Archive: Issue No. 67, March 2003

15.03.03 Mark Coetzee at the AVA
15.03.03 Lexicons and Labyrinths at the SA Museum
15.03.03 Night Vision and Art Night
15.03.03 Stan Engelbrecht at Bell-Roberts
15.03.03 Carlos Carvalho at the Cape Gallery
15.03.03 Peace One Day at the SANG Annexe
15.03.03 Tony Grogan at the 3rd i Gallery
15.03.03 Bruce Gordon Goes on Show
01.03.03 Michaelis Lunchtime Lecture by Jeff Koons
01.03.03 Lang and Baumann at Bell-Roberts
01.03.03 Matthew Hindley at the Michaelis Galleries
01.03.03 Lorna Marsh at João Ferreira
01.03.03 Art as weapon of struggle: Talk by Lionel Davis
01.03.03 Kentridge symposium at the SA Museum
01.03.03 Julian Rademeyer at the Cold Room
16.12.02 Tours of the Kentridge Retrospective for the deaf
15.11.02 William Kentridge Retrospective at the SANG

15.03.03 The Klein Karoo National Arts Festival
15.03.03 Kalm Karoo opens in Montagu

Now resident in Miami and curator of the famed Rubell collection of contemporary art, Mark Coetzee returns to Cape Town for another solo outing at the AVA. 'All Our Sons II' is to take up all three of the exhibition spaces. Coetzee's work is often provocative and he says little about it, which seems to keep it just beyond the grasp of the viewer. In sculpture, photography, painting and installation, Coetzee has always been upfront about taking on social institutions and conventions and it's safe to assume that this new work will be no different.

Opening 6pm, Thursday March 20

Opens: March 20
Closes: April 5

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

Accompanying the African Human Genome Conference taking place in Cape Town is a broader visual arts programme at the South African Museum that includes both a competition and a curated exhibition. 'Lexicons and Labyrinths' is curated by artist Fritha Langerman, who has selected along with herself Alan Alborough, Willem Boshoff, Lien Botha, Nadja Dhaenke, Isaac Khanyile, Malcolm Payne and Sandile Zulu.

Langerman has chosen the above for their "conceptual approach to art production and specific concerns with language, form and science". All of the artists will show new work, which will range in media and be largely installation-based. Given the venue it's quite likely that some of the artists will establish some kind of dialogue with the museum's existing exhibits in order to explore concepts and implications of the Human Genome Project.

The original opening date has been moved from March 5 to March 22 and the closing date is unclear at this stage.

Opening March 22

South African Museum, Company Gardens, Queen Victoria Street, Cape Town
Tel: (021) 481-3943/0 or 083 316-8794
Fax: (021) 481-3941
Email: cquerido@iziko.org.za
Website: www.museums.org.za/iziko
Hours: Mon - Sun 10am - 5pm

As part of 'Night Vision', the major one-night happening launching the 2003 Cape Town Festival, the ever-popular Art Night will, once again, be taking place in the city centre. Based on previous such events, galleries and antique shops in the city remain open from 6 to 10 p.m on the night. The area around Church Street is usually particularly lively given the concentration of venues and traders there. The Jazz Profiles will play on the patio of the AVA, which will open a new installation by internationally renowned South African artist and curator, Mark Coetzee, now living in Miami. Other participating galleries include João Ferreira who is showing Lorna Marsh, the Bell-Roberts with Jillian Lochner and George Hallet, and The 3rd i Gallery with their Tony Grogan exhibition.

Night Vision itself will probably be as lively and well subscribed as last year. Happening on the night before a public holiday, the city's bars and nightclubs are sure to be packed. Performances take place on the streets in the city and one to look out for will be 'Urbanthropus' by Da Motus!. This Swiss dance/performance collective present street theatre for two performers, which is described as a combination of "precisely choreographed structure and an improvisation inspired by the particular characteristics of the site and by unforeseen events". They have been brought out here by Pro Helvetia and will also perform at the KKNK. The organisers have undertaken once again to provide adequate safety and security for patrons.

6 - 10p.m, Thursday March 20

Tel: (021) 424 7436
Email: estava@iafrica.com

Running concurrently with the Lang/Baumann show is Stan Engelbrecht's 'Infinity'. This video installation, seen recently at YDESIRE, takes place in the Bell-Roberts' mobile gallery, last seen at 2002's KKNK. The glass walled structure will be assembled inside the regular gallery space and will house video images based (one assumes) on Engelbrecht's series of photographs of wild horses in Namibia.

Opening 6.30pm, Wednesday March 12

Opens: March 12
Closes: March 23

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

Carlos Carvalho is perhaps better known as a comic artist than a painter, and has worked many years both writing and drawing comics. Alongside this he has always painted and occasionally even sculpts. Carvalho was born in Mo�ambique and his mother was an accomplished artist there. The rich colours and bold design that characterises his work is clearly inspired by the vibrant, tropical landscape of his childhood.

Opening 4.30pm, Sunday March 16

Opens: March 16
Closes: April 5

Cape Gallery, 60 Church Street, Cape Town
Tel: (021) 423 5309
Fax: (021) 424 9063
Email: cgallery@mweb.co.za
Website: www.capegallery.co.za
Hours: Mon - Fri 9.30am - 5pm, Sat 9am - 1pm

Presented by the Artreach Programme of the AVA, 'Peace One Day' features work by schoolchildren from Devon and Cape Town. The exhibition was organised by Devon Local Education Authority in Devon, England, in association with the AVA and South West Academy of Fine and Applied Arts. The paintings, ranging widely in size and media, were all made by children from five to 16 years old and explore what peace means to the pupils at home, at school, as well as nationally and internationally.

Opening 11am, Saturday March 15

Opens: March 11
Closes: March 23

SANG Annexe, Hatfield Avenue, Gardens, Cape Town
Tel: 424-7436
Fax (021) 423-2637
Email: estava@iafrica.com Hours: Tue - Sun 10am - 5pm

Coinciding with the launch of a collection of Tony Grogan's cartoons is 'Grogan's Cape Town', an exhibition of drawings of the Mother City. Grogan is as well known for his pointed satire as for his accurate and descriptive drawings and watercolours of his surrounds. The book covers work starting in the early 1970s right up to the present.

Opening by Chris Whitfield, Cape Times Editor, 6.30p.m, Wednesday March 12

Opens: March 12
Closes: April 25

3rd i Gallery, 95 Upper Waterkant Street (corner Buitengracht)
Tel: (021) 425 2266
Email: fcinciii@iafrica.com
Hours: Mon - Fri 9am - 6pm, Sat 9.30am - 1.30pm

Bruce Gordon, owner of Long Street's Joburg Bar goes on show at the South African National Gallery on Saturday, 29 March 2003.

Edward Young, a Masters student at Michaelis, submitted Gordon as his work of art for the auction, which also included works by Cecil Skotnes, Bruce Arnott and Jane Alexander. Young's work, entitled Bruce Gordon, was sold for R52 000 at the auction, which aims to raise funds for student bursaries and special projects.

The event at the SANG will be opened by artist Penny Siopis, and is curated by Andrew Lamprecht.

Opening: 11 for 11a.m, Saturday, 29 March 2003.

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

Jeff Koons presents what will probably be the best attended Michaelis lunchtime lecture ever. Koons, married to an ex-South African, is here on holiday and offered to give a presentation of his work. He was one of the most successful, and arguably notorious, artists of the late 80s and early 90s. His beautifully crafted work ranges from photographs to paintings, sculptures and installations. His most notorious body of work comprised photographs of him having sex with his then wife, Italian porn star Ciccolina.

Unlike the normal lunchtime lectures, this takes place in the Little Theatre, also on Hiddingh Campus. Seating is limited and the lecture begins promptly at 5.30pm.

5.30pm, Thursday March 6

Michaelis Lecture Theatre, Hiddingh Campus, 31-37 Orange Street, Gardens
Tel: (021) 480-7111/4
Email: lessex@hiddingh.uct.co.za

Swiss art duo, Lang and Baumann (aka L+B) are busy with a residency in Cape Town sponsored by Pro Helvetia. Sabine Lang was out here for Public Eye's 'Beyond the Gallery: Art in Public Spaces' symposium held last year. A work designed by the pair and executed by Lang is still to be seen on a wall adjacent to the SANG. L+B produce work which exists on the edge of design and art, often in the public arena. A recent work saw them mowing a linear 70s design onto a soccer pitch in their home country. In another work they completely refurbished and redecorated the gymnasium at a youth centre. Their work is pleasing, delightful and fresh and it will be interesting to see how it fares here where things are not quite as safe and comfortable as Europe. They will be showing their blow up cushion works entitled Comfort.

Opening 6pm, Wednesday March 12
Closes: March 23

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

Last year's Michaelis prizewinner Matthew Hindley (see the review of his show last November on ArtThrob) presents 'IR(V.4)', the fourth manifestation of his work with infrared spy cameras and animated LEDs. It gets complicated to physically explain what Hindley does, but it's sufficient to say that a wire wall animated by computer-animated LEDs and a series of hidden cameras connected to several data projectors result in a disquieting, confusing but beautiful and revealing experience. Says Hindley of this work "The paradox of at once perceiving and not perceiving is primary to the work. The project deals with simplicity, secret information, impermanence and surveillance".

Opens: February 24
Closes: March 21

Michaelis Gallery, UCT Hiddingh Campus, 31-37 Orange Street, Gardens
Tel: (021) 480-7111/4
Hours: Mon - Fri 10am - 4pm
Email: matthew_hindley@yahoo.com

Artist, critic, former ArtThrob Johannesburg editor and one third of cultural activists and producers, the Trinity Session, Kathryn Smith presents this week's Michaelis lecture.

1pm, Wednesday March 12

Michaelis Lecture Theatre, Hiddingh Campus, 31-37 Orange Street, Gardens
Tel: (021) 480-7111/4
Email: lessex@hiddingh.uct.co.za

'I am the Choicemaker'� is the title given to Lorna Marsh's one-person show. Marsh was born in South Africa but currently lives in the US. This series, including ink drawings and other mixed media work, confronts biblical ideologies concerning Eve and what women have been trained to accept as a result of this distorted myth. Eve, as the greatest symbol of womankind, is considered the root of original sin and women have consequently been set up as man's downfall. This has resulted in distorted sexual views and confusion about women.

Marsh was born in Cape Town in 1949 and has held numerous one-person shows around the world. She trained under professors from the Royal Academy of Art and also attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Opening 6pm, Wednesday March 5
Closes: March 29

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

Marsh will also present a slide show and talk at the Irma Stern Museum, Cecil Rd, Rosebank at 6pm, Tuesday March 11. Tel: (021) 439-5493 for more info.

Artist Lionel Davis will present an informative walkabout at the SANG in which he will discuss the role of art in the struggle against oppression. 'Art as a weapon of struggle' will focus on so-called 'struggle art� from the 1940s to the 1990s'. Davis will discuss posters, the work of cartoonists Zapiro and Tony Grogan as well as art with an overt political content. He will also look at Kentridge's show in this context.

Entrance is free

10-11.30am, Saturday March 15

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

William Kentridge, unquestionably one of South Africa's most acclaimed and internationally respected contemporary artists, is the subject of 'Stalking the Image', a symposium which ties in with his retrospective, running until the end of the month at the SANG. Kentridge's works draws on a variety of disciplines from art to history, philosophy and literature, and he claims influences as diverse as Goethe and Goya. His work is similarly interdisciplinary, finding form in drawings, prints, animated films, opera and theatre. The symposium which will survey Kentridge's work as a whole, examining the multiple art-historical references of 'drawings for projection' and assessing the impact of his highly original animation techniques. Contributions will come from art historians and critics, Prof. Sandra Klopper, Prof. Emeritus Neville Dubow and Andrew Lamprecht. It will be chaired by Michael Nupen.

Admission is free.

2.15pm, Saturday March 22

South African Museum, Queen Victoria Street, Cape Town
Tel: (021) 467-4660
Email: cquerido@iziko.org.za
Hours: Mon - Sun 10am - 5pm

'Pilgrim: A journey through India and Nepal'� by Julian Rademeyer documents the people and places encountered on a journey undertaken by journalist Julian Rademeyer over several months in 2000 and 2001. He began in Delhi, traversed northern India and Nepal ending in Gosainkund, a cluster of Himalayan lakes sacred to both Hindus and Buddhists. He visited power places' and tirthas - pilgrimage sites regarded as fords between the secular and divine worlds. Along the way were tourists in search of a quick-fix karmic epiphany, madmen, mystics, conmen and sinners. All were in search of something new, better, revealing and, in many cases, ultimately cathartic. The show includes colour and black and white prints.

Julian Rademeyer is a journalist with The Herald in Port Elizabeth. He has previously worked for The Pretoria News, Reuters news agency, the Sydney Morning Herald and New Nation.

Opens: February 25
Closes: March 25

The Cold Room Photographic Gallery, 143 Harrington Street, Gardens
Tel: (021) 462-5248 or 083 253-8416
Email: coldroom@worldonline.co.za
Hours: Monday to Friday 9.30am - 4.30pm, Saturday 9.30am to 12pm)

William Kentridge has been selected the South African National Gallery as the venue for his major South African solo exhibition. Kentridge, whose importance as an artist scarcely needs to be explained, has an oeuvre that spans film and theatre as much as visual art. Despite his international stature, Kentridge is still based in Johannesburg. He is probably most renowned for his animated films, which explore the complex and often violent history of South Africa.
This retrospective has been curated by the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.
Concurrently with this exhibition, Adrian Kohler and Basil Jones of 'Handspring Puppets' with whom Kentridge has collaborated on many projects, notably Ubu and the Truth Commission, will exhibit a number of their extraordinary puppets from the 10 years over which they have been collaborating.

SEE REVIEW of Confessions of Zeno

Special Opening: 12 pm, Saturday November 30

Opens: December 1, 2002
Closes: March 23, 2003

South African National Gallery, Government Avenue, Company Gardens, Cape Town
Tel: (021) 465 1628
Fax: (021) 461 0045
Email: ebedford@iziko.org.za
Website: www.museums.org.za/sang
Hours: Tues - Sun 10am - 5pm

Although described last year as 'RAG for grownups' by this reviewer, the KKNK certainly didn't let the side down when it came to the visual arts. For three years under the astute and thorough guidance of Clive van den Berg, the festival became arguably the foremost visual arts showcase of any of the country's arts festivals. Van den Berg no longer occupies this role and has been replaced by Lucia Burger. This year's format however seems similar, with a number of featured solo artists and several other curated shows, as well as a host of exhibitions happening on the fringe.

I won't be going this year but I'm almost persuaded to change my plans in order to see official festival featured artist Wim Botha's show. (I missed his last major contribution to the festival, the life-size crucifix carved from laminated bibles and 'watched' by surveillance equipment.) Entitled 'commune: onomatopoeia', Botha's new work will see him creating an altered South African upper middle class environment in his characteristically rigorous and muscular way.

Other one-person shows include those of Antoinette Murdoch and Doreen Southwood, both of whom create layered conceptual works utilising domestic crafts to explore their position and upbringing as Afrikaans women. Pietermaritzburg-based Isabella Quattrocchi, whose work was seen down here on 'Outpost II' at the US Gallery last year, will be showing a body of work. Quattrocchi's exploration of classical forms and contemporary visual language gives rise to works that are arresting and evocative. Capetonian Fritha Langerman will also be showing new work entitled 'Learning to Speak'.

The Retha Erasmus curated pair of shows 'Clean' and 'Grime', each seen separately in Johannesburg and Cape Town respectively, will be shown together for the first time. Participants in these shows include: Wim Botha again, Kathryn Smith, Gordon Froud, Hanneke Benade and Erasmus herself.

The Trinity Session, other festival regulars, have produced a showcase of South African video work from the past 10 years, fantastically entitled 'In No Particular Order: A History of South African Video Art'.

To please, no doubt, a large amount of ArtThrob readers (see Feedback at any given time), a show detailing the influence of Tretchikoff on several contemporary artists has been put together. These include Braam 'Kitchenboy' Kruger and Reshada Krouse. Extensive Tretchikoff documentation accompanies this show.

Finally, ArtThrob editor Sean O'Toole has curated two photographic exhibitions on the festival. Firstly 'Trusting the Truth - New Excursions in Documentary Photography' features work by Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin, formerly creative editors of Benetton's controversial Colors magazine. The images in this show all come from a project the two did involving photographing members of the notorious Numbers gangs in Pollsmoor prison. Of the work and their use of cumbersome medium-format equipment, Broomberg and Chanarin say, 'All we're doing is giving people warning, letting the subjects represent themselves instead of pretending to catch 'the defining moment' that speaks the unwitting truth. The point is we're being self-conscious about our intervention, about the fact that it is a mediated truth.'

Secondly, 'Links: Fashion, Style and Identity' showcases work by fashion photographers Debra Roets, Crispian Plunkett, Lance Slabbert and Henrik Purienne. 'Links' takes a 'retrospective look at work that has often consciously situated itself to left of the centre, work that is nonetheless quintessentially fashionable and voguish and generally tends towards the fashion imperative of artifice. And yet most of the works presented fall short of being glamorous, especially in a commercial fashion sense. This is not regarded as a shortcoming; rather it serves to highlight how identities are constructed in fashion photography.'

Last year's beefy catalogue has been downsized (and by some accounts 'dumbed-down') to a handy brochure type affair and will be easily available at the festival.

Opens: March 29 Closes: April 5

See www.kknk.co.za for further information.

'KALM KAROO' is the new studio, gallery and workshop of ELKE HOND Algemene Kunstenaars. (Elke Hond is the platteland incarnation of Every Dog Random Art Projects directed by Judith Brigg and Johnny Foreigner, aka Jannie Uitlander)

'KALM KAROO' opens with a selection of local furniture, homeware, collectables, and three exhibitions:

- the DOOS Gallery with a group show of 16 local artists called 'landsCAPE';
- the country premiere of Static Cinema's Skerp Draaie - 400 stills from a silent Afrikaans movie;
- the ART YARD featuring outdoor sculpture and installations.

The opening of KALM KAROO will be part of Montagu's first Drumpelfees (op pad na die KKNK), a mini festival of art and fun. Watch the press for details.

Opens: March 27

Tel: (023) 614-2100
Email: everydog@telkomsa.net