Archive: Issue No. 74, October 2003

15.10.03 Irma Stern at the Standard Bank Gallery
15.10.03 Colin Richards at Art on Paper
15.10.03 Jacques van der Westhuizen at Mukondeni Fine Arts Gallery
15.10.03 David Goldblatt at Goodman Gallery
15.10.03 D.I.Y. at Museum Africa
01.10.03 'New editions' at David Krut Print Workshop
01.10.03 Fiona Pole at Art on Paper
01.10.03 Samson Mnisi at Museum Africa
01.10.03 'Up front and personal: Three decades of political graphics' at the Johannesburg Art Gallery
01.10.03 Turiya Thando Magadlela at the Goethe Institute
01.10.03 John Baloyi and Noria Mabasa at Mukondeni Fine Arts Gallery
01.10.03 Shinichiro Sawano at Photo ZA
01.10.03 Stephen Hobbs at Photo ZA
01.10.03 'Hope Box' at the Johannesburg Art Gallery
01.10.03 Gordon Froud at Merely Mortal
01.10.03 Grobler, Nigrini, Vermeulen and Buitendach at RAU Art Gallery
15.09.03 Clive van den Berg at Goodman Gallery
15.09.03 Collin Cole at the Stewart Gallery
15.09.03 Exhibition by Bag Factory artists in residence
01.09.03 Du Toit, Mullins and Janse van Rensburg at Artspace
16.08.03 'Witness' at Warren Siebrits Modern and Contemporary Art

PRETORIA

15.10.03 Gerhard Marx at Outlet
15.10.03 "Hope Box: Weather Report" at Mind's I Art Space
01.10.03 '(sub)urban mythologies' at Mind's I art Space
16.08.03 'Afrika Borwa' at the Pretoria Art Museum

'Expressions of a Journey', a comprehensive exhibition of Irma Stern's (1894 - 1966) opened at the Standard Bank Gallery recently. Regarded as one of South Africa's foremost and internationally renowned artists, Irma Stern's passionate and energetic style captured the essence of German expressionism within an African context. Stern travelled extensively throughout Africa and Europe in her lifetime and her interest in the exotic is expressively portrayed in her vivid, richly textured still life paintings, landscapes and portraits.

A main focus of this exhibition is Stern's representation of the "other" - the depiction of the female in a patriarchal society and her celebration of multiculturalism. Her vivid impressions of Africa, especially her sojourns in the Congo and Zanzibar, highly influenced her work. Seventy paintings, thirty works on paper, two lithographic portfolios Visionen and Dumela Morena (1920), three sculptures and four ceramics will be on display. The artworks have been drawn from well-known public institutions, corporate and private collections in South Africa.

An integral part of the exhibition is the biographical room. Here Stern's journals and publications will provide the visitor with an insight into the artist's colourful public and private self - her struggle to connect her idealized world with reality. Born in 1894 in the former Transvaal, Irma Stern's formative years were spent in Germany, where she studied art and gave her first exhibition in 1919 at the Fritz Gurlitt Gallery in Berlin. She settled in Cape Town in 1920.

An extensive lecture and walkabout programme will run concurrently with the exhibition as well as a comprehensive educational workshop for school learners.

Opens: September 25
Closes: November 29

Colin Richards exhibits recent drawings, watercolour paintings, text-works, prints and bronze objects at Art on Paper gallery. Although Richards's work is regularly included in major exhibitions in South Africa as well as abroad, this exhibition offers a rare opportunity to view a comprehensive body of his work.

Colin Richards is one of South Africa's foremost artists, and arguably, one of the most intriguing. He prefers to describe his work as pictorial illusionism, which depends both on "skill and fakery - deceptive magic". His unique working method is often time consuming and laborious, and he exploits conventional techniques such as drawing, etching, watercolour and even digital printing to this end, rendering a complex nexus of images and symbols, often informed by personal events.

He is professor in visual art at Wits School of the Arts where he teaches art theory, art history and studio practise. He is also an acclaimed critical writer on contemporary South African art and has published widely.

Commenting on his new work, Colin Richards writes: "Different interests inform my work; from the actual subjects I use and reuse, to the process of making, to the media. Intense and intimate work processes continue to animate what I do. Even though we live in infinitely copied and reproducible, image-saturated worlds, I still find hand-wrought pictorial illusionism, whether we call it 'naturalism', or 'realism', magical and mesmerising, even though many think of this kind of art as mere mimicry or ventriloquism. Making and re-making images in lead, pigment, and ink still enchants me as it did when I was first drawn to all this.

"Puzzles of power, pleasure and powerlessness challenge me: in religion (in the love and loathing of images), in the family (in the ways of fathers and sons); and in the 'natures' we cultivate (rocks, trees, animals, insects... mothers, fathers, instincts). Nature, culture, parents, gods, bring us into being only to cut us into shape. There seems to be something sacrificial about this, and we endure endless deceptions, falsehoods, tricks, plots and ploys as a consequence. We respond by perpetrating the same, and console ourselves with various illusions, decoys, doubles, proxies, copies, fakes, false companions, shadow-selves of our own making.

"Much of what I picture is drawn from the visual histories of these things. Words, like pictures, are energy for me. Words string us along as they render legible, mime, and express what we often otherwise barely know. Language - found texts (books, newspapers), handwriting, conversations - all find a way into what I do. I especially enjoy taking proverbial (figurative) statements - turns of phrase, clichés, commonplaces - and literalising or remaking them in pictures. This revivifies a language which otherwise feels dried up, and returns a measure of life to the taken-for-granted in the worlds we inhabit."

Richards will talk about his work on Wednesday, October 15 at 7pm. Booking essential.

Opens: October 11
Closes: October 30

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"Metal Creations" by Jacques van der Westhuizen is an exhibition of majestic stainless and mild steel freestanding sculpture. Van der Westhuizen's magical creations are individually hand forged and sculpted. The energy that excels from the bare materials that he works with is enormous and exciting, and each piece created makes a strong and definite statement.

Opens: October 17
Closes October 31

David Goldblatt presents a series of new colour works that explore the forgotten hinterland of rural South Africa. The colour photographs in the South African Intersections and Asbestos series are images Goldblatt recently took in the Northern Cape and Northern Province. They are digitally printed in a format (approximately 1.2 x 1.6m) larger than any previous work. A theme running through the images is the damage wrought to the land and people by asbestos mining in these regions. The mining concerns have departed, but the scars of the decades of mining this lethal material remain, and are profound and widespread.

The show coincides with the launch of Goldblatt's book Particulars. The exhibition will comprise the 27 black-and-white 16 x 20" images from the book. Goldblatt has been working on the Particular series for many years, and in his new publication he brings together photographs of South Africa people illustrating how a small detail of a body, clothing, hair or skin can lead a viewer to make judgments about class and colour, and time and place.

Revelling in the very contrasting light of the Highveld, the photographer says: "There is nothing to beat the excitement of a black and white print coming out of a fixer. I seem to have an almost visceral relationship with black and white negatives."

The book will be published in five colours on 250-gsm acid free, dioxin free Job Parilux paper manufactured from chlorine free pulp in an edition of 100 collectors' copies and 500 standard copies. Of these, 100 copies and 20 author's proofs were supplied in hand-made slipcases, each with a 203 x 254 mm silver print, processed to archival standards, of one of four of the photographs in the book. Dennis da Silva of Silvertone International, Johannesburg, made the prints. The author has signed the prints, and the slip-cased books signed and numbered opposite the title page.

Publishing details are as follows:
Publisher: Goodman Gallery Editions, Johannesburg
Design: Francois Smit and David Goldblatt
Editor: Mary Reynolds
Price: R1600 + VAT for the edition of 500, R12000 + VAT for the edition of 100, which includes a handprint

On the day of the opening the gallery will have extended hours (9.30am - 5pm).

Opens: October 25
Closes: November 15

Six female students from the Wits School of Arts present their final year exhibition as a group show entitled "D.I.Y."

The show is a subtle expression of a preoccupation with personal, often traumatic, experience. Although the title refers to the ways in which the artists are taking responsibility for their own histories through the control of representation, it also aims a wry smile at the all female cast.

The collection of work crosses media, and personal and conceptual interrogation. Howse explores personal trauma and memories through various forms of representation; Lees' personal 'trousseau' use pewter inlays and photographic montage to investigate 'emotional baggage'; Rofail's quirky imagined narratives feature her strange alter ego in a parallel reality constructed as a way of 'deconstructing' the past, her history or true narrative, and her conflicting, contradictory memories; the large wooden sculptures of Griffiths propose juxtaposition between a child's play and an adults understanding'; Milner's large collages speak of a conflict between projected desire and lived experience; and Stone, through various modes of production, explores the unnoticed and the mundane.

For exhibition information, email: D-I-Y@webmail.co.za, or telephone Howse (072) 211 5404, Rofail (082) 691 2698 or Lees (083) 503 5097.

Opens: November 1, at 12.30pm
Closes: November 20

David Krut shows a selection of etchings, photogravures and monotypes by Bonita Alice, Willem Boshoff, Wim Botha, William Kentridge, Colbert Mashile and Colin Richards. Artists collaborating with master-printers Randy Hemminghaus and Timothy Foulds developed the works.

This third exhibition at Krut's creative workshop/bookstore/gallery/writing room consists of 14 works, including Boshoff's Neves etchings, created to celebrate Nelson Mandela's 85th birthday on July 18, 2003, and also Kentridge's final group of photogravures from Zeno Writing.

Krut's workshop has given a number of artists an opportunity to work in a printmaking medium, offering them different technical and visual challenges. Says sculptor Wim Botha, "What I really find interesting in this light about printmaking is its status as the reproduced original, the perception of it as the fine art for the masses, the de-elitised reproduction of an image, while still remaining a true art object and original in every way."

Opens: September 27
Closes: November 1

Fiona Pole, the first South African artist to complete a printmaking diploma at the prestigious l'Ecole Nationale Sup�rieure Estienne in Paris (with honours), exhibits new work. Since graduating from Rhodes University, Grahamstown, with a Bachelor of Fine Art (Honours), Pole has spent the past seven years in Europe. Her 'Collection of Boxes' has toured around France, been on exhibition in the United Kingdom and is now exhibited for the first time in South Africa. Also on show will be a series of hand-printed cityscapes and artists' books.

Her work is positioned at the intersection of the public, the private and the political. For the 'Collection of Boxes' artwork, Pole wrote to one hundred prominent South African writers, artists, musicians, actors, politicians and community leaders, asking them to share one of their favourite childhood memories with her. She received replies from Desmond Tutu, Kader Asmal, Tito Mboweni, Helen Suzman, Gillian Slovo, Wendy Orr, Patricia de Lille and Pamela Jooste. These eight letters were then used as the basis for the printmaking project.

The intimacy of the letters called for a special form of art, and after various experiments, the shape of a memory box was decided upon. The boxes are printed on both sides with various printing techniques that Pole acquired at the l'Ecole Estienne: silkscreen, colour reduction woodcuts and linocuts, copperplate etching, photo-etching, embossing, collage and so on.

Pole used these techniques to achieve a delicate balance between the various personae of her correspondents represented in their letters. She translated a key scene from their narratives in visual form. For example, Tutu wrote about his childhood memory of a white man, Bishop Trevor Huddleston, doffing his hat to a black woman, Tutu's mother. Or Asmal, who remembers the enticing apple tree in their neighbour's garden, and Mboweni the chicken that was slaughtered every time he passed a final exam. Suzman remembers Sister Columba, the headmistress of Parktown Convent who taught her "to be a very bad loser", since she would whack all the girls' legs with a ruler when losing a hockey match.

The most poignant memory comes from De Lille, who writes about the fact that as children they received new shoes every second Christmas, and one year, when it wasn't her turn to get a new pair, her father decided to paint her old ones the night before. But he ran out of paint before both shoes were finished. De Lille wore the shoes but proudly refused to attend the Mass that day, opting to remain in the car outside the cathedral.

Pole's boxes represent visual corollaries of the private that are transmuted in the public exhibition of the letters of these well-known people in visually receptive and reflective format.

John J Stremlau, Professor and Head of International Relations at Wits University's Centre for Africa's International Relations will open the show.

Opens: September 27
Closes: October 9

In 'Street Life', Mnisi shows new sculptures, paintings and installations.

Opens: September 28
Closes: October 8

The right to have a voice, the right to protest, and the right to have a choice, all are aspects of freedom of expression, an inherent part of British culture and politics. This exhibition celebrates the many ways in which this freedom is exercised both creatively and graphically. It shows how that freedom is constantly probed and pushed to the limit by artists, designers and activists alike.

Presented in partnership with the British Council, the exhibition takes the form of large-scale panels of billboards, posters, banners, T-shirts, leaflets. Collectively they track pivotal changes in the politics of governance, sex, environmentalism and health.

South African examples from the past ten years are also shown, alongside the British counterparts, and allow us new insight into the agency of visual forms in transforming our societies. With the expressive power of posters at its core, this exhibition shows the extraordinary diversity and creativity of British political graphics - from the eloquent products of professional studios to the compelling art of activists in the street.

Opens: October 1, at 6pm
Closes: November 2

The second winner in the Goethe-JAG fine arts competition, Magadlela shows a collection of multi-media conceptual paintings titled 'Some things just cannot be explained'. The artist has dedicated the exhibition to the memory of her late father Fikile Magadlela.

This former student of the National School of Arts, Funda Centre and the Witwatersrand Technikon will soon take up a residency at the Rijksakademie of Graphic Art in Amsterdam.

Magadlela writes that her works "have moved from being simple metaphors to becoming a large part of me. I can say that the pieces are all self-portraits rather than conceptual objects."

Buyelwa Sonjica, Deputy Minister of Arts & Culture, will open the show.

Opens: October 1, at 6pm
Closes: October 24

John Baloyi, Noria Mabasa and a number of Venda artists show work at Mukondeni, a working art gallery adjoining Kya Sands. The gallery also houses an eclectic mix of garden sculpture, functional art, tribal art, paintings, photography and a wide variety of clay pots.

Opens: October 1
Closes: October 31

As part of the Japan Festival 2003, the Embassy of Japan and the Chamber of Commerce present a photographic exhibition by Shinichiro Sawano.

Opens: October 2
Closes: October 15

'M23 70 (2003): Photographic extracts from The Mirage City' is Stephen Hobbs' fifth solo exhibition.

The grid reference in the title refers to the Newtown site, in downtown Johannesburg. It is an appropriate space for an artist who is interested in the ways in which the urban environment serves as a backdrop for the behaviour of modern materials: light, space, concrete, glass, grids, commuters, traders and pedestrians.

Hobbs shows a selection of serial photographic works and collage produced over the past five years, alongside numerous local and international projects as yet not exhibited as a coherent body of photographic work. His interest in the interstitial spaces, visual textures and signifiers of city-space and the behaviours of those who use and transform this environment is revealed as a spontaneous documentation process that, as far as investigations into the city go, it's about being in the right place at the right time.

Hobbs' work on Johannesburg is challenging to the imagination of the global consumer and traveller as well as local viewers, whose "codes have been set by a collective social psyche of xenophobia, racism and fear." With the current focus on Johannesburg's regeneration, Hobbs' work offers an alternative image landscape for a transforming city.

The opening night will feature a series of digital projections.

Stephen Hobbs is one of eight finalists for the 2004 DaimlerChrysler Award, which focuses on creative photography.

Opens: October 4, at 5.30pm

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'Hope Box' is an interactive travelling exhibition of works from four projects initiated by artist Rienke Enghardt. Brought to the JAG, in association with the Joubert Park Project, the interactive show is made up of four elements.

Weather Report is a series of collaborative works of art. In each work five artists from the four winds are represented. During her journeys, Enghardt cuts her travel-drawings into four pieces and divides those pieces amongst four artists. Using the piece as binding-factor, each artist works individually on the work, which arises when the four pieces are being put back together again. Rooted in a sense of limitation, Enghardt invites artists she meets on her travels to create together a more complete image of reality.

Hommage a Tran Trung Tin is Enghardt's tribute to Vietnamese artist Tran Trung Tin, while Cadavre Exquis originated from a children's game lifted into an artform by the Surrealists in the beginning of the 20th century. Through its interactive drawing-formula, the goal is to create a broad and accessible image of today.

Tigerpaws in the Fishglobe is an interactive art show performed in a tent of kites. It is an artistic adventure, guided by inspiration-sources originated from storytelling, philosophy and art, where children together with artists search for the tangent planes of freedom and safety.

Opens: October 5, at 11am
Closes: October 18

'Lost & Found' is 'a big exhibition of small works by Gordon Froud, an artist based in London for the last four years. Space in London is at a premium, and large studios are a luxury few can afford. When Froud started making art there, the lack of space meant that he had to reduce the scale of his works. Bearing in mind too that his artworks would have to be transported to his native South Africa, Froud set about making small and relatively light works, mostly measuring less than 12cm in height.

Since living in London, Froud has pursued his interest in found objects mostly picked up in the streets. These objects, along with toys gleaned from charity shops and boot sales, form the basis of many of the small works on this show. A selection of these has been shown alongside his exhibition 'The Grand Picnic', at the Cite des Arts International in Paris, at the Deptford X Open in London, and also on 'Lost & Found' at Minds (I) Gallery in Pretoria.

For further information, contact Gordon Froud at gordart@hotmail.com.

Opens: October 9
Closes: November 9

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'In the mind's I' is a group show by Diek Grobler, Michèle Nigrini, Gustav Vermeulen and Retha Buitendach, the founders of the Mind's I art space in Pretoria.

Grobler, known for his work in a wide range of media and disciplines, shows narrative paintings which reflects his involvement in performance art and theatre. In these witty satires a cast of characters recur in theatrical settings.

Nigrini uses space, scale and unconventional juxtaposition of everyday objects to alter their predictability. The eventual context and meaning of the work is a happy accident and Nigrini wants viewers to interpret the work according to their own frame of reference.

Vermeulen is concerned with the creation of spaces that meander between real and imagined worlds, between physical possibilities and mental constructions. His works are mind-spaces of the individuals positioning themselves within the world and the self.

Buitendach work relates to the relationships between humans and nature. Her paintings and sculptures are combinations of bizarre, natural life forms and objects from her everyday environment.

Opens: October 8
Closes: October 29

Love is the subject of Clive van den Berg's new exhibition, 'Love's Ballast'. Sexual love, especially, has always been linked to mortality. Van den Berg uses the body, skin and ghosts to reconfigure, within the context of HIV, the petit mort explored by romantic poets.

Recently returned from a residency at the Civitella Ranieri Centre in Umbria, Italy, Van den Berg will be showing work completed there as well as large-scale mixed media works using combinations of wood, stone, fabric and light bulbs.

Since his last exhibition at the Goodman, van den Berg has been involved in many large-scale projects, most recently as the co-ordinating artist for the New Legislature buildings for the Northern Cape Province in Kimberly.

Opens: September 25, at 6pm
Closes: October 18

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'A circle with a centre' is the title of the exhibition of mixed media work by Collin Cole.

Opens September 27
Closes October 18

In a group show called 'Offbeat', Ivan du Toit, Nigel Mullins and Martli Janse van Rensburg exhibit a visually and conceptually eclectic range of work.

Du Toit's enamel on canvas "reflects the chaos in the life of most people"; Mullin's oil on canvas is the last in the Hopeful Monster and brings to an end his figurative journey; while Janse van Rensburg's handblown glass "conveys a message of interaction between people and how different cultures communicate".

A preview will be held on September 13, between 10am and 2pm.

Opens: September 14, at 5.30pm

Warren Siebrits continues to curate exhibitions where art is placed in a pivotal role as social barometer, giving us further insight into aspects of our past. In 'Witness' the selected work allow us to question our role within the complex framework of issues that control us today.

Representing a selection of acquisitions made over the past year, the show includes works by Eugene Labuschagne, Alexis Preller, Avhashoni Mainganyne, Penny Siopis, Wayne Barker, Paul Shelly, Marlene Dumas, Moshekwa Langa and Willem Boshoff.

To mark their first anniversary, the gallery is also launching a bookshop specialising in rare and out of print books relating to art, architecture, photography and design. A book catalogue will be available on request.

Opens August 22
Closes October 25

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Marx is known for his creative collaborations with William Kentridge and Lara Foot Newton. He works in a range of media, often presenting his work within a theatre format.

Opens: October 14, at 6pm
Closes: November 15

Recently on show at the JAG, 'Hope Box' now splits into two new venues (see KZN listings). On show at Mind's I Art Space is 'Hope Box: Weather Report'.

'Hope Box' is the collective noun of four interactive international art projects initiated by the Dutch artist Rienke Enghardt. The Virtual Museum of Contemporary African Art follows her footsteps by publishing travel reports, interviews with artists and snapshots. See: www.vmcaa.nl/vm/magazine/hopebox.htm

'Weather Report' is a series of collaborative works of art. During her journeys, Enghardt cuts her travel-drawings into four pieces and divides those pieces among four artists from the four winds. Using the piece as binding-factor, each artist works individually on the work of art, which arises when the four pieces are being put back together again. Connecting different points of view, 'Weather Report' attempts to reach as close as possible a complete view of the world.

Since 1991 young artists from Asia, Europe, America and Oceania have joined 'Weather Report'. Africa will be the last continent to participate. In the years between the first and the last 'Weather Report' well over hundred and fifty works of art by over a hundred artists will have come into being.

In addition Enghardt facilitates 'Tigerpaws in the Fishglobe', an interactive art show performed in a tent of kites. It is an artistic adventure, guided by inspiration-sources originated from storytelling, philosophy and art, where children together with artists and storytellers, search for the tangent planes of freedom and safety.

The exhibition is presented with the support of the Royal Netherlands Embassy and will be opened by Mr. Eduard Middeldorp, the Deputy Ambassador of the Royal Netherlands Embassy.

Opens: October 19, at 7pm
Closes: October 31

Ronel Brand, Anthony Dalton and Corne Venter show new work.

Opens: September 17
Closes: October 11

In keeping with changing collecting and exhibition policies of South African Museums, the PAM is gearing towards helping transform South African Museums from bastions of colonial collections into homes for African heritage.

Selected from the permanent collection of the Pretoria Art Museum, 'Afrika Borwa' comprises mainly South African contemporary paintings and sculpture. Linking the works on display is their African identity.

Opens August 1
Closes October 26