Archive: Issue No. 70, June 2003

18.06.03 Lynne Lomofsky and Anthony Cawood at the AVA
18.06.03 Stefan Blom's 'Dressed for Love'
18.06.03 Guy Tillim's Departure at Bell-Roberts
18.06.03 Guy Tillim's Dr Congo series at Bell-Roberts Photographic Gallery
18.06.03 Guy Tillim's Kunhing Portraits at Michael Stevenson Contemporary
18.06.03 Chris Ledochowski at Michael Stevenson Contemporary
18.06.03 Jesus Macarena-Avila to speak at Art.b
01.06.03 New shows at the AVA
01.06.03 Winter Show at at Joáo Ferreira
01.06.03 Photographs by Street Children at the Sanlam Art Gallery
01.06.03 Terry Kurgan at Bell-Roberts
15.05.03 Gladys Mgudlandlu Retrospective at the SANG
15.04.03 Jane Alexander at SANG

01.06.03 Lientjie Blok at the US Gallery
15.05.03 Alan Alborough at the Sasol Art Museum

16.06.03 National Arts Festival

Lynne Lomofsky takes over both downstairs spaces of the gallery with 'Body of Evidence'. The show comprises videos, paintings in wax and oil and an archive of collages and photographs. Through these media, Lomofsky confronts the vulnerability of the diseased body, the transience of life and the struggle with mortality. With the visualisations of herself she attempts to order and unify the many disparate and chaotic elements of the experience of the ill body.

Since her diagnosis with lymphoma in 1993 and her successful 1997/ 8 exhibition 'Cancer Ward: LE 32', Lomofsky has continued to document, collate and investigate her experiences of cancer and the "complex issues of representation of the 'sick' body" (as Kathryn Smith wrote) through a range of medical imaging technologies, video recordings and photographic documentation which have been distilled into a collection of images and videos. Lomofsky says: "whereas 'Cancer Ward: LE 32' was more a display of trauma and loss, this work is less confrontational, yet still highly personal, with my body as both subject and object. It is an ongoing exploration of the 'interiority' and 'otherness' of my own diseased body."

Lomofsky graduated with a BA from UCT in 1980 and later completed a National Diploma in Fine Art at the Cape Technikon. She recently completed a Masters in Fine Art at Michaelis School of Fine Art (UCT). She has exhibited in South Africa and abroad and has received a number of awards and public grants in Toronto where she lived for seven years. She has lived and worked in Cape Town since returning here for treatment in 1995. This exhibition consists largely of work submitted for her Master's degree in 2002.

On the Artsstrip, Anthony Cawood will hold his second one-person exhibition at AVA. Born in KwaZulu-Natal, Cawood travelled in Europe, Egypt, Israel, Mexico and West Africa before settling in Cape Town where he now lives and works. Of this exhibition he says: "The paintings have developed through the continual investigation of drawing. Engagement with the environment through drawing has informed the process of these paintings as they are specific to a sense of 'place' ". Cawood participated in a residency at the Fordsburg Art studios (Bag Factory) in Johannesburg in 1999 and thereafter in the Rafiki International workshop in Tanzania in 2001, as well as in Thupelo International workshops in 2000 and 2003 in the Cape. He has taken part in several Absolut Secret shows and has organised and taken part in a variety of art-related Artreach projects at Valkenburg Hospital, with refugee children at the ARC and in the Peace One Day exhibition at the SANG.

Opening 6pm, Monday June 9

Opens: June 9
Closes: June 28

Association for Visual Arts, 35 Church Street, Cape Town
Tel: (021) 424 7436
Fax: (021) 423 2637
Email: estava@iafrica.com
Website: www.ava.co.za
Hours: Mon - Fri 10am - 5pm, Sat 10am - 1pm

Hosted by the Hänel Gallery, Stefan Blom presents 'Dressed for Love' in his studio. His last one-person show was at the H�nel's Shortmarket Street gallery and featured a video piece and a series of paintings based on a video of a dogfight. The exhibition is only visible by appointment, and, following this, moves to Germany.

To be opened by Jill Trappler at 6pm, Monday June 16

Opens: June 17
Closes: June 24

17 Commercial Street, Cape Town
Tel: (021) 790 1108
Email: ehaenel@compuserve.com
Website: www.hanelgallery.com

The first of well-known SA photographer Guy Tillim's three simultaneous shows in Cape Town, 'Departure' comprises 40 black-and-white digital prints. This series, accompanied by a book published by Bell-Roberts, displays Tillim's distinctive aesthetic of approach to what are often harsh realities. He is a passive but empathetic spectator. Tillim has been resident in Paris for a few years now.

Opening 6pm, Tuesday June 17

Opens: June 17
Closes: July 12

Bell-Roberts Art Gallery, 199 Loop Street, Cape Town
Tel: 021 422 1100
Fax: 021 423 3135
Email: suzette@bell-roberts.com
Website: www.bell-roberts.com
Hours: Mon - Fri 8.30am - 5pm, Sat 10am - 1pm

Tillim's 'Dr Congo' series of 30 black-and-white handprints were taken between December 2002 and January 2003 and convey the devastating effect on civilians of the five-year war between the Congolese government and the ever-splintering rebel groups. According to UN figures, some two million people have been displaced by the conflict in eastern Congo. On assuming power in 2001, President Joseph Kabila pledged to honour civil and political rights, but throughout 2002 continued to exercise autocratic powers. The Ugandan and Rwandan governments continue to support various factions in securing access to one of the richest mineral areas in Africa, and none of the factions have shown any respect for the civilian population, nor for any length of time, honoured their cease-fire agreements.

Opening 6pm, Tuesday June 17

Opens: June 17
Closes: July 12

Bell-Roberts Art Gallery, 199 Loop Street, Cape Town
Tel: 021 422 1100
Fax: 021 423 3135
Email: suzette@bell-roberts.com
Website: www.bell-roberts.com
Hours: Mon - Fri 8.30am - 5pm, Sat 10am - 1pm

In what amounts to a virtual takeover of Cape Town art galleries, a third exhibition by Guy Tillim opens this month. Tillim will show his 'Kunhinga Portraits' taken in February last year in the Angolan province of Bie, near Kuito. The series of images portrays displaced people, who in the months before the end of the civil war, fled in advance of the Angolan government's 'clearing' of regions where civilians had provided cover for UNITA soldiers. The subjects had walked for five days from Monge to seek refuge in the small town of Kunhinga, in the safe havens provided by foreign agencies stationed in the area. These colour portraits are a new departure for Tillim who is best known for his black-and-white reportage images.

Opening 6pm, Wednesday June 18

Opens: June 18
Closes: July 19

Michael Stevenson Contemporary
Hill House, De Smidt Street, Waterkant, Cape Town
Tel: (021) 421 2575
Email: michael@michaelstevenson.com
Website: www.michaelstevenson.com
Hours: Mon - Fri 9am - 5pm, Sat 10am - 1pm

Michael Stevenson hosts a second photographic exhibition with Chris Ledochowski's 'Cape Flats Details: Art and Life in the Townships of Cape Town'. For the past 15 year Ledochowski has documented life in the townships (or Cape Flats) in Cape Town. Racked by the harsh 'southeaster' (as Cape Town's notorious wind is affectionately known) and frequently flooded in winter, the Cape Flats is highly unsuitable for residential purposes. But today it has become home to nearly one million people.

Ledochowski's use of the term 'details' stands in contrast to the general appearance of the townships as a bleak and colourless environment - an environment, which over time, challenges one to seek and unveil hidden layers. It is here that Ledochowski has found individual and collective expression of creativity and resilience that give positive meaning and definition to peoples' lives. His works present public and private images of hope that bring together and convey tradition and modernity, stability and change, faith and despair. Against the rigid domination by apartheid, so physically represented in the construction of township living spaces, people created and nurtured a culture that was under their control.

"In the townships, I focused my attention on capturing - through photography - the dignity with which people were surviving and challenging their oppressive living conditions," says Ledochowski. "The energy and soul of this struggle drew inspiration from the growing climate of political defiance. A collective desire for change gave people purpose and direction. I found that even in the midst of this modern political struggle, people still drew primarily on their traditional cultures and religious convictions, using them as outlets for creative expression. This project attempts to capture expressions of that process."

A second set of the 'Cape Flats Details' images will simultaneously be shown at the Venice Biennale. Ledochowski was invited by Biennale Director Francesco Bonami to present a selection from this series in the exhibition 'The Structure of Survival' curated by Carlos Basualdo, where he is one of only three African artists.

Opening 6pm, Wednesday June 18

Opens: June 18
Closes: July 19

Michael Stevenson Contemporary
Hill House, De Smidt Street, Waterkant, Cape Town
Tel: (021) 421 2575
Email: michael@michaelstevenson.com
Website: www.michaelstevenson.com
Hours: Mon - Fri 9am - 5pm, Sat 10am - 1pm

Jesus Macarena-Avila is a multi-media visual artist working and living in the city of Chicago. He is currently completing an art residency with Greatmore Studios.

Macarena-Avila will discuss his 2002 series 'Invisible Flesh', which deals with the topic of an American identity. This series is an intersection between painting, craft, and sculpture with installation concerns. Macarena-Avila will create an installation project with Cape Town artist, Liza Grobler in June - July 2003 at the Museum of Temporary Art located in the Observatory area and a solo exhibition at Greatmore Studios in July - August 2003.

Macarena-Avila holds a MFA degree from Norwich University-Vermont College and a BFA degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His work has been exhibited at numerous Chicago cultural centres, museums, and galleries. Fellowships, lecture presentations, and grants include: the Printmaking Workshop in New York City, the Illinois Arts Council, Antioch College, Columbia College Chicago, Malcolm X College, and the 19th Century Women's Club.

The talk will take place on Tuesday, June 24 at 7pm.

Art.b., Library Centre, Carel van Aswegen Street, Bellville
Tel: (021) 918 2301/2287
Fax: (021) 918 2083
Email: artb@icon.co.za
Hours: Mon - Fri 8am - 8pm, Sat 9am - 5pm

The AVA is hosting three concurrent exhibits: the annual 'Committee's Choice', Sanell Aggenbach's solo show 'Blank' and Kilmany-Jo Liversage's 'Orda'.

Each member of the AVA's nine-person committee has selected a work for the 'Committee's Choice' show. This year's selection includes work by Kevin Brand, Nadja Daehnke, Lundi Mdubwa, Zwelethu Mthethwa, Andr� Naude, Sipho Ndlovu, Doreen Southwood, Judy Woodborne, Adam Letch and Valentina Love.

Sanell Aggenbach holds her fourth solo show and second at this venue, entitled 'Blank'. Having seen Aggenbach's last show at the Bell-Roberts, one might expect to see paintings here once again, but 'Blank' consists of a large sculptural piece and a tapestry. Aggenbach aligns herself with the satire and social commentary of the Bitterkomix publications, in work that she sees as a "re-evaluation of the Afrikaner in a democratic society".

A large sculptural work, depicting a flock of life-size black sheep, examines guilt and innocence in the young Afrikaner's psyche, addressing their disenchantment with a disingenuous cultural heritage. A tapestry work invokes depictions of South African landscape by artists like Pierneef and Hugo Naud�, using this as a satirical metaphor for a flawed cultural heritage.

In 1999 Aggenbach was selected for the UNESCO-Aschberg Residency programme at the Sanskriti Kendra, New Delhi, India where she spent several months. She has won the 'New Signatures' exhibition at the Arts Association of Belville and she is currently on the national Absa L'atelier exhibition.

Upstairs in the Artsstrip, newcomer Kilmay-Jo Liversage is exhibiting new work in her first one-person exhibition. Of the work the artist says: "My focus in this current work is to visually analyse the concept of order. This exhibition displays a visual system of thought, and customs of society. The changed format of the word 'order' to 'orda' is my interpretation of the holistic analysis of personal and social thought processes."

Liversage was born in Bloemfontein in 1973 and holds a National Diploma and a B-Tech in Fine Arts from the Free State Technikon. She was a semi-finalist in the ABSA Atelier competition in 2002, and participated in 'Absolut Secret Seven' at the AVA last year.

Opens: 6pm, Monday May 19
Closes: June 7

Association for Visual Arts, 35 Church Street, Cape Town
Tel: (021) 424 7436
Fax: (021) 423 2637
Email: estava@iafrica.com
Website: www.ava.co.za
Hours: Mon - Fri 10am - 5pm, Sat 10am - 1pm

João Ferreira's aptly titled 'Winter Show' comprises a selection of work by artists represented by the gallery, as well as some pieces by younger, lesser-known artists. The show has been curated by artist and gallery assistant Geeta Chagan.

Opens: 6pm, Wednesday May 28
Closes: June 19

João Ferreira Gallery, 80 Hout Street, Cape Town
Tel: 021 423 5403 or 082 490 2977
Fax: 021 423 2136
Email: info@artjoao.co.za
Website: www.artjoao.co.za
Hours: Tue - Fri 10am - 6pm, Sat 10am - 2pm

Guided by the motto 'Educate us, don't hate us', poet Gavin Joachims of Green Point and German filmmaker Katharina Pechel decided to develop the creative talents of Cape Town's street children, to get them away from life on the street. Says Joachims: "You cannot put these kids in ordinary classrooms. One must find other ways of educating and empowering them".

Empowered with 50 disposable cameras donated by photographers Tove Farkas (Sweden) and Benoit Ihry (France), the children were tasked with documenting their lives over a period of three days. 34 cameras were returned for developing and a selection of these photographs is being exhibited.

Opens: May 12
Closes: June 13

Sanlam Art Gallery, 2 Strand Road, Bellville
Tel: (021) 947 3359
Fax: (021) 947 3838
Email: stefan.hundt@sanlam.co.za
Hours: Mon - Fri 9am - 4.45pm

Terry Kurgan's new show 'Skip' opens at Bell-Roberts. The show is in two parts, the first documenting a public project in which she's been involved for the last few years and the second being a new video projection. The show is an attempt to show these two apparently distinct aspects of her practice as conceptually bound. Alongside her photograpy, Kurgan has been working increasingly more in the public arena. In 1999, she produced a large photographic installation called Maternal Exposures at the Mowbray Maternity Clinic. Soon afterwards, following a relocation to Johannesburg, she became involved with the Joubert Park Project, producing a mobile studio for the park's street photographers. Here she presents slide documentation of that project. Her new video work focuses once again on one of her children, '�trying here to evoke the phenomenon of memory and make material the meaning of photographic images', by the recording of a simple, everyday act and presenting it in such a way as to evoke something extraordinary.

Opening 6pm, Wednesday May 21

Openign: May 21
Closing: June 7

Bell-Roberts Art Gallery, 199 Loop Street, Cape Town
Tel: 021 422 1100
Fax: 021 423 3135
Email: suzette@bell-roberts.com
Website: www.bell-roberts.com
Hours: Mon - Fri 8.30am - 5pm, Sat 10am - 1pm

Gladys Mgudlandlu, who died in 1979, has been described as the first African woman painter of note and she was the first to exhibit in Cape Town, if not on the entire continent.

Born in the Eastern Cape in 1925, Mgudlandlu lived much of her life in semi-poverty, teaching by day, often painting until 2am in her tiny home in Nyanga. Mgudlandlu was largely self-taught and consequently followed no painting tradition, though art critics perceived in her work the bold primitivism of Rousseau, Chagall and Kandinsky. She described herself as a "dreamer-imaginist". Originally concentrating on birds and landscapes (her own people called her unontaka or 'bird lady'), Mduglandlu later turned to African figures.

Mgudlandlu held three one-woman exhibitions in Cape Town and one in Port Elizabeth. She exhibited in several Eastern Cape centres and even as far afield as the USA. Amongst the honours she received was a prize in the 1963 Art South Africa Today Exhibition in Durban. Her work is included in many private and public collections both in SA and abroad. This retrospective has been curated by Joe Dolby.

Opens: May 21
Closes: June 22

South African National Gallery, Government Avenue, Company Gardens, Cape Town
Tel: (021) 481-3823 from 8:30am-1pm
Fax: (021) 461 0045
Email: ebedford@iziko.org.za
Website: www.museums.org.za/sang
Hours: Tues - Sun 10am - 5pm

Jane Alexander, winner of the 2002 DaimlerChrysler Award for South African sculpture, is best known for The Butcher Boys, which she made in 1985. The work remains the SANG's most popular and famous work. But it is not only this work that won her the prestigious award, which provided funds for a major international exhibition and the production of an impressive catalogue.

This exhibition at the SANG includes The Butcher Boys, 'The Bom Boys' series (which she showed at the Irma Stern a few years ago) as well as her new tableau 'African Adventure'. Where the first work made specific comment on the brutality of South African apartheid society, with the 'The Bom Boys' Alexander has narrowed her focus to her immediate environs. This series found the artist looking to Cape Town's street kids, a problem which inspires empathy and fear in equal measure amongst Capetonians. These street kids are particularly prevalent on Long Street, where the artist lived for a period.

Alexander never limited herself to simply depicting these young children, and the scaled-down and masked figures spoke much more widely about the human condition and South African society generally. The odd scale and proportions of the figures was very disquieting and the recurrent trickster figures prevented any interpretation from resting too easily.

Alexander's 'The African Adventure', her most recent series, also looks to Long Street, home to an increasing number of tourist operations and adventure centres. Sculptures, photomontages and video work look at the uneasy truce between the 'African Adventures' offered to backpackers and the gritty realism of the increasingly multi-cultural street with its problems that just won't go away.

Alexander is a senior lecturer at the Michaelis School of Fine Art and has received several major awards including 1995's Standard Bank Young Artist Award and the FNB Vita Art Now Award the year following. She has exhibited extensively internationally and her work is to be found in numerous public and private collections.

Opens: April 26
Closes: July 27

South African National Gallery, Government Avenue, Company Gardens, Cape Town
Tel: (021) 481-3823 from 8:30am-1pm
Fax: (021) 461 0045
Email: ebedford@iziko.org.za
Website: www.museums.org.za/sang
Hours: Tues - Sun 10am - 5pm

Lientjie Blok's one-person show is entitled 'Resurrection'. Her foil prints, objects made from recycled materials and video piece posit themselves as a dialogue in the context of consumerism, ecology, morality and spirituality, although Blok never loses sight of the aesthetic. Blok consciously chooses her materials, considering both the limits thereof and her understanding of the world in which the work is accepted, observed and used.

Opens: 6.30pm, Thursday May 29
Closes: June 18

US Art Gallery, corner Dorp and Bird Streets, Stellenbosch
Tel: (021) 808 3524
Email: kh@sun.ac.za
Website: www.sun.ac.za/usmuseum
Hours: Mon - Fri 9am - 5pm, Sat 9am - 1pm

Alan Alborough's cryptically titled show 'work[ing/ in] pro[cess/ gress]' opens at the Sasol Art Museum. Typically, the press release is devoid of much information and includes no image. Tantalisingly though, Alborough promises to be in residence at the gallery on Wednesday evenings and Sunday afternoons as the 'work evolves'.

Alborough has been remarkably prolific in the last few years, having produced his major Standard Bank Young Artist Award exhibition, a solo show at the US Gallery and having won the last FNB Vita Award with another major work last year. Most of these works and exhibitions were accompanied by no information and few images, while both the US and the Standard Bank shows evolved during the course of their running. An education programme aimed specifically at young learners will run concurrently with the exhibition.

There will be an opening reception on June 14 at 1 pm.

Opens: May 7
Closes: July 23

Sasol Art Museum, 52 Ryneveld Street, Stellenbosch
Tel: 021 808 3693
Fax: 021 808 3669
Email: lmdw@sun.ac.za
Website: www.sun.ac.za/usmuseum
Hours: Tues - Fri, 9am - 4pm, Wed 9am - 8pm, Sat 9am - 5pm, Sun 2pm - 5pm

The National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, although somewhat scaled down from previous years, presents a comprehensive visual arts programme. Two of the three major one-person exhibitions are by woman of colour, and the third by a black man, which marks a slight and welcome change of direction this year. The event takes place June 27 - July 5.

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