomers. These newcomers are by no means newcomers to their particular visual arts fields, including sculptor Claudette Schreuders, painter Diana Hyslop and contemporary jeweller Verna Jooste. The studios were established to encourage and develop exchange between artists, both among local artists and artists from abroad. In conjunction with founding organisation the Triangle Arts Trust, the Bag Factory has performed an important function, particularly in breaking down some of the boundaries imposed by cultural boycotts. It runs successful international residency programmes, hosting artists from across the world in the Fordsburg complex, and can boast some of the finest and well-established contemporary art talent. Other permanent residents include Ben Arnold, Bongi Bengu, David Koloane, Dominic Tshabangu, Joachim Sch�nfeldt, Kay Hassan, Pat Mautloa, Paul Emmanuel, Rookeya Gardee, Sam Nhlengethwa, and Stephen Maqashela. Information on individual artists and the Bag Factory programme is available on their website at www.bagfactoryart.org.za.

Opens: August 20 at 5.30 pm
Closes: September 6

Bag Factory, 10 Minnaar Street, Newtown
Tel/fax: (011) 834 9181
Email: bagfactory@acenet.co.za
Hours: Mon - Fri 10am - 3pm, Sat 10am - 1pm, or by appointment

Mandla Mabila, Magda Joubert, Franci Cronj�, and Zach Taljaard come together on this group show entitled 'Perceptions', featuring works in a range of media including oil paintings, sculpture, and digital imagery. The press release accounts for their cohesion as a group that "all of them are trying to live with certain perceptions that society places on certain aspects of their existence."

Mabila works with perceptions of disability, creating very large works that seem at odds with the abilities of an artist that is not 'able-bodied'. Mabila cerates these large works (reaching 2.5 metres across) by abandoning the wheelchair and working on his studio floor.

Magda Joubert has been working with imprints or 'mindsites' of personal and visual recordings of places, impressions, perceptions and feelings, finding equivalents for these in oil, encaustic and various other mark-making materials.

Franci Cronje comments on the perceptions media impose on women, looking at the changes on the construction of body image and roles women are expected to play in both domestic and career environments.

Zach Taljaard finds a parallel between human intellectual and perceptual development and climbing a ladder. Even before one gets to step onto this ladder there already exist fixed factors that will influence decisions along the way. Realisation will lead to personal growth leading to another rung on the ladder, which will hopefully state a lesson learnt. Through different sculptural media he explores the fragility of these stages of realisation and disillusionment. Focusing on children in the pre-school phase, he derives his inspiration from personal memories combined with critically rethinking these memories. The unavoidable factor of gender plays a role in his angle of approach, focusing mainly on these moments of disillusionment life brings.

Opens: August 18 at 5.30 pm
Closes: September 21

The Art Space, 3 Hetty Avenue, Fairland
Tel/fax: (011) 678 1206
Cell: 082 651 4702

Artists, designers, stylists, fashion designers and other creative people have been rounded up by the Merely Mortal crew to produce images, objects and thoughts on these three fundamental fashion accessories. Fetishists welcome.

This design house/lounge/cocktail bar hosts drinks each and every Thursday from 6.00 p.m. onwards. You're guaranteed to meet some interesting people.

Closes: August 31

Merely Mortal, 356 Jan Smuts Ave, Craighall (Diagonally opp. The Colony Centre)
Tel: 011 326 3820 (Heather Greig)
Email: kitework@global.co.za

As huge fan of soap opera, I was somewhat disappointed to see that the members of the Watercolour Association had not in fact paid tribute to the stars of slush TV in this exhibition. Instead, a group of female artists exhibition paintings in a variety of media, alongside sculptures, ceramics and ornamental glassware.

Artists include Marina Aguiar, Nelly Byrne, Celia de Villiers, Linda Fourie, Ana Flores, Carla Heyns, Ruth Kloppers, Barbara Poultney, Fiona Rowett, Jill Smulders and Maike Vermaak.

Although the official opening is on September 1, the exhibition is open to the public from August 30.

Opens: September 1 at 3.00 pm
Closes: September 29

The gallery has extended opening hours during the opening weekend

Manor Gallery, WSSA, Norscot Manor Centre, Penguin Drive, Fourways
Tel: 011 465 7934
E-mail: gallery@wssa.org.za
Website: www.wssa.org.za
Hours: Mon - Fri 10am - 4.30pm, Sat 10am - 1pm

Since August 12, monks from the Nechung Monastery in Tibet have been working in the central courtyard of the Killarney Mall shopping centre creating the first sand mandala (sacred circle) in Africa. Millions of grains of coloured sand are painstakingly laid down in traditional prescribed iconographies that includes geometric shapes and a multitude of ancient spiritual symbols. Once completed, the mandala, also known as a cosmogram is used as a tool for re-consecrating the earth and its inhabitants.

Throughout the process, the monks remain constantly mindful and attentive and as they work, they try to arouse feelings of love, compassion and altruism. When creating different parts of the mandala they contemplate their symbolism as their wish is to give happiness to those who see it, and to generate positive energies.

The monks are scheduled to complete their sand painting on August 20, after which a closing ceremony will be held, in which the time-consuming sand painting will be destroyed. This is done to emphasise that all things produced or coming into existence through causes and conditions are impermanent.

Closing ceremony: August 24 at 10.00 a.m. Central country, Killarney Mall shopping centre.

Hosted by South African interior design and lifestyle store Bright House and Art on Paper gallery to coincide with the WSSD, this exhibition of San Art and Craft is emblematic of people displaced through conflict, having to sustain themselves from land that is not fertile and dealing with change as far as traditional lifestyle is concerned.

The exhibition will consist of Lino cut prints produced in a joint workshop, between the Kuru and the !Xun and Khwe groups; ceramics and textiles produced by the San on the Platfontein farm; and oil paintings painted by individual artists.

The exhibition's origins stem from Catharina Meyer's work with the Kuru art programme in Botswana. She had observed the natural artistic ability of San shepherds despite the lack of formal training and convinced local authorities to introduce an art programme concentrating on job creation and self esteem. De Beers Consolidated sponsored the print workshop that took place in July 2002.

The artists interpret the mythical tales of their history and ancestors. These stories have passed down orally for centuries from one generation to the next. They also find inspiration in the decorated artifacts that their ancestors made and the mythical tales create a dream like quality to their painting.

Opens: August 20
Closes: September 4

Upstairs@Bamboo, Melville
Adrienne Sparks, Bright House
Tel: 011 726 5657; 083 309 4275
Email: brighthouse@yebo.co.za

Karl Gietl shows the result of three months' work since his return to South Africa from three years in Europe. His time on the continent was mainly spent in Paris, but Gietl maintains the intensity of his work came from living in the suburb where he now shows. The exhibition features small and large scale oil paintings of satirical comments and observations of people in urban environments that have been described as "loose short impressions, as if you have driven around in a bus in the head of the artist and viewed his processed images of life�" (Ann Vlaminkx, Antwerpen, 2001)

Alan Kwela performs at the opening at 2.00 p.m.

Opens: August 4 at noon
Closes: August 24

Spaza Art, 19 Wilhemina Street, Troyeville
Tel: (011) 614 9354
Hours: Mon - Fri 10am - 5 pm, Sat 10am - 2pm

It's your last chance this week to see 'Sensum' by Stephen Inggs at Melville's Art on Paper. The exhibition is a collection of light-sensitive emulsion prints by printmaker and Michaelis lecturer Inggs. He is committed to transforming the humble still-life from straightforward representation into something "more wonderful, more intriguing and better than the found objects themselves". 'Sensum' or 'sense-datum', refers to an immediate object of sensory perception. With reference to this exhibition, Inggs concentrates on the historical and cultural residues associated with the stuff of life.

Closes: August 8

Art on Paper, 8 Main Road, Melville (next to Outer Limits bookshop)
Tel: 011 726 2234
Email: mwartonp@mweb.co.za
Hours: Tues - Sat 10am - 5pm

The famous Ardmore ceramic studio founded by Fee Halsted-Berning in KwaZulu Natal, and giving rise to the astonishing talents of Bonnie Ntshalintshali, among many others, is being profiled by one of South Africa's foremost jewellery design houses. Hand painted platters, teapots, vases and bowls retain their functionality but look too good and too precious to use. The exhibition then moves to Charles Greig Sandton.

Charles Greig Hyde Park dates
Opens: August 19
Closes: August 24

Charles Greig Sandton dates
Opens: August 26
Closes: September 6

Tel: (011) 325-4477
e
: hydepark@charlesgreig.co.za

Curated by Boudiccea Castings under the directorship of sculptors Kay Potts and Sanna Swart, 'People, Planet and Prosperity' presents artists' interpretations of the aims of the World Summit, being their "positive solutions, their awarenesses and healing images regarding the environment, sustainable socio-economic development and the pressing and at times awesome needs of the developing world."

Opens.: August 26
Closes: September 20

Absa Gallery, Absa Towers North, 161 Main Street, Johannesburg
Tel: 011 350 4588
Email: juliemc@absa.co.za
Hours: Mon - Fri 9.30am - 3.30pm

Five-0-Lounge, Rehab, Independent Ideas, Lightlab, Interart, Luminary and bafany&thys are joined by an exhibition called 'Headspace' for Spark!'s second shopping party featuring new, re-usable and re-interpreted furniture, lighting, accessories and art. The first shopping party was hugely successful and a huge amount of fun, especially for Eunice Kok's Five-O-Lounge. The guest exhibition Headspace is described as "a juxtaposition of explosive aesthetics and uninhibited imagery on canvas." With PR like that, it better live up to its staggering expectations. And as with all shopping parties, you really should get there early, or try and score a preview.

Opens: August 7 at 7.00 pm
Closes: August 23; Now extended to August 25

If you would like Spark! to consider your exhibition or product for future shopping parties (next one in time for Christmas), call Pieter Vorster on 082 574 2152.

Spark!, 10 Louis Road, Orchards
Tel: 011 622 8297
Pieter Vorster 082 574 2152; Glynnis Jackson 083 836 1210
Email: orchardsproject@yahoo.com
Hours: Mon - Sat 10am till café-bar closes, Sun 10am - noon

As part two of a session on creative photography, Geoffrey Ortlepp will give a presentation entitled "Expressive photography" at the slide section meeting of the Camera Club of Johannesburg.

Two slides may be entered for advancement judging.

R10 buys your entrance as well as refreshments. Visitors are very welcome.

When: August 5 at 7.30 p.m.

Camera Club of Johannesburg
Gordon Institute of Business Science
26 Melville Road, Illovo
Info: Harry Said 011 728 6011

Kim Berman's work engages with the social, physical and emotional character of South Africa and she attempts to communicate her responses to its complexity. In this newest series of work, 'After The Fires', which she began in 2000, she begins to reflect on the deceit and disillusionment that filtered into the South African landscape after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. While the landscapes she depicts are images of polluted or burnt remains, they reflect an interpretation of the social and political destruction of broken promises. Smoke becomes a signifier for concealment and romanticisation, yet the landscape carries the potential for regeneration.

Opens: August 8 at 6.00 pm
Closes: August 24

Goodman Gallery, 163 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parkwood
Tel: 011 788 1113
Fax: 011 788 9887
Email: goodman@iafrica.com
Hours: Tues - Fri 9.30am - 5.30pm, Sat 9.30am - 4pm

Zoe Mair shows a collection of works called 'Sculpting with Colour and Light�, a collection of figurative paintings.

Closes: August 17

The Stewart Gallery (ex Little Louvre)
69 11th Street , Parkhurst , Johannesburg
Gallery Hours: Tuesday 9.00 am to 4.00 pm
Saturday 9.00 a.m. to 1.00 pm
Closed Sundays and Mondays

This year's Martienssen Prize exhibition, featuring work produced by senior Wits Fine Arts students independent of contact time with lecturing staff is currently on view at the JAG. It's a lean and mean show selected out by Jeremy Wafer, Bronwen Findlay and Pitso Chinzima with Natalie Western picked as winner for her animated video piece. Overall the show looks super-slick and is curated well, but the choice of winner seems a bit predictable and the show has a tendency to flatline.

Closes: August 18

Johannesburg Art Gallery, corner Klein and King George Streets, Joubert Park
Tel: 011 725 3130
Fax: 011 720 6000
Hours: Tues - Sun 10am - 5pm

Home for a brief stint before he returns to London, Gordon Froud shows 'Plastic By Nature II', an installation of sculptural objects constructed from plastic cups, knives, forks, spoons and plates. It is an extension of the exhibition 'The Grand Picnic' (Paris, France, September 2000), and 'Plastic by Nature' (African Window Museum, Pretoria, April / May 2001). The abstracted forms are reminiscent of columns, figures, plant forms and space-age satellites. An exhibition by Froud runs concurrently in Pretoria (see Pretoria listings).

Opens: August 6 at 6.30 pm
Closes: August 28

Alliance Française, 17 Lower Park Drive, Parkview
Tel: 011 646 1169
Fax: 011 646 4521

Another exhibition that is cashing in on all the attention generated by the World Summit is one featuring Zulu basket weaving at Kim Sacks Gallery, curated by Jannie van Heerden. Van Heerden, who is employed by the Department of Education and Culture in Durban, has spent many years documenting, researching and working with basket weavers in rural KwaZulu Natal. The show includes a range of basket styles, eating mats, izimbenge (beer pot covers) and objects made from contemporary materials including telephone wire.

Opens: August 24 from 10.00 am
Closes: September 10

The World Press Photo makes it annual appearance at the Standard Bank Gallery, attracting a broad spectrum of visitors. It's the twelfth consecutive year that the gallery hosts the 45 year old competition, which draws literally thousands of entries from leading photojournalists from 123 countries. You can expect a 'snapshot' of world events as told through the media, as well as unpublished material on view for the first time. Danish lensman Erik Refner scooped top honours, but our own Jodi Bieber won first prize in the Portraits Singles series. Now you'd be right to expect lots of carnage and violence, especially given world events over the last year. So if it all gets too much, and you begin to feel like your perception's being blunted, take a break in the downstairs gallery with Aidan Walsh's 'Sacred Spaces'. Walsh, one of the country's leading painters, paints places as fond memories, "unscathed by time and devoid of tourists". He interprets spaces and places in Paris, Cape Town , Durban and the Karoo, drawing out public and private icons that are at once specific, but could belong anywhere.

Opens: August 7 at 6.00 pm
Closes: August 31

Standard Bank Gallery, corner Simmonds and Fredericks Streets, Johannesburg
Tel: 011 636 4231
Website: www.sbgallery.co.za
Hours: Mon - Fri 8am - 4.30pm, Sat 9am - 1pm

Photographer Adele Hamblin presents 'The Inner Room', a collection of digital images that the press release says "allows her to depart from her previous conceptual works, which commented on external social issues." Her work attempts to delve into subconscious realities in the search for the stuff of identity, intending to provoke inquiry and introspection. It is this application of digital technology, Hamblin says, "which facilitates the creation of images that take the viewer to the edge of neosurrealism."

RAU Art Gallery, Rand Afrikaans University, cnr Kingsway and University Road, Auckland Park
Tel: 011 489 2099
Hours: Mon - Fri 9am - 6pm, Sat 9am - 1pm

The Watercolour Society of South Africa (WSSA) presents the 'Branch Signatures' exhibition that profiles up and coming members of the society from around the country.

The exhibition is on view to the public from August 2.

Opens: August 4 at 3.00 pm
Closes: August 25

Manor Gallery, WSSA, Norscot Manor Centre, Penguin Drive, Fourways
Tel: 011 465 7934
E-mail: gallery@wssa.org.za
Website: www.wssa.org.za
Hours: Mon - Fri 10am - 4.30pm, Sat 10am - 1pm

The prolific Ardmore ceramic studio presents another selection of work at the Gallery on the Square, this time profiling the work of men resident at the studio, including Zeblon Msele and Wonderboy Nxumalo, among others.

Opens: August 15 at 6.30 pm
Closes: September 14

Gallery on the Square, Sandton Square, Sandown
Tel: 011 784 2847
Fax: 011 784 2849
Email: gots@mweb.co.za
Hours: Mon - Thurs 10am - 6pm, Fri - Sat 9am - 5pm, Sun 10am - 2pm

'Ghost Mountain Air' is the title of an exhibition of silver prints by Thinus Matthee. The images were shot in the mountainous landscape around the legendary Ghost Mountain at Mkuse in rural KwaZulu Natal. The panoramic landscapes and environmental portraits were shot in the crisp early morning light or the late glowing afternoon light, giving rise to rich textures enhanced by a lith-print treatment on a metallic base paper.

Closes: August 24

PhotoZA, The Mews, Rosebank
Cell: 082 533 7143 (Michelle Rock)

While travelling on assignment through Africa, documentary photographer Lori Waselchuk produced this collection of images that reflect African nightlife in a frank, fervent and often poignant way. A documentation of human interaction, pleasure-seeking, recreation and entrepreneurship across the continent, Waselchuk's subjects are shot with available light on standard film with quite astonishing results. A riot of colour, glowing light and shadow, 'African Nights' present a very collectable interpretation of contemporary urban life in Africa that manages to avoid all the usual clichés. Also showing until July 14 is Gideon Mendel's 'A Broken Landscape', an intimate account of responses to living with HIV/AIDS.

Opening: June 20 at 6pm
Closing: September 22

MuseumAfrica, 121 Bree St, Newtown
Tel: (011) 833 5624
Fax: (011) 833 5636
Hours: Tues - Sun 9am - 5pm

Celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, the department of entertainment technology at Technikon Pretoria is a "display window" of work produced in the department the past year and includes big decor panels, properties, marionettes, costumes, textiles, animatronics, make-up, sound and lighting. A show of period costumes and make-up will accompany the opening. Special videos of scenes from productions through the years will be shown as well as slides of make-up and hairstyling.

You might think, "but this is not very contemporary art", but Vita nominee Jan van der Merwe is a lecturer in the department, and we only need to think of the theatrical cross-overs in William Kentridge�s oeuvre to realise the potential for artists to apply these skills in installation, performance and public projects.

Opens: August 27
Closes: September 10

Department Entertainment Technology, Technikon Pretoria
Arts Campus, 24 Du Toit Street, Building 25
Contact: S du Plooy
Tel: (012) 318 6153 / 4
Email: duplooys@techpta.ac.za

Art by a selection of artists represented in the school syllabus Grades 9 to 12 is on display together with basic information on the artists. The Corobrik Collection, previously housed at the Sandton Civic Gallery, is also on show.

Both close end of September.

Pretoria Art Museum, corner Schoeman and Wessels streets, Arcadia
Tel: 012 344 1807/8
Fax: 012 344 1809
Email: artmuseum@pretoriagov.za
Website: www.pretoria.gov.za/pam
Hours: Tues, Thur - Sat 10am - 5pm, Wed 10am - 8pm, Sun 12pm - 5pm

Running alongside his Johannesburg show, Gordon Froud shows 'Lost & Found', described as "an installation of small works from London." Froud has been living and working as an artist and teacher in London for the last 3 _ years. This exhibition is a result of cramped and limited working space during his stay. With studio space at a premium, Froud found himself responding to this reality by producing work on a much smaller and lighter scale, most measuring less than 12cm in height. 'Lost & Found' includes a couple of hundred small works based on 'street junk' � toys found in charity shops. Froud has either left these in their original state or cast them in bronze, aluminium or stainless steel. The artist will invite the four directors of the gallery, Diek Grobler, Hanneke Benade, Michelle Nigrini and Retha Buitendach to collaborate on a piece each as part of the show.

Closes: August 24

Mind's i Artspace, Shop 63 Brooklyn Square, Brooklyn, Pretoria
Tel: (012) 346 5131
Email: minds-i@lantic.net
Website: www.minds-i.co.za

The Sasol New Signatures exhibition takes places once again at the Pretoria Art Museum. It's the last big one on the competition circuit for the year with a first prize of R10 000 and two judges' awards of R5 000 each. The competition attracted over 200 entries with the judging task taken up by Franci Cronje (chairperson), Marco Cianfanelli, Peter Binsbergen, Abrie Fourie and Kathryn Smith. Independent judges are Neil Dundas and Marcus Neustetter.

The People's Choice Prize will be announced on Friday August 30 at 6.30 p.m.

Opens: August 7 at 6.30 pm
Closes: September 7

Pretoria Art Museum, corner Schoeman and Wessels streets, Arcadia
Tel: 012 344 1807/8
Fax: 012 344 1809
Email: artmuseum@pretoriagov.za
Website: www.pretoria.gov.za/pam
Hours: Tues, Thur - Sat 10am - 5pm, Wed 10am - 8pm, Sun 12pm - 5pm

Franci Cronje curated the Lowther Technologies Ceremonial Dinner Revelry Part I on July 11 at the Association of Arts. A group of male semi-celebrities, academics, newspaper editors and men-about-town sat around a triangular table three-per-side. The table's design deliberately referenced Judy Chicago's pro-feminist piece 'The Dinner Party'. Nine female celebrities and women-about-town (including Miss South Africa) paraded in one at a time and fed the hapless men gourmet titbits that went from the sublime (fillet with chocolate chili sauce) to the ridiculous (sesame-encrusted cock's comb). This went on until food was being used as a weapon - women were not allowed to taste the food and men could not refuse what they were being fed. I was wondering about allergic reactions. Anyway, the performance operated on several very interesting levels - sexually, emotionally and mentally. Cronje was making a point about media, information and public consumption and I think it worked. It was an outrageous evening regardless. What do they say about spectacle�?

Alongside Cronje, artists Magda Joubert and Hanolet Uys have taken the footage and documentation from that evening and reprocessed it for the Lowther Technologies Ceremonial Dinner Revelry Part II. They reflect on food's status as nourishment and tool for political and social leverage. With the World Summit on our doorstep and the food crisis in Southern Africa a matter of urgency, the three artists focus on a powerful and fundamental substance. With the video installation involving a wall of water on opening night only, Franci Cronjé also emphasises the ephemerality of food and the short-lived nourishment thereof.

Opens: August 4 at 5.30 p.m. with guest speaker Jennifer Ferguson Closes: August 15

Association of Arts, 173 Mackie Street, Nieuw Muckleneuk, Pretoria
Tel: (012) 346 3100
Fax: (012) 346 3125
Email: artspta@mweb.co.za
Website: www.art.co.za/artspta
Hours: Tues - Fri 10am - 4.30pm, Sat 10am - 12pm