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Kathryn Smith
Memento Mori (detail), 2004
Series of colour photographs
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'Euphemism' by Kathryn Smith at Monument Gallery
Kathryn Smith, the multi-talented artist, critic and curator, is also this year's Standard Bank Young Artist award winner. Recently returned from an Ampersand residency in New York, Smith exhibits work in this show primarily in photography and video while dabbling in performance.
The work is a response to the relationship of painter Walter Sickert to the infamous murders of Victorian English serial killer Jack the Ripper. Her moving images begin to behave like the body, with its twitches, jerks, breaths, sweating and bleeding.
Smith says she produces a forensic method of art, which she finds very relevant in contemporary South Africa: "I try to work with the secret histories and unspoken desires that exist between the private and the public. Issues of transgression and license are primary areas of interrogation, focusing on the threat of danger and its association with the erotic."
Other works on show investigate notions of artistry versus art history, biography, alter egos, and the meeting of reality, fiction and fantasy.
Opens: July 1
Artist's walkabout: July 2 at 3pm, July 4 and 7 at 10am
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Bonnie Ntshalintshali
Self-portrait, 1991
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'Through the Looking Glass' at Albany History Museum
This exhibition comprises self-representations by South African women artists including Kathryn Smith, Tracey Rose and Wilma Cruise. The title is an historical reference to the 1870s tale of a young child, Alice Raikes, who was confounded by her reflection in a mirror. The exhibition aims to get 'behind' the looking glass, behind the genre of self-portraiture, where things are often not as they seem.
The exhibition's curator, Brenda Schmahmann, is also the author of a book by the same title which expounds upon the genre of women's self-portraiture in sections: self as artist, self and family, self and locale, self and body, and enactments of self.
After its festival appearance, the show moves to the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Art Museum in PE from October until 2005. In February, it opens at Gauteng's Standard Bank Art Gallery and then moves on to the Durban Art Gallery from April to June.
Opens: July 1
Walkabouts: July 4, 7 and 9 at 5pm
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Paul Emmanuel and 'The Lost Men'
History, the fragility of life and the impermanence of memory are all addressed in this intriguing installation by Paul Emmanuel. Comprising 21 silk organza banners, one by two metres each, the artist has juxtaposed the rocky landscape near Grahamstown's Monument with the fragile work that will be weathered by the elements.
The panels are printed with photographic images of the artist's body, captured by Andrew Meintjies, in an effort to show how the personal underpins collective history. The installation's ephemeral nature is in deliberate contrast to the usually obdurate monumentality of memorials.
Emmanuel is best known as a printmaker. In 2002, he won the Schumann Sasol Wax Art competition and undertook an Ampersand residency in New York.
Opens: July 1
Walkabouts: July 1-10 at 10am each day
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'David' by Frances Goodman
This exhibition is primarily an audio experience. The viewer enters a room of wall-to-wall mirrors, with sprung floors and large speakers around the periphery under harsh bright lights.
The sound combines music, found audio, sound-bites and narrative. It tells of the reality of David's grey world in contrast to his dreams, all instigated by a woman who visits her "unattainable Adonis".
Frances Goodman graduated from the University of the Witwatersrand in 1997. Since then, she has worked locally and abroad as both artist and curator.
Opens: July 1
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'Initiation as a Rite of Passage'
Initiation has increasingly inspired a number of exhibitions and artworks. In Cape Town, for instance, Churchill Madikida recently exhibited his Interminable Limbo video at the Michael Stevenson Contemporary that critically commentated upon this cultural rite of passage.
This show, curated by Frank Ledimo, includes work by Thembinkosi Goniwe, Sandile Zulu, Brett Hilton-Barber and Jaochim Schonfeld. The artists critically represent the meanings and roles of myth, ancestors, medicinal herbs and traditional doctors through a combination of media that includes chants, music, film, video and stills.
Opens: July 1
Walkabouts: July 2 and 10 at 10am
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a part of the Keiskamma Tapestry by Keiskamma Art Project
full tapestry is 70 m by 50cm
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'The Keiskamma Tapestry' and 'Nguni Cattle' at the Monument
This enormous tapestry was created by the Keiskamma Art Project collective of over 100 women and a few men, which was founded near the Eastern Cape town of Hamburg in 2001.
The tapestry itself is a huge 70 metre by 50 cm visual exploration of the great battles and defeats of the Xhosa people following the cattle-killing prophecies of 1856/7. It proposes that the New South Africa is the culmination of these visions and fulfilment of the original prophecy.
Alongside, the realistic paintings of internationally renowned Leigh Voigt depict the beauty and character of South Africa's indigenous Nguni cattle. The cattle, with their infinite variety of distinctive markings, colours and horn shapes, capture something of their status and relationship to the Xhosa people.
Voigt's paintings were exhibited last year at the Michael Stevenson Contemporary gallery to coincide with the launch of Marguerite Poland and David Hammond-Tooke's book, The Abundant Herds. If you missed out on that show, here is your second chance.
On July 2 at 12pm, Poland will give a lecture at the Festival Winter School on the imagery and aesthetics in the naming of Nguni cattle. Her talk will link with these two exhibitions.
Opens: July 1
Discussion with the artists: July 3 at 12pm by Marguerite Poland and Nokwanda Makubalo
Walkabouts: July 3 and 8 at 10am; July 5 at 12pm; July 10 at 3pm
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Nomabaso Bedeshe
Ayanda Mji
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'Studio Potters' from Madiba Bay
This exhibition comprises the work of 13 artists from the Eastern Cape: Nomabaso Bedeshe, Donve Branch, Margie Higgs, Melanie Hillebrand, Kate Masuku, Meshack Masuku, Ayanda Mji, Jessie Mooy, Marlene Nepgen, Ruth Nesbit, Lisa Walker, Lynnley Watson and Neanne Wright.
Each artist is exhibiting new work alongside examples of their work from the permanent collection of the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Art Museum (formerly the King George VI Art Gallery).
The artists will also be giving demonstrations each day between 9am and 12pm. These include organic pots, coiled vessels, throwing at the wheel, decoration, ceramic sculpture and surface techniques.
Opens: July 1
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Greg Schultz
Spirit of the Great Kei', 2004
Oil and mixed media on canvas
300 x 150cm
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Greg Schultz and 'Frequency'
This exhibition of drawings and paintings seeks to make visible what is invisible to the naked eye. Schultz says everything in existence radiates a frequency, invisible to us but intuitively perceptible. In Spirit of the Great Kei, for example, Schultz expresses his personal intuitive response to the invisible spirit of place.
His drawings have been created using silverpoint, iron chloride and fire, which the artist says alludes to the intangible and the ephemeral. The silver will tarnish over time to a rich golden brown, which is part of the process of the medium, changing the drawings to a more unified hue.
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Artists-in-Residence: Schütz and Mabunda
Festival-goers will get the chance to meet artists in person and see work in progress at specific times. Peter Schütz, who won the Standard Bank Young Artist award in 1984, is best known for his painted wood sculptures, characterised by their contemplative quality.
The other artist-in-residence is Daina Mabunda, well known for her collaborations with Bronwen Findlay. As a textile artist, Mabunda stitches a variety of buttons, beads and pins onto large decorative pieces. Motifs from nature and the media are juxtaposed in floating forms on functional articles.
Open days: July 5,7 and 9 at 3pm
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James Webb and James Sey
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James Webb and James Sey's 'A Compendium of Imaginary Wavelengths'
"What you are about to hear, recently unearthed in a private vault in Barabas in North-East Africa, are some of the last remaining documents produced by one of the most intriguing and mysterious, and darkly influential, scientific and literary figures of the last hundred years. These tales of eugenic fantasy, of misbegotten experiments, of poetry and perversion, point to a hidden history, a sinister undercurrent running through much of the key aesthetic and scientific discoveries of our age.
"They also point to a great psychological and personal cost for those who were carried along on the tide of monomaniacal charisma the author exuded, a terrible collateral damage for hundreds of the finest minds in many different fields of endeavour. Within these documents lies plausible reason, scientific and literary genius, sinister passion, magic, and a presiding sense of dark derangement.... In the service of truth, then, we present to you - A Compendium of Imaginary Wavelengths."
Webb and Sey will be performing their acclaimed radio artwork live in concert as part of the Grahamstown Festival's New Music Indaba.
Monday July 5 at 9pm
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Brent Meistre
Invitation image
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'Sans' by Brent Meistre
This body of photographic and video work by Rhodes University lecturer Brent Meistre is described by the festival guide as an engagement with landscape, sites and languages as spaces of loss. Meistre, who lectures in photography at the Rhodes Fine Art School, was a finalist in the DaimlerChrysler Award for Creative Photography 2003.
In this exhibition, Meistre uses black-and-white images to quote and interrogate the idea of the photograph as a document of historical fact against the medium's possibilities for suggesting the unsaid.
As the title would suggest (French for 'without'), the exhibition suggests notions of a phantom, a secret that may be known or unknown but that is unconsciously carried through generations of a family.
According to Dina Belluigi, Meistre uses the iconography of the home versus landscape to evoke Freud's concept of the uncanny as something that is strange but has a sense of the known and familiar, which is then repressed. Belluigi says many of the works consider how this experience is then projected in the present onto something outside the self.
Venue: Side Gallery - Rhodes University School of Art, Somerset Street
Hours: 9am - 5pm daily
Festival enquiries:
Tel: 046 603 1103/ 1164
Email: naf@foundation.org.za
Website: www.natfest.co.za
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Rhodes University Fine Art Student Exhibition
Alongside Meistre's exhibition, this show comprises artworks made by Rhodes Fine Art students in both traditional and new media that draw on technologies or 'found' materials in new ways. This show of up-and-coming talent demonstrates the different approaches to art-making and the students' conceptual handling of complex ideas.
Venue: Main Gallery, Rhodes University Fine Art Building, Somerset Street
Hours: 9am - 5pm daily
Festival enquiries:
Tel: 046 603 1103/ 1164
Email: naf@foundation.org.za
Website: www.natfest.co.za
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Landscapes and more landscapes: Olls, Ambrose, Kirchner, Botham and Karoo artists
Landscapes dominate the fringe exhibition scene. Sonnett Olls' show, 'African Landscapes', at Merriman House Common Room at St Andrew's comprises oil and acrylic paintings of landscapes, figures and flowers.
Katharine Ambrose and Linchen Kirchner paint the South African landscape, rural and township life in a show called 'Colour My World' at the Victoria Exhibition Centre.
'Landscapes and Life in the Karoo' features lino prints, drawings and textile works from new Karoo artists at the Good Shepherd Annexe.
Finally, 'Landscapes of South Africa: vast, varied, exotic', is the title of John Botham's show at the Library Hall in Hill Street. His oils on block canvases offer glimpses into the South African countryside.
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Peter van Heerden: 'So is 'n Os Gemaak'
This live art installation by UCT Drama Master's student Peter van Heerden is a story of a creature's search for identity. Every day at sunset he will perform his solo 'So is 'n Os Gemaak' with soundscape by Mickey Wiswedel.
In addition, Van Heerden is setting himself up in an ox-wagon for the duration of the festival at the historic Fort Selwyn next to the Settler's Monument. Van Heerden's programme, in collaboration with others including artist Andrae Laubscher, focuses on contemporary African white masculinity through ritual and celebration.
Melvyn Minnaar describes it thus: "Kakpraatdag (July 2) will comprise a 'Dignitaries' Lunch' - served by waiters in traditional dress - for invited guests and servants. Heroes' Day will see some rugby and braaivleis, while Family Day will feature an installation about suicides."
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The Odd Enginears
'Donker Gat' project at YDesire, 2003
installation, April 2003, Castle of Good Hope, Cape Town
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Street Theatre by the Odd Enjinears
Headed up by electrical engineer/ sculptor Mark O'Donovan and Dutch percussionist Geert Jonkers, The Odd Enjinears, a so-called African laboratory for strange music, aims to stimulate creativity and inventiveness at the interface of art and technology. Their 'Mobile Odd Tower' stands six metres tall and includes people, machinery and compressed air and water. Be ready for odd happenings.
Performances: July 2 at 5.30pm, July 3 and 4 at 5.30pm and 7.30pm
SEE REVIEWS
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William Kentridge
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William Kentridge and '9 Drawings for Projection'
'Nine Drawings' for Projection is a collection of Kentridge's animated short films made between 1989 and 2003 using his signature charcoal-erasure technique. Most of the films have been screened separately before but they are now brought together into one continuous presentation. Together with a specially enhanced audio-visual environment, this chronological screening allows a new reading for the viewer and amplifies the characteristics of the films.
Earlier this year, Spier wine estate in Stellenbosch played host to the premiere of '9 Drawings for Projection', which was subsequently shown at the opening of the Constitutional Court in Johannesburg.
The producer is Ross Douglas. The music is by Phillip Miller, performed live by the Sontonga Quartet with Jill Richards on piano.
Screenings: July 4 at 8pm; July 5 at 10am and 12pm
Duration: 1 hr 10 mins
All ages
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'The Legend of the Sky Kingdom' by Roger Hawkins
This animation has already received much attention in the press. Director Roger Hawkins has assembled his entire cast and sets from found objects, junk and scrap metal. The plot revolves around a group of friends who fight against the oppression of the Evil Emperor and search for the Sky Kingdom. It has a happy ending: they do triumph over various obstacles including the 'valley of complacency', the 'desert of desolation' and the 'forest of fear and doubt'.
Screenings: July 3 and 10 at 10am
Duration: 1 hr 24 mins
All ages
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World premieres by Aryan Kaganof
Four world firsts from Kaganof, the Johannesburg-based avant-garde filmmaker, are on view over the festival. The first, Bantu Continua Uhuru Nihilismus, is a memorial service for Steve Biko made with choreographer Moeketsi Mokoena, poet Thokozane Mthiyane and dancer Moshe Maboe.
Screening: July 6 at 8pm
Duration: 1 hr 8 mins
All ages
A Sacrifice is a digital remix of the classic avant-garde film Corridor by Standish Lawder (1970). It features a soundtrack by Jacques Casterede and Geez N'gosh replacing Terry Riley's original minimalist music score.
Screening: July 4 at 6pm; July 6 at 10pm
Duration: 1 hr 30 mins
A Funeral tells the story of a Dracula figure stalking his little sister. The subtext is dominated by Nietzche and Dante with audio narration by Blixa Bargeld and visual narration informed by Bram Stoker and Romain Slocombe.
Screening: July 4 at 10pm; July 5 at 6pm
Duration: 1 hr 30 mins
Age restriction: no under 21's
Nique Ta Mere! (Fuck Your Mother!) was commissioned by the French industrial outfit Tempsion to accompany their debut DVD release. It is described by Kaganof as a tighter remix of his earlier, more leisurely film, The Dead Man 2: Return of the Dead Man.
Screening: July 5 at 10pm, July 6 at 6pm
Duration: 1 hr 30 mins
Age restriction: no under 21's
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Baba Yaga directed by Corrado Farina
The comics of erotic artist Guido Crepax form the basis of this film. Crepax specialized in intricately drawn erotica and illustrated many of De Sade's works. His own creation, a fashion photographer called Valentina, encounters a witch in the realms of the subconscious and dreams. The cast includes Isabella De Funes, Carroll Baker and George Eastman.
Screening: July 4 at 10pm
Duration: 1 hr 23 mins
Age restriction: no under 15's
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WINTER SCHOOL
From Songololo to Jamela with Niki Daly
Niki Daly's lecture will track 40 years of his life as a multi-cultural children's book illustrator, interspersed with photographs, paintings and sketches. He traces his experiences growing up in the 1950s, through the last years of apartheid and a decade into the New South Africa.
Date: July 8 at 10.30am
The New Politics of Cultural Knowledge
Julie Ellison addresses fresh ways to think about the creation of knowledge and culture. She asks what we can learn from alliances of publicly committed artists, scholars and educators in South Africa, Canada, the UK and South Korea. Her international survey of effective projects offers specific ideas for making the arts and humanities more central to building democracy.
Date: July 6 at 10.30am
Whose heritage and culture is it anyway?
Mokena Makeka looks at the contested notion of heritage in South Africa. He provides a window into the world of public spaces, statues and memorials. Makeka asks who they serve, what they mean in the new South Africa, what should be kept and what changed. His lecture is underscored by the concept of the collective and the individual, struggling to define a common past.
Date: July 6 at 12pm
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